Prisoners of the North

By Pierre Berton

Canada’s master storyteller returns to the North to chronicle the extraordinary stories of five inspiring and controversial characters.

Canada’s master storyteller returns to the North to bring history to life. Prisoners of the North tells the extraordinary stories of five inspiring and controversial characters whose adventures in Canada’s frozen wilderness are no less fascinating today than they were a hundred years ago.

We meet Joseph Boyle, the self-made millionaire gold prospector from Woodstock, Ontario, who went off to the Great War with the word “Yukon” inscribed on his shoulder straps, and solid-gold maple-leaf lapel badges. There he survived several scrapes with rogue Bolsheviks, earned the admiration of Trotsky, saved Romania from the advancing Germans, and entered into a passionate affair with its queen.

We meet Vilhjalmur Steffansson, who knew every corner of the Canadian North better than any explorer. His claim to have discovered a tribe of “Blond Eskimos” brought him world-wide attention and landed him in controversy that would dog him the rest of his life.

There is John Hornby, the eccentric public-school Englishman so enthralled with the Barren Grounds where he lived that he finally starved to death there with the two young men who had joined his adventures.

Berton gives us a riveting account of the contradictory life of Robert Service — a world-famous poet whose self-effacement was completely at odds with his public persona.

And we meet the extraordinary Lady Jane Franklin, who belied every last stereotype about Victorian women with her immense determination, energy, and sense of adventure. She travelled more widely than even her famous explorer husband, Sir John. And her indefatigable efforts to find him after his disappearance were legendary.

A Yukoner himself, Berton weaves these tales of courage, fortitude, and reckless lust for adventure with a love for Canada’s harsh north. With his sharp eye for detail and faultless ear for a good story, Pierre Berton shows once again why he is Canada’s favourite historian.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Mar 11, 2011
• ISBN: 9780385673587

Reviews for Prisoners of the North

[cecrow · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In his last book, Canadian historian extraordinaire Pierre Berton returned to the style of his Remarkable Past stories and his favourite subject - the Canadian north - to highlight five Canadian (or Canada related) figures who have largely been forgotten or neglected by history. In some respects this serves as a coda to his best known work, "The Arctic Grail". It includes more than the usual number of photos.Joseph Boyle - adventurer, gold-seeker, 'King of the Klondike'. Some key parts of his story are missing or skimmed: how did he stake a claim eight miles long when the classic image is of barely-surviving gold seekers arriving only to discover everything already snapped up? How did he ship in such an enormous amount of parts and pieces for his monstrous dredges over those challenging passes? Vilhjalmur Stefansson - last of the old-time Arctic explorers. Stefansson learned mightily from the Inuit and the mistakes of his forerunners, but his lone wolf personality resulted in poor leadership and organizational skills that endangered the lives of his less rugged companions.Lady Jane Franklin - wife of the doomed Sir John Franklin, she was a world traveler and world famous. She was also extremely stubborn, first about accepting her husband's death in his Arctic quest for the Northwest Passage and then about whether he was its discoverer.John Hornby - the hermit of the north, Hornby presented few heroic qualities other than a remarkable ability to survive under ridiculous self-imposed circumstances, just so he could say he did. This, and the senseless tragedy that ended his life, was enough to put his name on several northern landmarks.Robert Service - Canadian poet who specialized in writing about the north; also, a neighbour when the author was growing up. Berton oversells this portrait (best-known English poet of the 20th century??) of a man he knew and admired personally, but this is somewhat balanced by Service's own retiring modesty.The book's last photo depicts the author interviewing Robert Service approximately three months before the poet's death in 1958. Pierre Berton died about as many months after publishing this book, in 2004 at the age of 84.

[marcleroux84 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is one Berton book that I could not get into. I found it tedious to read.