Jennifer Morris and Brendan Buckley: In the Shadow of Tungusuak

The Greenfield Public Library is pleased to welcome Jennifer Morris and Brendan Buckley to the library’s Community Meeting Room on Monday, February 23 at 6:30pm for a talk on Chris Buckley’s book In The Shadow of Tungusuak, a true, first-person narrative of a daring expedition through northern Labrador’s Torngat Mountains in 1980.

In the Shadow of Tungusuak, tells of two brothers’ journey through the mountains, glaciers, rivers, and meadows of Tongait KakKasuangita SilakKijapvinga, the Torngat Mountains National Park in northern Labrador. In the Shadow of Tungusuak is a rare, true story of travel inland from Nunatsiavut’s famous coastal fjords.

Chris Buckley grew up in New Hampshire and travelled to the Torngat Mountains many times from the 1980s onward, mostly with his brother Brendan. He lectured in English and creative writing at Plymouth State College from 2002 to 2013. Chris spent many years working on the manuscript for In the Shadow of Tungasuak, finishing in the spring of 2020. He passed away shortly before his 65th birthday after an aggressive journey with cancer.

Jen Morris has enjoyed a successful career in oncology biotech for 17 years working primarily in lung cancer, prostate, and skin cancer. She currently leads the thoracic oncology commercial team in the northeast for Daiichi Sankyo and resides in Plymouth, NH on 46 acres where she and her husband, Chris, and their boys, Sawyer and Carter created Winterberry Farm. In 2019 just three months before her husband, Chris Buckley was diagnosed with lung cancer, she opened Wild Heart Yoga Studio in Ashland, NH. Shortly after Chris died, and in his honor, Jen, with a small group from their community, started a non-profit effort called, “Little Gardens Everywhere” to teach people how to garden in their backyards.

Brendan Buckley holds the position of Lamont Research Professor in the Tree Ring Lab at Columbia University in New York. He is one of the pioneers of tropical dendroclimatology, having produced the longest and best replicated records of dated tree ring sequences from Southeast Asia. Along with his interest in the Asian tropics, he has a long history of research along the North American boreal forests, having conducted some of the first dendroclimatic forays with his brother Chris in northern Labrador, Canada, and along North America’s northernmost trees in the Firth River of Alaska. Buckley received his BS in Physical Geography from Plymouth State College, his MSc from Arizona State University, and his PhD from the University of Tasmania, Australia. 

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

For more information, contact Lisa Prolman at librarian@greenfieldpubliclibrary.org or call (413) 772-1544.

This program, generously sponsored by the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library, is free and open to the public.