Explorer Posts Books

Poorly prepared, two friends, and their half-indian manservant "George", decide to travel deep in to the interior of Labrador. The hardship they endure and the hard choices they make are a testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. This book gives great insight into what life was like in eastern Canada at the turn of this century.

A deeply moving misadventure. In getting lost, these three men discovered the soul of Labrador as well as the true meaning of friendship and survival. This book is a classic.

I have read this book several times, and would recomend it to anyone that enjoys an adventure story. I enjoy it even more than most as Leonidas Hubbard was my grandfathers first cousin.This book has been almost required reading in our family,(Hubbard).I hope the publisher will reprint it as we have many family members looking for a copy of the book.

I have read a lot of teen adventure books. I recently read this one while I was on a rugged boys canoe camp trip. We went on a 7 week trip with 12 men to labrador. I purchased this book because it was nonfiction and it was saying how these 3 brave, adventurous men took a trip similar to the area i'll be going to. It talked about how mothernature just (threre's really no word for it but...)Destroys these people and they fight back with courage and hope in succeeding this raw adventure. The three in progress of there adventure take care of eachother and keep eachother alive nad in this doing they become better than great friends almost brothers. I really don't want to ruin the book for you, but i suggest so strongly that you get a copy of this book, and oh yea the beginning of the book really is boring because it tells you of how they got to labrador in 1902 (they didn't have cars).

I cannot say enough about the content and the form of this book. It beautifully informs the reader not only of the enthusiasm of two would-be wilderness pioneers, but also of the errors they did not know they had made along the way to a tragic end. I get the feeling that the author, who wrote the book (according to the introduction) as a tribute to his lost mate, never overlooks or overplays any of the events that took place in the then-unchartered terrain of eastern Laborador. The author also makes plain that the voyage ended his youthful naivete by teaching him the necessity of respecting the natural world and of remembering our loves who slowly but surely disappear from our lives.

In short, Lure Of the Laborador Wild, despite its drab title, is an engrossing work. It is quiet, clearly written and, in a matter-of-fact way, terrifying. It towers far above all other nonfiction adventure books I have read over the past ten years.

It has been a long time since i have enjoyed a book as much as those written by Farley Mowat. His respect for native cultures and his skill at describing their environment are what make these books so enjoyable and interesting. I will read all of his works--it is well worth the time.

Readers can count this book as one more captivating true tale of Canada's far north, told by its best-read authority. The young Farley Mowat, returning disillusioned from the War in 1947 and thinking to become a biologist, joined with a taxonomist on a collecting "scientific" expedition into the Barren Lands of Northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The headstrong 26 year old was improbably paired up with a disciplined naturalist of the old school, who killed and skinned every animal he could shoot, poison or trap. After a while, Farley, having seen enough killing in the war, became disillusioned with this approach to appreciating the wonders of nature, and deserted his post in favor of exploring the largely uninhabited territory in the company of an Indian half-breed, Charles Schweder. His real desire was to contact the "People of the Deer," the Imhalmiut. These people came to be idealized in Farley's mind as a people "uncontaminated with the murderous aberrations of civilized man."

Mowat gives a clear picture of the hardships encountered by the few inhabitants of this harsh landscape. By the time of the expedition, the Imhalmiut had dwindled to only a few scattered bands, having been nearly wiped out in a succession of epidemics. Farley tells of the well-intended but sporadic and largely ineffectual aid given to them by the Canadian government and its minions, and how Schweder had been traumatized by his experience in a partially successful rescue attempt he had made the year previous. His rescue of a six year old replacement for his child bride, dead of starvation, presents the reader (and Mowat) with a thought- provoking moral dilemma. So much for the myth of the noble savage...

For me, though, the message of the book was how uncaring and ruthless "Mother Nature" really is, and how down and dirty a bare-handed struggle it is. He, Thoreau-like, at one point meticulously gives a complete list of the things they chose to carry on their epic trip down an unmapped river system: guns and ammo, flour, sugar, baking soda, canned food, gasoline and oil for their outboard motor, tarps and tents. Even with all these products of Western technology, their trip was hair-raising and nearly disastrous. And the bugs!

For such a rough subject, this turns out to be an engrossing tale and hard to put down. On the other hand, the map requires a magnifying glass to read and there are no illustrations. I really appreciated, though, the last chapter, in which he follows up on the fate of the characters he encountered, giving the reader some "closure" as it is disgustingly called these days.

I found it a little curious, though, that Mowat felt the need to apologize in a postscript for his use of some now politically incorrect words, such as Indian, half-breed, and Eskimo. This is largely a story of the encounters of people with different cultures, of different races, viewed through eyes that are quite a bit more honest than is usually tolerated by the demagogues and girly-men of our sensitive time.

