Arctic Communities Past and Present

This appealing volume looks at Arctic communities in a time-line format, from stone-age migrants in 10,000 BC, to the warming Arctic of the 2000s. The use of tools and dogsleds is covered, as is the arrival of Norse settlers, Russian traders, and American whalers. Clear, concise text explains how oil and military bases changed the Arctic in the mid-1900s. Since these developments brought employment including mining and construction, “Many native people worked in these jobs. They no longer relied just on hunting and fishing.” Captioned photographs or reproductions of period illustrations capture each era. Text boxes add intriguing facts and details, such as how dogs helped with hunting by signaling when they smelled seals hiding under the ice. The concluding “Amazing But True!” page discusses the long life span of bowhead whales. Back matter contains a glossary (vocabulary words are also bolded and defined on the pages on which they appear), suggestions for further reading, a link to publisher-selected Web sites, Common Core critical thinking questions, and an index.