Introduction

What is The New Yorker? I know it’s a great magazine and that it’s a tremendous source of pleasure in my life. But what exactly is it? This blog’s premise is that The New Yorker is a work of art, as worthy of comment and analysis as, say, Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Each week I review one or more aspects of the magazine’s latest issue. I suppose it’s possible to describe and analyze an entire issue, but I prefer to keep my reviews brief, and so I usually focus on just one or two pieces, to explore in each the signature style of its author. A piece by Nick Paumgarten is not like a piece by Jill Lepore, and neither is like a piece by Ian Frazier. One could not mistake Collins for Seabrook, or Bilger for Goldfield, or Mogelson for Kolbert. Each has found a style, and it is that style that I respond to as I read, and want to understand and describe.

Monday, April 13, 2020

CBC Gem's Excellent "High Arctic Haulers"

















I have a new hero – Captain Michel Duplain, commander of the massive sealift ship Sedna Desgagnés, in the superb documentary series High Arctic Haulers, currently streaming on CBC Gem. Duplain and his crew battle ice bergs, growlers, treacherous tides, storms, high winds, pounding waves, and punishing cold to deliver their vital cargo to remote Arctic communities. Of its many pleasures – the action of ships, icebreakers, cranes, tugs, barges, loaders; the resilient, resourceful character of the crew members; the magnificent Arctic scenery – the most piquant for me are the vivid glimpses of life in Kangirsuk, Chesterfield Inlet, Igloolik, Hall Beach, Grise Fiord, and the other communities where the ships of the Desgagnés fleet make their stops. High Arctic Haulers put me squarely there – on the ships, in the communities. I enjoyed it immensely. 
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