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Back to God's Country and Other Stories
Back to God's Country and Other Stories
Back to God's Country and Other Stories
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Back to God's Country and Other Stories

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A collection of short stories set in the wilderness.

Back to God's Country opens on an idyllic note at the peaceful Canadian mountain home where the innocent child-of-nature Dolores LeBeau lives with her doting father Baptiste LeBeau and a legion of animal friends. When a handsome naturalist Peter Burke stops in at their mountain paradise he is charmed by Dolores and the pair are soon announcing their engagement to Baptiste. But the always changeable mood of Back to God's Country suddenly shifts from a bucolic love story to a genuine nightmare. A murderous criminal Rydal hiding out in the mountains and traveling with his half-breed sidekick, spies Dolores skinny-dipping in a brook and vows to "have" her.

Back to God's Country was based on a typically sensational James Oliver Curwood short story "Wapi, the Walrus." Curwood was known for a bizarre fiction formula in which decent women were threatened with rape, only to be rescued from a fate worse than death by a protective dog. Curwood's prototypical woman-beast storyline was also used in Back to God's Country, with Dolores finding an abused, vicious black dog Wapi, her only companion and helpmate in the barren winter landscape where she and Peter are trapped. Dolores and Wapi form a bond that transforms this fascinating, strange story yet again, from a tale of human evil, to an oddly touching story of the loving relationship between a woman and a dog.

BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY (Excerpt)

When Shan Tung, the long-cued Chinaman from Vancouver, started up the Frazer River in the old days when the Telegraph Trail and the headwaters of the Peace were the Meccas of half the gold-hunting population of British Columbia, he did not foresee tragedy ahead of him. He was a clever man, was Shan Tung, a cha-sukeed, a very devil in the collecting of gold, and far-seeing. But he could not look forty years into the future, and when Shan Tung set off into the north, that winter, he was in reality touching fire to the end of a fuse that was to burn through four decades before the explosion came.

With Shan Tung went Tao, a Great Dane. The Chinaman had picked him up somewhere on the coast and had trained him as one trains a horse. Tao was the biggest dog ever seen about the Height of Land, the most powerful, and at times the most terrible. Of two things Shan Tung was enormously proud in his silent and mysterious oriental way—of Tao, the dog, and of his long, shining cue which fell to the crook of his knees when he let it down. It had been the longest cue in Vancouver, and therefore it was the longest cue in British Columbia. The cue and the dog formed the combination which set the forty-year fuse of romance and tragedy burning. Shan Tung started for the El Dorados early in the winter, and Tao alone pulled his sledge and outfit. It was no more than an ordinary task for the monstrous Great Dane, and Shan Tung subserviently but with hidden triumph passed outfit after outfit exhausted by the way. He had reached Copper Creek Camp, which was boiling and frothing with the excitement of gold-maddened men, and was congratulating himself that he would soon be at the camps west of the Peace, when the thing happened. A drunken Irishman, filled with a grim and unfortunate sense of humor, spotted Shan Tung's wonderful cue and coveted it. Wherefore there followed a bit of excitement in which Shan Tung passed into his empyrean home with a bullet through his heart, and the drunken Irishman was strung up for his misdeed fifteen minutes later. Tao, the Great Dane, was taken by the leader of the men who pulled on the rope. Tao's new master was a "drifter," and as he drifted, his face was always set to the north, until at last a new humor struck him and he turned eastward to the Mackenzie. As the seasons passed, Tao found mates along the way and left a string of his progeny behind him, and he had new masters, one after another, until he was grown old and his muzzle was turning gray. And nev
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 8, 2017
ISBN9781387152582
Back to God's Country and Other Stories
Author

James Oliver Curwood

James Oliver Curwood (1878-1927) was an American writer and conservationist popular in the action-adventure genre. Curwood began his career as a journalist, and was hired by the Canadian government to travel around Northern Canada and publish travel journals in order to encourage tourism. This served as a catalyst for his works of fiction, which were often set in Alaska or the Hudson Bay area in Canada. Curwood was among the top ten best-selling authors in the United States during the early and mid 1920s. Over one-hundred and eighty films have been inspired by or based on his work. With these deals paired with his record book sales, Curwood earned an impressive amount of wealth from his work. As he grew older, Curwood became an advocate for conservationism and environmentalism, giving up his hunting hobby and serving on conservation committees. Between his activism and his literary work, Curwood helped shape the popular perception of the natural world.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As a youth I read a book by James Oliver Curwood about a wolf-dog cross and loved it. As an adult I have not only rediscovered and delighted in the animal tales by this author, but have also enjoyed his other works, including this collection of short stories. It's a keeper.In Back to God's Country we read about people and situations of one hundred years ago, in some of the most inhospitable regions and conditions imaginable. While many of the people are similar in nature (fur trappers, hunters, Mounties, etc.), the stories are individual tales of love, hate, desire, will, and despair. And they are all good reads, every one of the stories in this book is engaging, which is unusual in most short story collections I have read in the past.If you've never read anything by this author before, I believe this book might be a good place to discover a writer who is underappreciated for his works. And I hope you enjoy his written words as much as I have.

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Back to God's Country and Other Stories - James Oliver Curwood

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