Sister Lumberjack

by Candace Simar

Bottle fever has Nels Jensen by the throat. Swindled out of his summer’ s pay, he heads to the logging camps of Northern Minnesota, only to discover he is blacklisted at reputable operations. He is neither a thief nor a liar, but he cannot prove his innocence. Widow Solveig Rognaldson is left alone with heartache and a mortgage. Without a well-paying job, she will lose her Foxhome farm. Her son marries and moves away. Though she feels too old, she musters courage to strike out on her own. She has to save the farm by herself. She has no one else. Trouble follows Sister Magdalena, a jolly nun who struggles with rules. A giant of a woman, she is sent to sell hospital tickets to lumberjacks working the forests of Minnesota. It is dangerous work, and those with a ticket receive free health care if they are injured. She travels alone to isolated logging camps in the dead of winter, sometimes by snowshoes. The jacks call her Sister Lumberjack. These three lives intersect at Starkweather Timber, a haywire logging camp, where everything goes wrong. Their unique friendship turns their lives in unexpected directions.

448 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2024

Reviews

[Gregory Gentry · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[Arne Teigland]

It was a fond farewell that I bid to Sister Lumberjack, Solveig Rognaldson, and others from the Starkweather Timber camp in northern Minnesota. As characters of all sorts (honorable and deceitful, the stable and the drifter, lovers and haters, wealthy and destitute, God-fearing and irreligious, nun and hooker, etc.) connect and interconnect a wonderful story of hope on several fronts growing in a hostile environment.

[Mary Aalgaard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Simar’s best book yet! We were first introduced to her excellent historical novels with the Abercrombie Trail series. It’s also where Solveig is first mentioned. She becomes a main character in Sister Lumberjack, along with Sister Magdalena who gets the nickname “Sister Lumberjack” from the lumberjacks she works with. Sovleig is dubbed “Ma” when she works as a cook at one of the seediest lumberjack camps in the Northwoods. Simar tells this story in three interwoven POVs: Solveig, Sister Lumberjack, and Nels. Nels is a young man with a drinking problem and need for solid work. He’s an immigrant from Denmark and hopes to earn enough money to pay for his parents to come to the new country. He is both endearing and frustrating to Ma and Sister Lumberjack (as well as this reader) as he muddles his way through, makes mistakes, but also comes through for them when needed (some of the time). In true Simar fashion, her book is well researched and the characters fully fleshed out. There are so many rich details that you feel like you’re struggling alongside these hard working characters in miserable conditions, but with hopes and dreams that keep them going. The only thing I would have liked added to the book would be a glossary. Simar does a great job of using lumberjack jargon and the vernacular of the times, but it would have been fun to have a list of those words and phrases at the back to reference. I’ve been reading this novel this weeks in between a new part-time job in the morning and piano lessons in the afternoon. It was a nice visit with friends in another time, but in a place that I live in now. The setting is right here where I live. I picture the once lush forests and undeveloped land, the tree stumps and piles of tree limbs left behind. I can almost smell the jack pines, snow, icy winds, and wafts of frying donuts. Well done, my friend.

[Tina McKeever · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE this book, takes place in Northern MN, the characters you grow to fall in love with and take on their struggles as your own. Mel, Solveig and Sister Magdalena, all have their own reasons for being at the logging camp. Get your copy , you will not regret it.
Tina M

[Sue Ready · Rating 5 out of 5]

Candace Simar's newest book is a riveting story with three unique main characters. Their lives converge at the Starkweather Logging camp in the winter of 1893 in Northern Minnesota where unlikely friendships and alliances are formed among the characters. It's a roller coaster ride with developing themes of self-acceptance, forgiveness, redemption, and hope that permeates the storyline.

“Sister Lumberjack" is Simar's 5th book in her Abercrombie Series. Solveig Rognaldson, originally from Norway, is a woman of the prairie who makes her first appearance in book one of the series. In book 5, “Sister Lumberjack,” she reprises her role but now takes center stage. Recent widowhood sets Solveig on a downward spiral with the impending doom of being unable to pay off a mortgage on her Foxhome Farm. To compound her problems, she feels bitter and disappointed with her son's refusal to stay and help run the farm. He moves into town with his new wife. Solveig needs money to pay off the mortgage. With determination, a courageous heart, and few options, she seeks employment at a logging camp as a cook.

