In recent years, journalists and environmentalists have pointed urgently to the melting Arctic as a leading indicator of the growing effects of climate change. While climate change has unleashed profound transformations in the region, most commentators distort these changes by calling them unprecedented. In reality, the landscapes of the North American Arctic--as well as relations among scientists, Inuit, and federal governments-- are products of the region's colonial past. And even as policy analysts, activists, and scholars alike clamor about the future of our world's northern rim, too few...