Canada's wild frontier--a land unsettled and unknown, a land of
appalling obstacles and haunting beauty--comes to life through seven
remarkable individuals, including John Jewitt, the young British seaman
who became a slave to the Nootka Indians; Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, the
eccentric missionary; Sam Steele, the most famous of all Mounted
Policemen; and Isaac Jorges, the 17th-century priest who courted
martyrdom. Many of the stories of these figures read like the wildest of
fiction: Cariboo Cameron, who, after striking it rich in B.C., pickled
his wife's body in alcohol and gave her three funerals; Mina Hubbard,
the young widow who trekked across the unexplored heart of Labrador as
an act of revenge; and Almighty Voice, the renegade Cree, who was the
key figure in the last battle between white men and Aboriginals in North
America.
Spanning more than two centuries and four thousand miles, this book
demonstrates how our frontier resembles no other and how for better and
for worse it has shaped our distinctive sense of Canada.