Sister Magdalena, a young Benedictine nun, is trying to find her place within their community. Mother Superior plans to expand health care in the Northwoods by selling hospital chits to lumberjacks. For just one dollar loggers who buy a ticket will be ensured to receive health care if injured. In what turns out to be a life-changing move, Sister Magdalena is enlisted to help the Benedictine cause. She's to travel solo in dangerous winter conditions from one isolated logging camp to another camp selling chits to lumberjacks. She earns the nickname “Sister Lumberjack” from the lumberjacks.

Nels, a young man whose thirst for liquor is called “bottle fever,” is swindled out of his summer pay. He seeks work at several logging camps only to discover he has been unfairly blacklisted at each of them. Despite his best efforts to overcome his addiction and turn his life around he can't seem to get ahead. He desperately needs money to pay his parents' fare to America. A potential love interest motivates him to change his life around.

From my perspective, I am adding into my review what felt like another character in the story, weather. Braving the elements was central to the plot with constant references to the relentless cold, dangerous working conditions, poorly insulated bunkhouses, and food shortages.
Simar's meticulous research effectively captures the nuances of everyday life in the logging camp and its hierarchy system. The dialogue exchanges among some of the characters may seem rough and crude, but add to the reality of the situations encountered at the logging camp.

Simar's precise wordsmithing skills employ all the senses describing the emotions that arise while coping with difficult living and working situations and facing the perils of cold weather.
Despite continual hardships, the characters found camaraderie among themselves and a sense of hopefulness prevailed at the end as each embarked on a new path. “Sister Lumberjack” is a well-written story that will not disappoint readers. Each time I finish one of Simar's books I say this is the best one, and then another superb one comes along topping the previous one.

[Charles Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

SISTER LUMBERJACK by Candace Simar is one of those books that is unique in every sense of the word. Have you read books about nuns in the Northwoods of Minnesota, or about widows leaving their beloved farm to earn money, or about pencil neck money counters with the sense of fence post, or about winters so desperately nasty that even Siberia would feel tropical?
I would say you haven’t, but in SISTER LUMBERJACK, Candace Simar has given the reader all these notions – and she has presented them in full screen technicolor and stereophonic sound!
Her characters live deeply, live with passion, live with goals in mind – and yet each of them has flaws that wrap their intentions with distortion. The setting of a lumber camp is filled with pine fragrance, soft breezes and torrential rains and snows and sounds of the dangerous falling trees whomping to the ground.
SISTER LUMBERJACK has a pace that will keep the reader awake late into the night. Each adventure involves one or more of the three dimensional characters – Solveig the widowed farm wife must deal with earning money, with losing a son (at least metaphorically). The enthusiastic young man Nels finds himself turning to the demon liquor, yet has a work ethic that will not perish. The dear nun, Sister Magdalena, for whom the book is named, brings intense faith in God as she delivers her messages from a convent in Duluth to the ribald men of the logging camps.
Train rides with soot filled cars? Chilled winters with conditions that make blizzards look like a walk in the park in April? Fist fights? Shouting arguments? Deep discussions about faith, about serving others? Despair at the loss of a friend or family member? Its all here, all wrapped by the wonderful writing skills of Candace Simar.
Simar’s track record with her books is impressive – good story telling, good characters, interesting plot lines – SISTER LUMBERJACK just might be at the top of the list of all of this author’s work.

[Kari Veicht · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who grew up in the Brainerd lakes area and went to school at St. Scholastica in Duluth, this story really hit home for me. Sister Lumberjack follows three unlikely to be matched characters, who somehow find themselves wintering at a camp during the heyday of logging in Minnesota. Solveig is a recently widowed farmer who owes the rest of her mortgage, who works herself to the bone as the camp cook. Nels is a struggling drinker who has been blacklisted by the best logging camps but lands himself a job only to drink away his earnings while pining away for the cook's pretty helper-who happens to have a baby on the way. Sister Magdalena traipses through logging camps selling hospital tickets to the jacks and using the power of prayer and her own determination to improve the lives of those around her-earning herself the name Sister Lumberjack. The book tells how each character ends up a the logging camp, handles the hard winter, and uses the lessons learned to pick up the pieces of their lives and move move on. The story had me laughing, crying, and hoping for such good friends. Well worth the read!

[Kathyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such relatable characters! That was what I like best about this new book from Candace Simar. Whether it is the young lumberjack, the aging widow, or the not-so-ordinary nun, you with empathize with their human failings and hardships, then rejoice in the way, "things work out in the end," as Solvieg would say.

Having grown up hearing about the old lumber camps that my grandfather owned, I could also appreciate the historical accuracy of the author's portrayal of life in those camps in Northern Minnesota.

One of her best books yet!

[Pam Shelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A friend chose this book for our Book Club, she stumbed upon it and recommended it. We all enjoyed it so much and the author even chatted with our club via Zoom. Great female (and male) characters. I liked it because it was a setting and a culture (Northern Minnesota lumberjacks) that I hadn't previously given much thought. Well written, very human, real imperfect characters. I always like stories where people come together and make new families among the people they are living and working with every day. Wonderful read!

[Wanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Candace’s best writings! Her vivid retelling of Minnesota history deserves a wide readership. She uses period vocabulary as an integral part of the story, not just an add on to make it sound good.
The characters have depth and dimension. Their life issues are relatable and cause the reader to fall deeper into the story.
Good news! Sister Lumberjack starts out with loose ends dangling from every page, but the seamless garment at the end has those ends woven together beautifully. But longing to read about each character’s next step …

[Janice Tolifson]

Widow Solveig is left alone her son marries and takes off with his wife. She has a mortgage to pay off on her farm. she ends up being a cook in a lumber camp. This is in 1893 in Northern Minnesota. She meets Sister Magdalena from Duluth. Who is quite the character. Solveig ends up with all kinds of helpers in her cook shack. One is pregnant and another a prostitute that Sister finds.

Loved the story.

[Donna Yliniemi · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me forever to read this book because I knew I would miss the characters and wonder what happened to them after I finished. I enjoy reading historical fiction set in Minnesota and this is probably only the second one I have read about lumbering in the middle of the winter. It is a faith-filled book about flawed characters stuck in a life they don't want and are using this last winter to help them move on. Wonderful read.

[Martha Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sun dipped like a bloody egg in a sea of blazing pinks and orange, a backdrop behind the outbuildings” I will savor my rereading of this novel which is so gorgeous. I’ve loved Candace’s character Solveig since I met her many years ago and I admire how Candace takes us inside her grief and her hatred of her daughter-in-law—a town girl —- the hussy. Such honesty!

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent Read. This covers the life from the perspective of three individuals in the northern MN lumber camps in the late 1800's. All three went to the camps for different reasons to work and this very nicely moves back and forth between the three of them. Smooth transitions that make it an easy read and well written with lots of historic accuracy and details included.

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simar is remarkable for her historical accuracy blended with humor, multi-layered characters, and action that drew me into the story creating that “suspension of disbelief” that all great writers do so well. All her books and short stories are well written and enjoyable but Sister Lumberjack is among my favorites. I look forward to more stories from Ms Simar.

[Val Wilkerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. I am from Minnesota, I have met the author at Ten Mile Restaurant. I so enjoyed the stories of the early logging days. Sister Lumberjack is a nun who traveled around to the logging camps. You will love her. All of the characters were very intriguing they made you laugh and sometimes cry. Well written.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. The characters all shined on their own Great story, well researched and believable. . The problem is I will need another book to follow these wonderful people. I've made my own continuation but I'm very sure the author will have one much better.
.

[Patricia Learn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book because of my Swedish heritage and because it is written about the area I live in.
I have always been amazed at the hard working miners but this really opened my eyes to the loggers. What a rough life. I will definitely read other books by this author.

[Janell Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. Readers will love the strong females in lead roles. People who have read the first four books in the series will be excited to get their hands on Sister Lumberjack! FABULOUS!!

[Samantha Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book had amazing female lead roles and such strong woman. As a reader you grow with them on each page you fall more in love with the characters

[Sheri Goltz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I may have given this a 4.5 rating because if all the unbelievably terrible things happening at the end.

[Marie Peterson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Historical fiction about Catholic sister out of Duluth who served lumberjacks in northern Minnesota

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous! I loved the way the cast of characters carried the story along. I was fascinated pondering the historical underpinnings. A compelling read.

[Marlene Kossila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable book. Characters all rang true, along with the situations they found themselves in. I enjoyed reading and had a hard time putting the book down.

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book!
4 way different people.. how their lives worked together..