Word: polarizing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...variety of colors, some of them beyond the range of human vision, was launched in 1973. Since then three more have been lofted, the latest in July. Instead of traveling along the equator, as do most communications satellites, Landsat 4 circles the earth once every 99 min. via the polar regions. Thus as the planet turns underneath the satellite, Landsat's ever vigilant electronic eyes see a different patch of earth on every pass...
...with the permission of the Danish government, began construction of an Air Force base at Thule. It was also the year that Malaurie completed months of darkness and months of light living among the vanishing "Hyperboreans," the name ancient Greeks gave to a mythic northern race. The author prefers "Polar Eskimo," and estimates that there are about 100,000 of them: 39,000 in Greenland, 35,000 in Alaska, 23,000 in Canada and 1,600 in the Chukotski region of Siberia...
Except for his proud Gallic nose, the author blends in. He dresses in native furs, cracks the whip expertly over his sled team, and gnaws blubbery popsicles in the glow of an igloo oil lamp. He falls into the rhythms of polar life and begins to view this white-on-white world through the eyes of an Inuit...
...wind-chill factors of their lives dictate stern lessons and harsh measures. The aged are no longer left to die, but there are no discounts for senior citizens. Orphans go to the bottom of the social ladder, and the A.S.P.C.A. would not be pleased to learn that some polar dog-owners toughen their animals with hunger and the club...
...Malaurie returns to Greenland to find Polar Eskimos in the sort of trouble their ancestors could not have dreamed of. Danish welfare, a money system and processed foods have badly stretched the bonds that give a hunting society its cohesiveness and strength. Eating no longer requires special skills or cunning, even for the foxes who gorge themselves at the Thule airbase garbage dump...