You write that you became aware of the "toxic legacy haunting the Arctic" when you were researching articles for the Los Angeles Times on chemicals that suppress immune systems. What was it about this particular subject -- the "Arctic paradox," as you call it -- that moved you to pursue a book project?

I was stunned that people who live such a traditional lifestyle, just trying to survive by eating the same foods their ancestors have eaten for thousands of years, were the most contaminated people on the planet. The Inuit have never used DDT, PCBs and other chemicals. They don't benefit from them. And in most cases they have never even heard of them. Yet they carry extraordinary loads in their bodies simply because they eat a diet of marine mammals. That seemed to me to be the biggest environmental injustice on Earth.

Because everyone is exposed to the same chemicals that they are, I also thought it was a universal tale of contamination, with the benefit of being set in a remote, exotic locale, and that we could all learn from the Arctic's dilemma. Arctic people have long been neglected and abused. Yet they ask little of the rest of the world except to be treated with respect. A few years ago, the leader of an Inuit group told UN negotiators that Arctic people would not support a global ban of DDT, even though it is migrating to the Far North, because they are unwilling to protect their own health at the expense of other native peoples -- Africans living with malaria. The people and animals of the Arctic are the biggest victims in this chemical legacy we've all created, but somehow I suspect that they will survive better than we will.

Your book presents a multitude of arresting and disturbing facts about the slow poisoning of the Arctic's wildlife and people by industrial chemicals from other regions. Is it possible to identify one fact that most alarmed or surprised you, an environmental journalist who already knew a great deal about toxic pollution?

The most amazing fact would have to be the extraordinarily high levels of PCBs and mercury in people living in the remote villages of Greenland. The UN reported that women in Qaanaaq, for example, carried on average 50 parts per billion of mercury in their blood, 12 times more than U.S. guidelines recommend for protecting a fetus. For PCBs, the levels were as high as 15 parts per million. That was data from the 1990s, and the scientists believe that the PCB levels were quite a bit higher in the 1970s and 1980s, so high that their fat -- even their breast milk -- would technically qualify as hazardous waste.

Newspaper people might describe much of the material in the book as explanatory journalism. What was the biggest challenge you encountered in explaining the decades-long scientific investigation of pollution's toll in the far North?

Understanding and explaining chemistry has always been the hardest for me, so I put off researching how contaminants hitchhike to the Arctic until near the end of my work. I usually like to understand every single facet of a science before I attempt to simplify it for the public. But I realized early that I was never going to understand the dynamics and modeling of ocean currents and atmospheric pathways, and I would just have to settle for describing what I could understand. I credit Canadian scientists Rob Macdonald and Donald Mackay for helping me through this. They really have a knack for analogies that help people like me, who slept through high school chemistry.

You traveled to an array of far-flung, hard-to-reach locations that would undoubtedly seem quite forbidding to most Americans. How many miles did you log as you did your research? Which place that you visited was toughest to reach?

I couldn't possibly count the miles, but I would have to say that the 70 miles I traveled by dog sledge in northernmost Greenland and the tracking of polar bears by helicopter in Svalbard were the most harrowing. But they also brought the most enduring memories, even if I did get horribly airsick tracking the bears. I learned that vomit freezes solid on a spring day in Svalbard, and that pen ink does too. How else would I ever have learned that?

Seriously, those who think the Arctic is some uniform, barren place should visit Svalbard, a hauntingly beautiful archipelago in Norway, a few hundred miles from the North Pole, that deceives you into forgetting how dangerous it is for the scientists who work there. The Aleutian Islands, while located outside the Arctic Circle, have the most spectacular coastline I have ever seen. (Sorry Big Sur.) I also have terrific memories of the Faroe Islands, where you have to take a ferry from the airport to reach the main island. I was on a tiny island there during the attacks on the World Trade Center, and I was probably the last American on Earth to hear what happened.

I think most readers of your book will agree that you did an impressive job in presenting the human dimension of Arctic contamination in vignettes of scientists and the inhabitants of Arctic regions. Were there any unusual or instructive challenges you faced in doing this?

Having to rely upon an interpreter in Qaanaaq, Greenland, was the biggest challenge. It is incredibly difficult to ask people in a culture so unlike your own so many personal questions about their fears and diets and customs when you can't speak a word of their language. Even my interpreter, who came from southern Greenland, had trouble understanding the dialects of the hunters in northern Greenland. Still, the two brothers in Qaanaaq communicated so much without a word, just by showing me how they lived and hunted. One lasting memory is Gedion gesturing for me to take off my boots, and how he reached inside to pull out the liner and dry them out. I had specially ordered these boots from Canada since they were rated to temperatures 70 degrees below zero. But Gedion seemed puzzled why anyone would buy such costly, clunky things, since all they need to stay warm and dry is sealskin. One of the hunters let me borrow her sealskin boots for a few hours, and they were amazing. That, and many other experiences, made me realize that Arctic people are not primitive. They are quite ingenious. Nothing we can make in a factory here works as well when it comes to surviving Arctic winters.

You describe risk communicators' quandary as they grapple with how to advise Arctic people about contaminants in their traditional and extremely nourishing foods: "When it comes to toxic threats, the difference between scaring people and boring them is a fine line." Is that something that environmental journalists should also keep in mind?

Absolutely. Don't scare readers. Don't bore them. I think most journalists do one or the other. They bore them because they don't do the homework to understand the risks or they are afraid to explain them in terms people can understand. They scare them when they don't put risks in perspective, or fail to tell people which chemicals and which exposures matter the most. Be as specific about the dangers as you can. If you are doing a story on mercury, for example, research the findings of the extensive study of children on the Faroe Islands, which was used to set the U.S. guideline. At doses some pregnant women are exposed to in this country from eating fish, you will find very specific neurological effects on their children, such as reduced vocabularies and memories, so you can avoid saying "brain damage" when it actually is far more subtle than that. It amounts to a reduced IQ in a child, which is not even noticeable to a parent or doctor but can have major effects on a child's life. And if you're writing about the risks of mercury in fish, make sure you tell people just how much fish, and which fish, are safe to eat because it is one of the healthiest foods we have.

. In the book's epilogue, you say you returned to your job at the Los Angeles Times "with even more of a compulsion to understand the effects of chemicals on people and wildlife, not just the relics of the past but newer compounds found in many household products today." Based on what you learned about contamination problems in the Arctic, what are one or two current or emerging contaminant issues that you think environmental reporters should keep an eye on, even if they never expect to venture as far north as Greenland or the Aleutian Islands?

Environmental reporters should pay more attention to the compounds that are still in use today that are leaving a legacy - those that accumulate in human bodies, particularly breast milk, or persist in the environment or are transported globally. That ranges from polybrominated flame retardants to lindane. Also everyone covering this beat should take a look at a compound named Bisphenol A, found in polycarbonate, a type of plastic used in baby bottles and other food containers. The science is emerging quite rapidly on that one. Big changes are happening with chemical regulation in Europe, and it has global impacts.

Your project was funded by the Pew Fellows Program in Marine Conservation -- the first grant given to a journalist by the Pew Charitable Trust. Do you know if that philanthropy plans to award more journalism grants, perhaps on a regular basis?

The Pew Fellows are nominated by a panel of experts, so no one can apply for one. The number of fellows awarded annually has been cut back, but Pew certainly would not exclude a journalist.

Highlights from Cone's reporting for "Silent Snow" appeared in an article in the January/February issue of Mother Jones.

Cone has also reported for the Los Angeles Times on issues discussed in the book, in articles on subjects such as polar bears in Norway and the collapsing ecosystem of the Aleutian Islands.