This Was the North

by Anton Money

The dramatic adventure-filled story of a greenhorn in the Yukon wilderness.

Anton Money was a young tenderfoot, fresh from an upper-class English home when he first stepped onto Alaskan soil in the spring of 1923.

This is the story of his years on one of the world's last frontiers: his search for gold, his marriage to a beautiful and courageous young woman, his brushes with death when the land he loved turned hostile.

A true saga of the North, and of an extraordinary man who met and mastered its every challenge.

Genres: Nonfiction

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

Reviews

[Alayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic story of a young Englishman's fascination with the wilds of Canada and his move there in 1923. His life was so hard but he loved it and the country, and met and married a young woman who also loved the life in the freezing north. Well worth reading.

[Martina Volfová · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a very typical frontier account of a European explorer "conquering" the north and striking it rich in the "wilderness". While it was interesting to read, especially because I am familiar with the area and its history, at times the story was quite boastful and somewhat arrogant, devoid of any acknowledgment of how this gentleman from southern England gained his skills and knowledge to survive there. He describes a few humbling moments where something happened and he didn't fare too well, but those are very few - he mostly showcases his prowess. I don't doubt he was handy, smart, resourceful, and hard working, but there are just way too many times he attributes his accomplishments to himself only, including in instances where he and his wife worked on things together. His descriptions of the local Indigenous people are very minimal, seemingly showing little interest, describing them as minor characters, just coming and going, when in fact, according to the contemporary descendents of these families, Anton Money learned many things from their ancestors and relied on this knowledge for his survival at Frances Lake. He also misidentifies them as Tahltans, when in fact they were Kaska - one would think he would know that. The book has a very abrupt and sad ending... a lonely old man, boasting about his accomplishments, reliving memories of his glory days on the land which he saw as his to take, having little regard for the local population that ultimately paid the highest price for the resource extraction operations he helped to facilitate. It's a book worth reading, but with a critical eye.

[Heather Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was an early Jack London fan for the stories he told. I was not a huge fan of his style, though. Anton Money's writing style is far more engaging. I know I was born centuries too late, as this fed my frontier spirit from beginning to end. I appreciate the detail he uses without becoming gruesome or tiring with his explanations. The adventures in the tale carry you along as swiftly as the rapids of the rivers in the Yukon. Excellent read!I might easily have finished it in one fell swoop, but managed to ration it out so I could enjoy a few minutes a day for a month.

[Jen]

An interesting read about the Yukon Territory in the 1920s. The author spent about 6 years there, built two cabins, kept a trapline, spent time with the locals, found a productive gold vein, set up a mine, and spent a lot of time preparing for winter. The sweetest part of the book is when he met his wife in Vancouver and brought her back there. Kind of a sad ending, though.

[Rhonda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story and well written.