The Last Crossing

Frontier trilogy #2

by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Charles and Addington Gaunt must find their free- spirited brother, Simon, who has gone missing in the wilds of the American West. They enlist the services of a guide to lead them on their journey across a harsh and unknown landscape. This is the enigmatic Jerry Potts, half Blackfoot, half Scottish, who suffers his own painful past. They are joined by Lucy Stoveall, a woman filled with rage and sorrow over the loss of her young sister Madge who was brutally murdered. She is on a vengeful mission to track down and kill the murderous Kelso brothers. The group is joined by a jumble of other characters en route, each of whom are forced to confront their own demons. But at the novel's centre is a love story. Vanderhaeghe glides effortlessly through the patois and frontier talk, faultlessly switching from cultured English characters to American roughnecks to Scots-Canadians, and the natural prairie landscape is evoked brilliantly. Vanderhaeghe's new novel is an epic masterpiece that solidifies his place as one of Canada's best storytellers.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Westerns, Canada, Historical, Book Club, 19th Century

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Guy Clarence Vanderhaeghe, OC, SOM is a Canadian fiction author.

Vanderhaeghe received his Bachelor of Arts degree with great distinction in 1971, High Honours in History in 1972 and Master of Arts in History in 1975, all from the University of Saskatchewan. In 1978 he received his Bachelor of Education with great distinction from the University of Regina. In 1973 he was Research Officer, Institute for Northern Studies, University of Saskatchewan and, from 1974 until 1977, he worked as Archival and Library Assistant at the university. From 1975 to 1977 he was a freelance writer and editor and in 1978 and 1979 taught English and history at Herbert High School in Herbert, Saskatchewan. In 1983 and 1984 he was Writer-in-Residence with the Saskatoon Public Library and in 1985 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa (1985-86), faculty member of the Writing Program of the Banff Centre for the Arts (1990-91), faculty member in charge of senior fiction students in the SAGE Hills Creative Writing Program (1992). Since 1993 he has served as a visiting professor of English at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan.

Vanderhaeghe lives with his wife in Saskatoon.

Vanderhaeghe's first book, Man Descending: selected stories (1982), was winner of a Governor General's Award and the United Kingdom's Faber Prize. A novel, The Englishman's Boy (1996), won him a second Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and it was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

He is perhaps best-known for The Last Crossing (2001), a national bestseller and winner of the Saskatoon Book Award, the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. The novel was selected for the 2004 edition of Canada Reads as the book that should be read by all Canadians.

In 2003, Vanderhaeghe was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this a highly satisfying tale of the cultural clash and personal transformations that occur when two brothers from Victorian England go on a quest to the mountain West of the U.S. and Canada to find their missing brother, who disappeared on a mission to convert the Indians in the Montana territory of 1871. For a tragicomedy at the turning point of the taming of the frontier, this does not attain the heights of McMurtry’s “Lonesome Dove”, but it taps the same vein of pleasure.

The ensemble of colorful characters was marvelous for me. We have Charles Gaunt, a London portrait painter who reflects back on the story in this book when he comes across a news story about the death of a famous Indian guide, the “half breed” Jerry Potts. Decades before, his dreamy, impracticable twin brother Simon dropped out of Oxford under the sway of a kooky minister who believes the American Indians are the lost tribe of Israel who need the enlightened with the word of God. One of the opening scenes flashes on Simon getting caught in a blizzard in the West and improvising a shelter within the body of his horse and encountering an Indian we are told is “two spirited”. With no news of Simon, the rich patriarch of the Gaunt family orders Charles and his macho, snobbish brother Addington to mount an expedition to try to find Simon and bring him back. From the start, Addington want to use the quest as an adventure to prove himself as a man, whereas Charles finds something missing in his aristocratic life in the open intersection of cultures and classes in the West. Above all, this tale is about the pathway of brothers, bound to each other by blood and legacy and traditions of British imperial dominance of the world, but like children they find divergent games and roles to play at on this stage.

Other key characters include: Jerry Potts, the competent guide who suffers from being split between the cultures of the whites and the Indians and suffers from abandonment by his Crow wife and son for guiding a raid on her tribe; Lucy Stoveall, a feisty woman who joins their party seeking vengeance for the murder of her sister by itinerant trappers; and Custis Straw, a Civil War veteran who now prefers the company of women over violent men. Each is brought vividly to life, and I loved each of them as they rise to the challenges of changing circumstance and are forced to transform their initial purposes. There is a great love triangle in the story, side journeys, harrowing escapes from danger, and periods of comic relief. You will be taxed to figure out for yourself how much this is an absurdist satire and how much an old fashioned saga of romance and heroism. The balance made a nice treat for me.