No matter how many books he writes, Farley Mowat continues to amaze his fans. His non-fiction is never dry or uninspiring, though he's a talented fiction writer as well, and this faithful reader of his work is certainly not disappointed. Thank you again, Mr. Mowat for your great writing. It is truly appreciated!
Chrissy K. McVay

A book I could not put down. It is a well written insight into a world that none of us will ever experience. Mr. Mowat is a great story teller and a national treasure. Anyone who is interested in the least about people and lands of the north must read this book.

Farley Mowat has been one of my favorite authors since I was in 6th grade in the early 1960s. I ordered a copy of "Two Against the North" from the Arrow Book Club and read it over and over. The story of two boys from different cultures trying to survive winter in the barrens was riveting to me, a gal firmly stuck in the suburbs. Mowat's descriptions of glacial landforms in that book remained with me and were recalled with every earth science and geology lesson I ever took. (The book can be found in some libraries under the title "Lost in the Barrens"--a great read for a middle schooler curious about the world outside familiar places.) Part of what I loved about No Man's River was that the journeys described were clearly the basis for many aspects of "Lost in the Barrens"--kind of like an echo of an old favorite. Mowat is the consummate story teller--reading his books makes you want to sit around a campfire with him for several hours hearing spin his yarns. One of my favorite quotes comes from him--"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story." No Man's River has jaw-dropping adventure as well as thought provoking commentary on the clash of vastly different cultures. Enjoy!

I probably wouldn't have purchased this book if I didn't know the author. That would have been my loss. This is an enjoyable book for anyone who likes adventure, is interested in Jack London, Alaska, the Yukon and its gold rush history. The book is well researched and the author's enthusiasm for Jack London and Alaska and his search for London's cabin in the Yukon makes for a very enjoyable read. Dick's style reminds me of another participatory journalist, George Plimpton.

This is a great book... author Dick North actually trod the same trails as the immortal Jack London, found Jack's old cabin in the Far North, and introuces us to many of the men who actually worked and suffered with London. Complete with many stunning pictures, this is a remarkable story of one of the world's greatest writers (who, incredibly, lived only to age 40). Thank the Lord that author North has lived a bit longer than that! Long enough to bring us this intimate review of London and his works...

2006 is the 100th anniversary of the publication of Jack London's White Fang, but few may realize many of his masterpieces about the gold rush stemmed from a pioneer who envisioned making his own fortune in the Klondike in 1897. SAILOR ON SNOWSHOES: TRACKING JACK LONDON'S NORTHERN TRAIL is indispensable for any who would understand London's world: it surveys his gold rush experiences, his search for riches, and also chronicles a search for the Yukon bush cabin where London lived. Northern historian and journalist Dick North retraces London's footsteps and adds plenty of historical background and literary reference to bring his times to life.

Dick North is a veteran Jack London researcher and a fine former newspaperman in the U.S. and Yukon Territory. This new book is an excellent companion volume to Franklin Walker's Jack London in the Klondike (1966).

The subtitle is actually Tracking Jack London's Northern Trail.

Farley Mowat has written a number of books which may be described as war memoirs. Since they were written at decent intervals and to some extent, for different purposes, there is a degree of repetition. Nevertheless, as there is hardly ever a dull moment in a text by Mowat, we can forgive him for telling the same story twice. To be honest, I'm no longer certain where the overlap occurs, although in "Aftermath," a book written comparatively recently, he certainly revisits some parts of the Italian theatre in which he served, and refers to the same events he has recounted in detail elsewhere ("And No Birds Sang"). But "Aftermath" doesn't dwell particularly on war, and there are a number of stories in this ongoing narrative which are worth reading by themselves. Scenes such as that where the author and his wife visit the Black Eagle somewhere in Kent and procure some of the Queen's Brew are classic Mowat. Their visit to Amalfi and tour of its ancient potteries, and their final return to England where they visit with Peter Scott, son of the Antarctic explorer, and learn all about the Severn Wild Fowl Trust, are just a couple of the highlights of this rather unusual journey.

This is not your ordinary Mowat, but then I'm wondering if there really is such a thing. An overlooked book, "Aftermath" won't disappoint, and fortunately for readers everywhere, thar's plenty more Mowat where that come from!

Lifetime Achievement Award-winning Canadian historian William Barr presents Arctic Hell-Ship: The Voyage of HMS Enterprise 1850-1855, the true story of Richard Collinson's sea voyage to the Arctic in search of the missing Franklin expedition. Collinson and his crew approached the Northwest Passage from the west, hoping to find and rescue the Franklin expedition; yet as time passed, relations between Collinson and his officers deteriorated so badly that three of them spent much of the voyage under arrest, though they were later exonerated of wrongful charges in the UK. A handful of color paintings by the ship's assistant surgeon, Edward Adams, illustrate this absorbing true story of bitter and unpredictable survival on the harsh arctic seas.

