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| Photo by Ken Cheung on Unsplash |
If seeing the Aurora Borealis is in your bucket list, then you will be wise to plan a trip to the Northwest Territories in Canada. The northern lights, as the phenomena is also known, can be seen in this region more than 200 nights a year due to the combination of its location and climate. Due to those same conditions, summers make the Northwest Territories a prime spot to see the Midnight Sun or to attend the Snowking Festival, where an ice castle is built every year. If you ever do visit, and find yourself driving around, pay attention to the license plates: they are shaped like polar bears. If you need reading material for the trip, maybe you would like to pack one of these books:
Mystery/Thriller
📚 The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
The year is 1867. Winter has just tightened its grip on Dove River, a tiny isolated settlement in the Northern Territory, when a man is brutally murdered. Laurent Jammett had been a voyageur for the Hudson Bay Company before an accident lamed him four years earlier. The same accident afforded him the little parcel of land in Dove River, land that the locals called unlucky due to the untimely death of the previous owner.
A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees the tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. It is Mrs. Ross's knock on the door of the largest house in Caulfield that launches the investigation. Within hours she will regret that knock with a mother's love -- for soon she makes another discovery: her seventeen-year-old son Francis has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect.
In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the crime and to the township -- Andrew Knox, Dove River's elder statesman; Thomas Sturrock, a wily American itinerant trader; Donald Moody, the clumsy young Company representative; William Parker, a half-breed Native American and trapper who was briefly detained for Jammett's murder before becoming Mrs. Ross's guide. But the question remains: do these men want to solve the crime or exploit it?
One by one, the searchers set out from Dove River following the tracks across a desolate landscape -- home to only wild animals, madmen, and fugitives -- variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for seventeen years, and a forgotten Native American culture before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.
In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation, and humor into an exhilarating thriller; a panoramic historical romance; a gripping murder mystery; and, ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, an epic for the ages.
A local woman, Mrs. Ross, stumbles upon the crime scene and sees the tracks leading from the dead man's cabin north toward the forest and the tundra beyond. It is Mrs. Ross's knock on the door of the largest house in Caulfield that launches the investigation. Within hours she will regret that knock with a mother's love -- for soon she makes another discovery: her seventeen-year-old son Francis has disappeared and is now considered a prime suspect.
In the wake of such violence, people are drawn to the crime and to the township -- Andrew Knox, Dove River's elder statesman; Thomas Sturrock, a wily American itinerant trader; Donald Moody, the clumsy young Company representative; William Parker, a half-breed Native American and trapper who was briefly detained for Jammett's murder before becoming Mrs. Ross's guide. But the question remains: do these men want to solve the crime or exploit it?
One by one, the searchers set out from Dove River following the tracks across a desolate landscape -- home to only wild animals, madmen, and fugitives -- variously seeking a murderer, a son, two sisters missing for seventeen years, and a forgotten Native American culture before the snows settle and cover the tracks of the past for good.
In an astonishingly assured debut, Stef Penney deftly weaves adventure, suspense, revelation, and humor into an exhilarating thriller; a panoramic historical romance; a gripping murder mystery; and, ultimately, with the sheer scope and quality of her storytelling, an epic for the ages.
📚 Bones are Forever by Kathy Reichs
(Temperance Brennan #15)
A woman calling herself Amy Roberts checks into a Montreal hospital complaining of uncontrolled bleeding. Doctors see evidence of a recent birth, but before they can act, Roberts disappears. Dispatched to the address she gave at the hospital, police discover bloody towels outside in a Dumpster. Fearing the worst, they call Temperance Brennan to investigate.
In a run-down apartment Tempe makes a ghastly discovery: the decomposing bodies of three infants. According to the landlord, a woman named Alma Rogers lives there. Then a man shows up looking for Alva Rodriguez. Are Amy Roberts, Alma Rogers, and Alva Rodriguez the same person? Did she kill her own babies? And where is she now?
Heading up the investigation is Tempe’s old flame, Homicide Detective Andrew Ryan. His counterpart from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Sergeant Ollie Hasty, who happens to have a little history with Tempe himself, which she regrets. This unlikely trio follows the woman’s trail, first to Edmonton, and then to Yellowknife, a remote diamond-mining city deep in the Northwest Territories. What they find in Yellowknife is more sinister than they ever could have imagined.
📚 Sick Heart River by John Buchan
(Sir Edward Leithen #5)
Contemporary Fiction
📚 Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay
Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined.
Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land.
Elizabeth Hay has been compared to Annie Proulx, Alice Hoffman, and Isabel Allende, yet she is uniquely herself. With unforgettable characters, vividly evoked settings, in this new novel, Hay brings to bear her skewering intelligence into the frailties of the human heart and her ability to tell a spellbinding story. Written in gorgeous prose, laced with dark humour, Late Nights on Air is Hay’s most seductive and accomplished novel yet.
Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land.
Elizabeth Hay has been compared to Annie Proulx, Alice Hoffman, and Isabel Allende, yet she is uniquely herself. With unforgettable characters, vividly evoked settings, in this new novel, Hay brings to bear her skewering intelligence into the frailties of the human heart and her ability to tell a spellbinding story. Written in gorgeous prose, laced with dark humour, Late Nights on Air is Hay’s most seductive and accomplished novel yet.
📚 One Good Thing by Rebecca Hendry
In the spring of 1977, Annie, a flighty artist, and her twelve-year-old daughter, Delilah, trade the cherry blossom trees and beaches of Vancouver for rugged and remote Old Town in Yellowknife, surprising Delilah’s father by showing up on his doorstep. As she adapts to her new surroundings, Delilah befriends Will, a local Dene man and her father’s business partner. But Annie’s capricious nature undermines Delilah’s elusive sense of belonging when Annie leaves Old Town for an artists’ colony without saying goodbye. While coping with her family’s instability and changes within herself, Delilah becomes attached to Will as she grows alienated from her increasingly aloof father. When Will vanishes in a blizzard one night, Delilah is devastated and suspects her father is to blame. What happened to Will? Is there anyone she can trust? Where—and with whom—does she belong?