I leave you with a couple of quotes to convey some of the flavor of this Canadian author’s writing. In the first, a journalist who seems to worship the cut of Addington’s jib is closing his drunken discussion on the power of the pen relative to the sword in civilization with an example of his attack on hiring an Indian to serve at an Indian Affairs trading post:

“Some years ago I wrote a small but influential pamphlet. The title was ‘A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.’ “ He allows us a moment to express our awe, as if he had said, “I once wrote a small poem, the title of which was Paradise Lost. ...
“I maintained then and I have done so to this very day, that the army must deal with the Indians, not civilians. No nonsense from our red friends then. Let the logic of lead persuade them to mend their ways.”
I raise my glass, propose my toast. “To the power of the press. To influence bought for a penny a line. To the milk of Anglo-Saxon civilization which floats the cream.”

In a final example, Charles’ party has trekked into the regions of the future Alberta and come across of group of Metis hauling buffalo meat to Ft. Edmonton (an emergent culture with part French and part Cree/Ojibwe heritage):

To my mind, the Metis closely resemble a tribe of wandering gypsies. …Stirred by what I have seen, I remark to Lucy, “How fine it would be, my dear, if we could only live as those people do! A Metis man and woman, free of the constraints and prohibitions of civilized behavior!”
Lucy turns a steady gaze upon me, brown eyes liquid, lustrous in the morning light. She studies me as Mr. Darwin must have studies his specimens, searching for the one clue that would be the key to understanding. I know she has remarked the unfortunate words I have employed—constrains, prohibitions, civilization; now she understands I think precisely in those terms. Leaning over, she brushes the corner of my mouth forgivingly with her lips. Nothing more is said. My essential self has been revealed.

[Elinor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's astonishing to me that anyone could give this novel fewer than five stars. It's beautifully written and meticulous in every historical detail, weaving some true incidents and real characters such as the famous Métis scout Jerry Potts through this fictional tale. The story is so gripping that I stayed up reading late into the night. And it has an excellent ending -- several mysteries that have dogged the reader throughout are finally solved, which was most satisfying. I enjoyed this book even more than its predecessor, The Englishman's Boy, which won Canada's top literary prize, the Governor-General's medal, back in 1996.

Updated December 2024: I reread this novel in three days and was once again lost in admiration. The author is a master of metaphors, which makes his prose so rich and rewarding. The story jumped around somewhat but I loved that as there was so much to ponder. If I could write like my fellow Saskatchewanian and historical fiction author Guy Vanderhaeghe, I would die happy.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Last Crossing' by Guy Vanderhaegue is considered book two, part of a series of three novels about the Canadian North-West, but I think they are all standalone. The Englishman's Boy, book one, is good, but not as good as 'The Last Crossing'. While both novels belong to the class of novels called Westerns, they are different in tone and subject from each other. Neither is less than literary quality, but 'The Last Crossing' is the superior read. The characters from each of the novels have nothing to do with the other novel - there is no crossover of characters or plot. Now that I've read both, I think readers would enjoy reading 'The Last Crossing' first. In my opinion, 'The Last Crossing' is the more engrossing.

It is 1870, and the cultural borders between immigrant Europeans and indigenous natives of Northern America and Southern Canada are more fluid than either group realizes. Children of White men and Native women feel emotionally hard-pressed in choosing sides sometimes, although the tribes of their Native mothers are more accepting of them. Class divisions and prejudices are maintained by many Whites whether American-born or European, especially by newcomers, despite that all races rely on each other for survival in what is still mostly a land of untamed wilderness. But the Natives are definitely losing land and health. Indians are beset by pandemics caused by infectious diseases brought to them by the Europeans, and they are dying also from ruinous addictions to alcohol. They also prey upon and make war against other neighboring tribes more efficiently, having traded animal skins and meat to the Whites for guns. Later in time there will be even more grievous harms to the Natives from the Whites, but that is in the future, beyond the scope of 'The Last Crossing'.

An upperclass English family, the Gaunts, has been split apart by personality differences and from a father's favoring of his eldest son, Addington, over his other younger two boys. Mrs. Gaunt died in giving birth to the twins, Simon and Charles. Addington is rough, brutish and a womanizer. He takes all the air out of every room he is in. Having been in the British military, he discovered he loved the skills required of soldiering, but not the discipline. He spends his time hunting, fighting and drinking. Simon is a holy fool, my words, overly religious, and sees everything in a numinous fantasy of being created by a Christian God for a reason. He becomes a member of a strange Christian Church unbeknownst to his family - until Charles follows him one day. Charles is an artist, hopeful of recognition as a great painter, but unfortunately he is only a good one. He is level-headed and well-mannered, but insecure, loved least by his father. He can't stand Addington, and he is hurt by the desertion of his twin Simon from his side into this weird church.

