Beyond the Imaginary Gates

A portrait of one of the last great unsullied wildernesses of the Northern Hemisphere, the vast uninhabited spaces of Northern Greenland. Iain Roy has photographed the natural wonders of the high Arctic landscape. These gaunt lands were once the home of an Inuit tribe, whose enigmatic traces Roy documents with pictures of their winter houses, summer tent rings, graves and eerie stone mosaics. He also records the remnants of the life of a small band of Norwegian and Danish hunters who during the early 20th century travelled in those lonely fjords on dog-sledges. This is not, however, a document of the past, but a testament to the future. Growing environmental consciousness has heightened public awareness of the fragility of this environment. The book records ten journeys of a small British team who explored the fjord region during the relatively ice-free weeks of the summer. An anthology of original images forming a unique record of a remote Arctic region, it should appeal to a wide readership, including those interested in photography, exploration, polar history, archaeology and environmentalism.