Short Stories
📚 Night Moves by Richard Van Camp
📚 Coming Home: Stories from the Northwest Territories by Various, Richard Van Camp (Foreword)
📚 The Ugly Truck and Dog Contest and Other Tales of Northern Life by Cathy Jewison
You will meet a woman desperate to prove her northern identity by winning the aforementioned contest; a veteran prospector who has maintained his competitive edge in a surprising way; a young lawyer seeking redemption for his indiscretions on the City's all-sand golf course. They tackle it all with spirit, humour, and the occasional touch of magic.
YA
📚 Having Faith in the Polar's Girl Prison by Cathleen With
A fresh, funny look at growing up Native in the North, by award-winning author Richard Van Camp.
Larry is a Dogrib Indian growing up in the small northern town of Fort Simmer. His tongue, his hallucinations and his fantasies are hotter than the sun. At sixteen, he loves Iron Maiden, the North and Juliet Hope, the high school "tramp." When Johnny Beck, a Metis from Hay River, moves to town, Larry is ready for almost anything.
In this powerful and often very funny first novel, Richard Van Camp gives us one of the most original teenage characters in fiction. Skinny as spaghetti, nervy and self-deprecating, Larry is an appealing mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His past holds many terrors: an abusive father, blackouts from sniffing gasoline, an accident that killed several of his cousins. But through his friendship with Johnny, he’s ready now to face his memories—and his future.
Marking the debut of an exciting new writer, The Lesser Blessed is an eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young Native man in the age of AIDS, disillusionment with Catholicism and a growing world consciousness.
A coming-of-age story that any fan of The Catcher in the Rye will enjoy.
Brian is on his way to Canada to visit his estranged father when the pilot of his small prop plane suffers a heart attack. Brian is forced to crash-land the plane in a lake--and finds himself stranded in the remote Canadian wilderness with only his clothing and the hatchet his mother gave him as a present before his departure.
Brian had been distraught over his parents' impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?
Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.
A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.
Larry is a Dogrib Indian growing up in the small northern town of Fort Simmer. His tongue, his hallucinations and his fantasies are hotter than the sun. At sixteen, he loves Iron Maiden, the North and Juliet Hope, the high school "tramp." When Johnny Beck, a Metis from Hay River, moves to town, Larry is ready for almost anything.
In this powerful and often very funny first novel, Richard Van Camp gives us one of the most original teenage characters in fiction. Skinny as spaghetti, nervy and self-deprecating, Larry is an appealing mixture of bravado and vulnerability. His past holds many terrors: an abusive father, blackouts from sniffing gasoline, an accident that killed several of his cousins. But through his friendship with Johnny, he’s ready now to face his memories—and his future.
Marking the debut of an exciting new writer, The Lesser Blessed is an eye-opening depiction of what it is to be a young Native man in the age of AIDS, disillusionment with Catholicism and a growing world consciousness.
A coming-of-age story that any fan of The Catcher in the Rye will enjoy.
📚 Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
(Brian's Saga #!)
Brian had been distraught over his parents' impending divorce and the secret he carries about his mother, but now he is truly desolate and alone. Exhausted, terrified, and hungry, Brian struggles to find food and make a shelter for himself. He has no special knowledge of the woods, and he must find a new kind of awareness and patience as he meets each day's challenges. Is the water safe to drink? Are the berries he finds poisonous?
Slowly, Brian learns to turn adversity to his advantage--an invading porcupine unexpectedly shows him how to make fire, a devastating tornado shows him how to retrieve supplies from the submerged airplane. Most of all, Brian leaves behind the self-pity he has felt about his predicament as he summons the courage to stay alive.
A story of survival and of transformation, this riveting book has sparked many a reader's interest in venturing into the wild.
Nonfiction - History
📚The Last Patrol: Following the Trail of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police’s Legendary Lost Patrol by Keith Billington
In Keith Billington’s The Last Patrol, he shares one of the most tragic stories of the far north.
It was a quiet December morning in 1910 when Inspector Fitzgerald and his crew left Fort McPherson, Northwest Territories, on a dog team patrol to Dawson City, Yukon. Their departure was without fanfare, and after a brief handshake and a salute, the men pulled out of the village and onto the frozen Peel River. Sadly, these four officers of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police would be remembered as the Lost Patrol of 1911. During the grueling 764-kilometre journey, after running out of supplies and experiencing brutally cold weather, they faced starvation and eventually froze to death.
Sixty years later, Keith Billington, an outpost nurse working in Fort McPherson, organized a re-enactment of the historic trip using dog teams before Dempster Highway was built. Intrigued by the story of the Lost Patrol, he recruited ten men to join him. Nine of his companions were experienced Gwich’in men, two of whom had previously made the trip.
Unlike the original patrol, Billington’s departure attracted much media attention. On February 15, 1970, television crews and dignitaries from different agencies all descended on Fort McPherson to document the start of Billington’s “Last Patrol.” Some wished them well and some were convinced this expedition might also end in disaster, or that they would be forced by harsh conditions to abandon their journey and return home.
Billington weaves together these two stories, revealing the details behind both the men who lost their lives and the men who risked their lives to commemorate the sacrifice made by Fitzgerald and his team. This gripping story illustrates the commitment and determination of the men of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and is a tribute to the legacy of the Gwich’in people who continue to live and survive in this beautiful but inhospitable land.
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