The Arctic Guide presents the traveler and naturalist with a portable, authoritative guide to the flora and fauna of earth’s northernmost region. Featuring superb color illustrations, this one-of-a-kind book covers the complete spectrum of wildlife—more than 800 species of plants, fishes, butterflies, birds, and mammals—that inhabit the Arctic’s polar deserts, tundra, taiga, sea ice, and oceans. It can be used anywhere in the entire Holarctic region, including Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, Siberia, the Russian Far East, islands of the Bering Sea, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, and Greenland. Detailed species accounts describe key identification features, size, habitat, range, scientific name, and the unique characteristics that enable these organisms to survive in the extreme conditions of the Far North. A color distribution map accompanies each species account, and alternative names in German, French, Norwegian, Russian, Inuit, and Inupiaq are also provided.
- Features superb color plates that allow for quick identification of more than 800 species of plants, fishes, butterflies, birds, and mammals
- Includes detailed species accounts and color distribution maps
- Covers the flora and fauna of the entire Arctic region
Awards and Recognition
- Honorable Mention for the 2018 William Mills Prize for Non-Fiction Polar Books, Polar Libraries Colloquy
Sharon Chester is a naturalist, wildlife photographer, illustrator, and author of several natural history guides, including A Wildlife Guide to Chile (Princeton). She splits her time between San Mateo, California, and her home in Fulton, Illinois, near the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.
"This book takes my breath away and it may leave you gasping with glee, too. Ms. Chester begins with a lively crash course in boreal geography and ecology, then begins her heroic march through nearly all of taxonomy. . . . The Arctic Guide takes the reader on a tour de force of nearly everything that's interesting in the circumboreal world."—Ed Kanze, Bedford (NY) Record-Review
"Do you plan a visit to Alaska? If you do, you could do no better preparing for your natural history observations than by reading Sharon Chester's The Arctic Guide: Wildlife of the Far North."—Gerry Rising, Buffalo Spree
"This is a phenomenal book. It covers the species you'd expect—birds and marine mammals—in depth. But it also includes fish, flies, even flora. It’s the only book a naturalist requires for a field trip to the Arctic."—Matt Miller, Cool Green Science
"This handy tome not only covers this vast region's fauna, but also touches upon climate, flora, atmospheric phenomena, landforms and oceanography. . . . The illustrations are simply sublime. . . . As a longtime Arctic guide, I recommend Chester’s wholeheartedly. . . . Browse it and daydream or stuff it into your river drybag or backpack if you head north this summer."—Michael Engelhard, Alaska Dispatch News
"The Arctic Guide celebrates a vast region's biodiversity. It shoehorns high-latitude lavishness between pocket-size paperback covers, and does so handsomely (and with a sewn binding that prevents its spine from cracking), at the price of a takeaway meal."—Michael Engelhard, Times Literary Supplement
"An excellent one-stop guide to the Arctic."—Helen Ashton, Reference Reviews
"It is difficult to imagine any observant residents, or hosts to visitors to any part of the circumpolar North, being without a copy of this book."—David W. Norton, Arctic
"I can think of no other book that covers the same territory so completely."—George L. Armistead, coauthor of Better Birding
"This book is an astonishing achievement. It is the perfect one-stop field guide for anyone visiting the Arctic, whether in the Old World or the New World."—Nigel Redman, coauthor of Birds of the Horn of Africa
