"to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations"
- The Captain's Oath from the Star Trek
Our beautiful country was unveiled by people who were no ordinary tourists. They braved the elements, were exposed to danger and ventured into the unknown. I decided to have a look at some of their stories.
The Red Sash by Jean E. Pendziwol, with pictures by Nicolas Debon, is a children's story about life in the trading posts of Fort William in the early 1800s. Readers see it through the eyes of siblings and the book provides interesting and factual descriptions of the North West Company fur trade. There is a canoe trip as well as a storm, a rescue and happy dancing at the end. I enjoyed reading this story and hope your children will, too.
My next choice is a winner of the Great Lakes Book Award. The Broken Blade by William Durbin is a compelling read for juvenile audience. It is a tale of 13-year-old Pierre, enlisting to work as a voyageur to support his family. This book is filled with historical details and brilliant humour. The reader feels like being inside the canoe and seeing the landscape with her own eyes. Reading this novel, I became intimately familiar with the Great Lakes and the routes taken to deliver furs to and from Grand Portage.
The Adventures of Radisson: Hell Never Burns by Martin Fournier is a tale of survival and the search for identity. Pierre Esprit-Radisson was born in France in 1636 and came to Canada as a young boy. He was kidnapped and adopted by the Iroquois. Eventually, he became a coureur du bois.
Why did his life appeal to me so greatly? Maybe because Radisson was such a young person when he was faced with choices that are hard to make, even for a man.
As a teenager, he was immersed in three different cultures but was unable to belong to any of them completely. Fournier immerses the reader in the Iroquois lifestyle, and brings insight to understanding the daily lives and customs of this tribe. This book is great for young adults but leaves the reader with more moral questions than answers.
Presented from a feminine point of view, Woman of the Paddle Song by Elizabeth Clutton-Brock is a fascinating story of David Thompson and his family during the time when they were establishing routes through the Rocky Mountains. Although the work is fiction, it is based on writings of explorer, surveyor and mapmaker David Thompson and his Scots-Cree wife, Charlotte Small. David Thompson is acknowledged here as a North West Company fur trader who mapped the border between the U.S.A. and Canada. This book is both entertaining and interesting, and definitely a good read for the entire family.
Into the Heart of Country by Pauline Holdstocks is also a fascinating and moving story about the role of women in the fur trade. This tragic yet beautiful narrative, based on the history of the Hudson Bay Company, is slow, deep and insightful. It highlights the co-dependence of two cultures for survival and for the fate of their children. Although this book is quite different from the others featured here, I enjoyed reading it immensely.
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published on Wednesdays. Grazyna Nawrocka works at Coquitlam Public Library.
