Permafrost Is an Archive: and Other Inheritances from the Alaska-Yukon Borderlands [Paperback]

The Yukon Ice Patch Project reveals ancient lives. A road through the boreal forest reads like a map of climate upheaval. Those houses with broken doorknobsa legacy of government regulation over Indigenous life. Corinna Cook, who was born white on ?akw Kw?an Tlingit land in Juneau, Alaska, wrestles with the past and future into Canadas Yukon Territory. With writing that blends research and reverie, her essays ask how we might come into right relations with our most difficult, shared histories. How can we carry the past together, in a good way, as the land melts? The answerselusive as they arecarry global resonance, taking shape through a deeply personal lens combined with careful study of local arts, artifacts, maps, and the land we depend on.

A lyrical essay collection exploring reconciliation, colonial legacies, and climate change in the Raven Biome of the Alaska-Yukon borderlands through research, personal reflection, and ekphrastic meditations on maps and artifacts; Corinna Cook wrestles with difficult pasts while facing an uncertain ecological future.

Corinna Cook is the author of the essay collection Leavetakings. Her writing appears in Ploughshares, Alaska Quarterly Review, Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, and elsewhere. A former Fulbright Fellow, Corinnas writing has also received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities[CC1] , the Rasmuson Foundation, the Alaska State Council on the Arts, and an Alaska Literary Award. Corinna is a graduate of Pomona College and holds a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri. She teaches nonfiction in Alaska Pacific Universitys low-residency MFA program in creative writing and lives in Juneau, Alaska.

The Photographer (a prelude)
One: Distance Over Light or The Slower Questions
The Black Spruce
Distance over Light
Sister Essays: The Young and the Old