A Distant Paradise: The Arctic in Ancient Thought

• Main Author: McGhee, Robert
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 2006
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192807304.003.0003; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/51979681/isbn-9780912807304-book-part-3.pdf

Abstract On a Cold Summer Evening in 1959, I first heard the story of the mysterious tropical valley in the Arctic.The constructioncamp bunkhouse in the British Columbia mountains had settled into its after-supper routine. Most of the younger guys were out working on their pickup trucks or had disappeared down the rutted logging road to the town at the bottom of the valley.The elders of the camp were lying in their bunks, smoking and listening to rain on the tarpaper roof, staring at the ceiling or leafing through tabloid newspapers, too weary after a wet day on a chainsaw to do more than talk and wait for sleep. Conversation drifted through the usual topics: memories of home in the Maritimes, Budapest or on the Saskatchewan farm; laments about the new government tax that was killing jobs in construction; war stories from Korea and Europe.