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Kabloona Gontran De Poncins 9780881841718 Books

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Kabloona Gontran De Poncins 9780881841718 Books

Some one I met at a wedding recommended this book. Kabloona is the Inuit word for "white man". If you are at all intrigued by silly Westerners traveling unprepared into the Arctic and being surprised at the survivability of the natives and their own ineptitude this is one for you. Gontran de Poncins was a wealthy traveler who decided in the 1930's that he wanted to get to meet some of the Inuit population before they were corrupted by Western civilization. He had no training in Arctic conditions and, perhaps fortunately, took some time getting to the remote Inuit populations. Not trained as an anthropologist he none the less does an interesting, if not admirable, job of contrasting the natives with "civilized" people and he spends enough time with them to fully comprehend their way of life. Two points I will reference to illustrate this: first, an Inuit kills another native man in order to become the husband of the latter man's wife (marriage among the Inuits is not as closed as with Westerners). When confronted with the accusation the Inuit admits it and is sent to jail in a Canadian city. After his release he says that he does not understand Westerners; he kills someone and they put in a heated building and feed him three meals a day - he never had it so good. Second, while traveling with an Inuit back to the trading post de Poncins comes to realize that they have overshot the place where they are supposed to turn from the river ice (easier to travel on) towards the encampment. He waits some time before pointing this out to his Inuit guide, but when he does the Inuit is nonplussed. It is then that de Poncins realizes that Inuit does not consider being lost a bad thing - it is just one more day of camping - something they do every day. Read this if you can get a copy. It is in my small collection of books on North and South Polar exploration including Shackelton's Valient Voyage by Lansing, Karluk by McKinlay, and Last of the Bush Pilots by Hemericks


Tags : Kabloona [Gontran De Poncins] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. In this classic of adventure, travel, anthropology, and spiritual awakening, de Poncins is a French nobleman who spent fifteen months in 1938 and 1939 living among the Inuit people of the Arctic. He is at first appalled by their way of life: eating rotten raw fish,Gontran De Poncins,Kabloona,Carroll & Graf Pub,0881841714,Adventurers & Explorers,Biography & Autobiography,Biography & Autobiography Adventurers & Explorers,BiographyAutobiography,Biography: general,General,Sociology

Kabloona Gontran De Poncins 9780881841718 Books Reviews

I read Kabloona many years ago in the original brown cloth binding. I was very pleased to see that it is still in print & I'm enjoying my second time through. It is truly a classic.
This is an incredible story about a young man who is tired of the endless monotony and seemingly emptiness of life. He travels to the Central Artic and lives with the Canadian Eskimos. He lives the next year or so as an Eskimo, not just with the Eskimo. Hunting and eating raw seal meat, making and living in an igloo, the extreme cold and the love for one another and the acceptance of the white man, the "Kabloona". You have got to read this story. The story sucks you in and spits you out at the end as if you were actually there.
This is an exceptionally well written story about a personal experience of a man who chose to s spend the many long months of one winter living with Eskimos in the shadows of the north pole. Published in 1941 it describes a civilization that existed apparently without change for perhaps 20,000 years - before the introduction of gasoline run snowmobiles and concepts of pribate ownership. This is an incredible journal into the far distant past of civilization and communal living. This quality hard-back book is a true bargin as well as being a classical reading.
This is a rare and beautiful story written by a 19thcentury man of means who floundered and then found meaning and purpose while living with the Inuit who lived a Stone Age life. His detailed documentation gives a rare glimpse into the Inuit culture before contact with Europeans changed them.
I read this book 10 years ago and never could get it out of my head. I had to read it again, recommend to to everyone, and own it. The author, the most interesting man in the world, changes as he lives with the Inuit. His insights on people, their environment, and relationships teaches him and us that underneath all the exterior trappings, we are more alike than different. One of the best books I've ever read.
This book opened my eyes as to a far different life than any I was familiar with - terrible physical conditions and danger. Far more insight to life in far north than the film "Nanook" portrayed 20 years before. Have given many copies of Kabloona to friends. Since reading the book, have been fortunate enough to travel over most of Newfoundland and Labrador - these travels showed me the results today from misguided efforts by the government and religious organizations to attempt to bring social, educational and medical benefits to a nomadic people.

The Canadian author Farley Mowat has written some excellent books on the same area and people.
The audio CD is outstanding...indeed the best I have ever listened to. For one thing, the narrator is marvelous in recreating both the 1930's world of France and Frozen Canada. I can't think of any other book or audio that so successfully transported me into an alien culture. Considering that there are quite a few films and books about Eskimos, why buy this one written 70 years ago? Answer the literary quality of this work surpasses the prose of the last quarter century. When you listen to the narrator weave his tale, it mirrors the experience of hearing a tobacco chewing explorer slowly recounting his adventures in the wild. The story dives deep into the interior life of the author as much as it details an ethnographic examination of (primitive) Inuit life. The myths and values of the Eskimos contrast sharply with the borgeouis morals of a gentleman of Paris. For example, in Eskimo culture, there is little concept of private property...that's why an Eskimo man will let you borrow his wife or a snow knife. Language in the arctic is far more concrete. A polar bear is HE WHO HAS NO SHADOW. Far away, in the cold Arctic, author Grontran De Poncins learns what it means to be human, a man preeminently. This is a romance, a classic reminiscent of Robinson Crusoe. If you buy the audio CD, you will not be disappointed.
Some one I met at a wedding recommended this book. Kabloona is the Inuit word for "white man". If you are at all intrigued by silly Westerners traveling unprepared into the Arctic and being surprised at the survivability of the natives and their own ineptitude this is one for you. Gontran de Poncins was a wealthy traveler who decided in the 1930's that he wanted to get to meet some of the Inuit population before they were corrupted by Western civilization. He had no training in Arctic conditions and, perhaps fortunately, took some time getting to the remote Inuit populations. Not trained as an anthropologist he none the less does an interesting, if not admirable, job of contrasting the natives with "civilized" people and he spends enough time with them to fully comprehend their way of life. Two points I will reference to illustrate this first, an Inuit kills another native man in order to become the husband of the latter man's wife (marriage among the Inuits is not as closed as with Westerners). When confronted with the accusation the Inuit admits it and is sent to jail in a Canadian city. After his release he says that he does not understand Westerners; he kills someone and they put in a heated building and feed him three meals a day - he never had it so good. Second, while traveling with an Inuit back to the trading post de Poncins comes to realize that they have overshot the place where they are supposed to turn from the river ice (easier to travel on) towards the encampment. He waits some time before pointing this out to his Inuit guide, but when he does the Inuit is nonplussed. It is then that de Poncins realizes that Inuit does not consider being lost a bad thing - it is just one more day of camping - something they do every day. Read this if you can get a copy. It is in my small collection of books on North and South Polar exploration including Shackelton's Valient Voyage by Lansing, Karluk by McKinlay, and Last of the Bush Pilots by Hemericks