Tuktoyaktuk
Tuktoyaktuk is a hamlet on the Arctic Ocean coast in Canada’s Northwest Territories. It turns up in Four Thousand Weeks (Oliver Burkeman): It is the vivid scene for the chapter’s point that trying to be present in the moment is itself instrumentalist.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Four Thousand Weeks | Oliver Burkeman | setting | Burkeman visits the small Arctic town on a journalistic assignment about the Canada-Russia fight for oil beneath the North Pole, reaching… |
Four Thousand Weeks — Oliver Burkeman (2021)
Source: Four Thousand Weeks · Original · Readwise highlight
At the time, it was accessible only by air or sea or, in winter, by the route I took, which involved traveling in an off-road vehicle along the surface of a frozen river
- Role: setting
- In the book: Burkeman visits the small Arctic town on a journalistic assignment about the Canada-Russia fight for oil beneath the North Pole, reaching it by off-road vehicle over a frozen river and the frozen Arctic Ocean. After several cloudy nights he finally sees the northern lights at 2 a.m. in minus-thirty cold, but cannot relish them and thinks they look like a screen saver.
- Why it matters: It is the vivid scene for the chapter’s point that trying to be present in the moment is itself instrumentalist. Set elsewhere the anecdote would lose its irony of failing to appreciate an extraordinary sight.