This is a fantastic view into the life of one of America's leading aircraft designers and manufacturers of the 20s and 30s. His challenges and successes are revealed. Along the way, you'll learn more about other prominant American aviation figures such as Buck Weaver, Eddie, Katherine and Majorie Stinson, Jake Moellendick and others. I enjoyed the book very much. Thank you to Joan Laird Post for writting it. The cover of the book, which is a painting by the author, is inspiring just by itself.

With heartrending honesty, Patricia Van Tighem invites the reader into her nightmare of physical and emotional disabilities and the struggle to put her life back together after the brutal attack she experienced. Having experienced PTSD after the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, I could relate to her stress and confusion. Factor in her unending pain, the loss of her appearance, people's stares, and the callous, judgmental treatment she received at a hospital, and you have a woman who had overwhelming issues to deal with.

I have nothing but praise for Patricia's willingness to candidly share her struggle with others. I hope she continues to write.

Patricia "Trish" van Tighem - a vicacious, pretty young nurse and her pediatric resident husband of three years are out hiking when they are mauled by a grizzly bear. This is the story of the ensuing 15 years including the many surgeries Patricia went through and her depression that ensued as a result of the pain she has had to endure along with the disfiguration caused by the attack.

Trish and Trevor had everything going for them when they, two experienced backpackers, took a well-deserved weekend off to do something they enjoyed. They took all the necessary precautions but the couldn't escape a particularly aggressive female grizzly one fall day in Waterton Lakes National Park south of their home in Calgary, Alberta. Trevor was attacked first and Trish was torn between helping him or climbing a tree to save herself-she had always been told grizzlies couldn't climb trees. But due to their experience, the cold weather, and two hikers who find them soon after the attack, they both survive. This book is less about the attack itself than the years afterwards including quite a bit about their initial time in the hospital, Trish's many surgeries, and their life in rural Canada with (eventually) four children.

This book was a bittersweet read for me as I read it after hearing of Trish's death by suicide in December of 2005 at the age of 47. So I knew that although the book ended on an upbeat note, that the real story hadn't ended and it didn't end happily. I also knew that at the time of her death Trish and Trevor were separated. That may have colored my opinion of Trevor from the very beginning, but I did find him a bit selfish throughout the entire book and even though he seemed to try to accept Trish after her injuries, I don't think he ever truly could deal with her disfigurement. All in all though the book was a mesmerizing read. Trish was a talented writer and this is a stunning story. I highly recommend it.

I picked up this book for resale, and I leafed through it. I was caught at page 16 and sat down to read it all. I did. The attack, the recovery, the emotions, and finally the resolve. This woman has been through hell and lived to tell the tale. The life we all have, or will, experience: Marriage, love, accident, loss of a loved parent/child. A less than perfect life. I hope you will never know the sorrow this woman has been through, but I hope her story will enlighten you to be strong, and deal with your demons before they bring you down. And, by the way, she is an excellent writer.

PTSD is a wickedly subtle thing that can creep into your life without you having the slightest clue what it is or what the far reaching effects may be. It can be the result of a pointed trauma or something smaller, such as an adverse emotional experience. Ms. Van Tighem seems to have no interest in exploiting her drama for the sake of attention, but perhaps seeks validation for her experience exactly how it happened- a few hours of horrifying excitement during and immediately after the attack, and more pointedly, the reality of the long term effects of this life altering incident to herself and her family over the following seventeen years. It is something that is often missing in the bear attack story compilations on bookshelves today. Kudos to this author for finding the bravery and the shameless audacity to actually write a true story, as is.

First, the book. It is sometimes hard going to read about such a horrific experience as a grizzly bear attack and its excruciating aftermath, but believe me, it is worth it. This is a book that will exhaust your emotions, it will make you FEEL and marvel at how much one human being can endure. It will do that, unless you are a relatively shallow human being, uninterested in the human condition and emotions, as some of the reviewers of this book are. So "The Bear's Embrace" has "very little action", is "boring" and describes "pointless suffering"? Oh, please God help me! A story about a grizzly bear attack and the frantic attempts to save the victims has "very little action"? A woman's attempt to cope with the disfigurement of her face and the ensuing torture of constant pain and infection is "boring"? Her severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, her forever-changed relationship with her husband, their Down's syndrome baby, the loss of an eye, the incredible pain from her injuries and infection that just seemed to go on and on is "POINTLESS SUFFERING"? Well, let me tell you something. NO suffering is "pointless". You poor readers, having to read such a "boring" book; no murders or sex or car explosions, WAAAHHH! This is an incredible book about an incredible quirk of fate that changes a woman's life forever; it is a tale of endurance and survival that will move you deeply. You wonder "how could anybody STAND this"? Ms. Tighem did...for a long time. But it got to a point where she simply could stand no more. She committed suicide on Dec. 17, 2005. She was 47. I hope that she is now at peace, without any pain at last. She was a courageous, remarkable woman...rest in peace, dear lady.

