Confessions of an Igloo Dweller by James Houston ~ 1995. This edition: McClelland and Stewart, 1996. Softcover. ISBN: 0-7710-4286-8. 320 pages.
My rating: 9/10. Enjoyable start to finish. Canadian by birth, the far-travelling Houston (1921-2005) was a great writer and storyteller, as well as an accomplished artist.
*****
Around here, I can tell if a book is really good because it often will disappear before I finish it. The usual culprits are my husband and my 18-year-old son. If it’s my son, no worries – he’s a speedy reader and I usually get it back in a day or two, but my husband has less free (meaning reading) time and he also tends to read a little more slowly, plus he also has a tendency to “hide” his current read (so he can find it again – he says we “move things” on him) – so, if he has the book, kiss it goodbye until he’s done.
I’ve been bugging him to let me have this one back for a few weeks now, as I wasn’t quite finished when he snuck it away from my reading pile. He’s been working his way through it steadfastly, occasionally calling me to come and listen, and reading bits out loud. Something about this memoir really appealed to him, which is understandable, because it’s quite fascinating and very well written.
In 1948, 27-year-old James Houston managed to hitch a ride on a plane going on an urgent medical call from Moose Factory, Ontario to Canso Bay in northern Quebec. An experienced and talented artist, Houston had a keen interest in native peoples, and was in Moose Factory sketching and painting the local Indians. He had long wanted to travel further north into the Arctic, and he seized the chance when it came, staying behind in Canso Bay when the plane left to return to Montreal with the badly injured Inuit child it had come to evacuate.
This was the start of Houston’s fourteen or so years of Inuit artistic involvement. He had a keen eye for indigenous crafts, and was instrumental in the popularization of Inuit carvings for the southern markets, as well as introducing Japanese-style print-making to the Inuit, which was readily adopted as a new mode of expression for Inuit artistic vision.
Confessions of an Igloo Dweller is roughly chronological, and consists of personal anecdotes interspersed with vignettes from high Arctic life, and stories told to him during his travels.
Houston also wrote quite a number of novels for children as well as adults, most set in the Arctic or the far northern Canadian forests. Confessions reads like a novel, flowing seamlessly along from high point to high point. Houston was opinionated and extremely sure of himself; these qualities come through loud and clear, making for an especially strong narrative voice. The book is saved from shameless self-promotion by Houston’s ability to tell a humbling story on himself, and by his keen sense of humour.
We all liked it. Highly recommended.
Leaves & Pages 
I’d love to read this. I’ve only read his children’s books. The Inuit and Native tales and really adore them.
“Confessions” is a decidedly adult book; Houston is very frank in his discussion of some incidents in his personal life.
But a great read – it helps put his fiction into context – he did write his novels & children’s books from first hand observation of the places and people of the north, though I’m sure his interpretations were coloured by his own background/point of view.
The only Houston I’ve read was a YA novel, Whiteout (which I very much did NOT enjoy, but I’m still curious about his nonfiction. I’d give it a shot,
I haven’t read a lot of Houston’s fiction, but that which I have read was rather hit & miss, which is why I picked up “Confessions” with a certain trepidation. It was better than I’d expected, by a long shot.
I’ve never read Whiteout, but your review tells me everything I think I need to know… sounds pretty dire.
A few years ago read his adult novel Running West and wasn’t all that impressed, I seem to remember a passionate Indian maiden falling in love with a captured white man sort of scenario. Or something like that. Pretty overblown. I think I Sally-Anned it, which is quite rare here – usually even the #2 books get to stick around.
My son read quite a few of Houston’s juveniles when he was 8-9-10-ish – Tikta’liktak, River Runners, Black Diamonds, Ice Swords and others – some were pretty good and several awesomely bad – bizarre plots! – but all very formulaic, & yes, very Inuit/Native = good & wise, & white guys = not so smart. Very mild plots, though, more children’s than young adult.
These are still here among the kid’s books. Might need to find some of these and look through them to see how they do on a re-read.
I *did* like “Confessions”, though. Written many years after his Arctic experiences. The guy was, if nothing else, well-meaning, and an ambitious, single-minded artist.
[…] memoirs, as well as in the ending pages of Houston’s truncated account of his Arctic years, Confessions of an Igloo Dweller. It obviously moved him deeply at the time; it also made a “good story” and that, in […]