This book is incredibly refreshing and honest. Finally, a man who is not afraid to speak the truth and who really immersed himself in the Inuk culture to be able to understand these Canadians. A book well worth buying as youw will want to read it over and over.

I have a whole passel of personal connections with this book. Not only did I once live on the arctic coast for several years, I've fished the mouth of the river that almost took Bill's life. I was still living in Toloyoak in 1974 when Bill White made his return trip to Cam. Bay after 40 years, though I didn't know it at the time. I've walked and crawled all over the St. Roch in its permanent berth at the Vancouver Maritime Museum and visited Pasley Bay on the Boothia Peninsula where it once overwintered in the ice. Thanks to James Eetoolook and Pat Lyall I've visited almost every landfall along the ice coast the St. Roch stopped into the summer of 1930.
Then, while living on the Sunshine Coast in 1975, the author's father, Howard White (they aren't related to Bill), loaned me a copy of Bill's original 175 page manuscript. I thought it a dry read, historically questionable in places and grossly over opinionated. In fact, when Bill asked me what I thought of it, I told him I figured his opinions were as valid as anybody else's'. Holy poop! "Opinions," he bellowed, and that was the end of that politically incorrect conversation.
Jim

LIFE IN THE OLD NORTH

"I never wanted to be a cop. Christ, I didn't want to spend my life handing out traffic tickets. I joined the RCMP so I could get up north. There was nothing more to it."
So opens this illuminating book about fours years in the life of Bill White, one of the most unlikely of cops ever to build an igloo.
Written entirely in the first person by Patrick White (no relation to Bill), this tale will captivate arctic buffs, RCMP enthusiasts, historians and everybody else interested in a first hand glimpse of "the best years of my life;" how it was in the central arctic in the early 1930s. Life in the old north.
"I decided to join up with an eye on getting to the Arctic as soon as possible." After basic training in Regina: "...really nothing more than a modified Boy Scouts program," Bill began his career herding naked Doukhobours and chasing bootleggers along the US border in Saskatchewan. He applied for arctic service and was transferred to Vancouver, there to await transport north.
Bill shipped out of Vancouver aboard the St. Roch under the command of the legendary Henry Larsen in June 1930, bound for the arctic.
The book dishes up a smorgasbord of written and visual delicacies (there are 80 some black and white photographs throughout); snapshots of the old police posts at Herschel Island, Baillie Island, Bernard Harbour, Coppermine and Cambridge Bay as the St. Roch flounders in frigid swells, scrapes through pack ice, bounces off reefs, dodges bergs and slams across sand bars.
Bill meets arctic veterans like trader Charlie Klengenberg and his son Patsy, Ikey Bolt who married Charlie's daughter Etna, Gjoa Haven Canalaska trader George Washington Porter, Tree River Hudson's Bay trader Otto Binder and Mrs. Pannigabluk Stefansson. He befriends Sam Carter, Mahik and L. A. Learmouth. In fact, he and Learmouth once liberated three quarts of alcohol from the compass of the good ship Maud, by then a half submerged derelict in Cambridge Bay, and the two'm ended up having a fine old time.
Learning to live in the country, Bill was taught how to build an igloo, hunt caribou and seals. He spent the better part of each summer in a fish camp at Wellington Bay. And he got to go trapping too, albeit illegally, bringing in $3,500.00 in white foxes one year; quite a boost to his $700.00 annual salary.
A census took him over 700 miles by dog team to count 750 northern folk widely scattered over a wide chunk of real estate. Another trip took him a thousand miles by dogs to retrieve a body and witnesses in an alleged murder case.
Returning south to another land and another life, Bill finally revisited Cambridge Bay in June of 1974, went fishing with Bill Lyall and had tea again with Angulalik and his old friend Mahik.
"On a windy autumn day, snow crunching underfoot, two active Mounties, a priest and two Inuit elders stood on Mount Pelly, the hill overlooking Cambridge Bay, with Bill's ashes." It was the fall of 2001. Constable Dean Larkin let the wind scatter Bill's mortal remains in the one place in the world where he had always felt he belonged. Bill White was home.
This may Patrick's White's first book but he's sure enough learned how to use his tools. Patrick has done a bang up job of rendering Bill's adventures imminently readable, historically sound and immensely enjoyable. Feet up beside the wood stove, Mountie in Mukluks was a fine trip for me.

Review by Jim Green