Unexpectedly, his father asks him to help Addington track down Simon, who has gone to America. They know he went to Fort Benton in Montana to save Indian souls in preparation for the Apocalypse. Then he disappeared. Is Simon dead? Charles is frightened for Simon, but Addington cares only for the adventure! Neither of them knows very much about America or Canada or Indians. Victorian English mores have not prepared them much for North America, although Addington's sense of privilege and feeling of authority to use violence never wavers wherever he is. Charles feels like the only grown-up, but he is helpless before Addington's vigor.

The journey seems without meaningful direction as Addington alternates between competent organization and aimless tomfoolery. The two Englishmen meet a variety of Americans. Charles becomes curious about the guides they hire and about the people of America. Addington simply wants to kill a grizzly. Both are not aware of the true motivations of those Americans - Lucy Stoveall, a recently homeless woman, Aloysius Dooley, an innkeeper, several guides, especially Jerry Potts (half Blackfoot, half-Scot), journalist Caleb Ayto, Curtis Straw, a wealthy horse seller and ex-Civil War soldier - who involve themselves in the brothers' quest. A love triangle is a secret development. Murders happen that no one cares about and there are others that occur people do care very much about. Everyone, especially the Indians, are both victims and victimizers. In any case, lawmen are not much in evidence - or often much wanted.

The author did a lot of historical research and wove in facts into a very absorbing novel. The protagonists are varied and realistic, and the author gave each one a backstory in flashbacks which instantly fascinates, especially those of the Indian tribes. I often forgot I was reading a novel! These fictional characters are intriguing.

Life is interesting in a raw undeveloped continent full of diverse personalities and cultures. The book is a keeper.

[Joe S · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has everything you need to make a historical novel suck. And not just moderate, forgivable sucking, but full-on golf ball through a garden hose suckage. Painstaking, ubiquitous research that adds nothing; language so stilted it topples off the page; unbelievable characters doing ludicrous things, but doing them -- importantly -- in period costume; overwrought British-accent narrative musings stretching to find some justifying meaning in the assinine shit-chimp plot.

Also, a glowing cover blurb from Annie Proulx. What the fuck? My mind rejects it as true non-sense.

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant at times, this sweeping epic crosses oceans, continents and cultural divides.

I was hesitating between 4 and 5 stars, and realized my hesitation came from my struggle keeping this grand novel all in my head. I don't tend to read these "big" novels very often anymore. I had to go back and refresh my memory when the narrative looped back to something 200 pages ago, but in the end it was all worth it.

There is also a lot of history here, North American history, that at times slowed the novel down, but served to remind us what has happened on this sprawling continent, not that long ago.

[Mikey B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books that had been lying on my book-shelves for several years so I decided to give it a go. It would be wonderful to say that it lived up to all the crescendos of euphoria on the covers and the first few pages by various authors and newspapers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K., but it didn’t.

It’s an event driven novel; the simple theme being of two English brothers searching for a third lost brother in the forlorn prairies of North America in the 1870’s. A sub-theme is of a woman, whose sister was brutally murdered, who joins the expedition in hope of finding and giving justice to those who killed her sister.

These events more-or-less add-up and make the conclusion worthwhile – but at the end I sensed a possible sequel. Will our main character, Charles, return to America to seek his former lover?

Several things went wrong with this novel. It’s much too long. There were digressions – such as the Civil War involvement of one character. These interruptions broke into the story and took away from the continuity; and along with the descriptions of the prairie landscape, of various forts, dreams and enchantments, most seemed out of place. These seemed artificial, like footnotes, as if the author was trying to impress with his historical technical knowledge.

The characters speak and narrate in the vernacular of their origin – as in mid-west Americana, or the Englishman as an Englishman. Overall the dialogue was wooden. Except for Charles and Lucy the others were caricatures – the stoic Indian, the Civil War veteran with PTSD, and a drunken obnoxious Englishman. Charles and Lucy were not enough to provide an emotional core to this story.

It didn’t have a flow, it didn’t move me, and it didn’t have a heart. I never felt this story created a world of its surroundings and people. Sometimes I was speed-reading. It was more a series of events.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed the first 100 or so pages, and the last 50 pages. The ending was quite poignant. I struggled with the middle portion, however. All along I said to myself that this is probably much better than my experience of it, that it is happening in my life at the wrong time. For that reason, I am giving it the 4-stars I think it deserves, rather than the lower-3 stars that was my reading of it.

There is a lot more very good characterization than one might expect of a western and a lot less plot. Is there such a thing as a psychological western? If so, I think this falls into that category. Most is told in the first person by rotating characters. There are also sections of a third person narrator, and these are mostly to give us to understand the only real person, Jerry Potts. I don't know for certain, but I suspect Vanderhaeghe did not tell Potts' story in the first person precisely because he was a real person. Three other characters get the most prominence: Charles Gaunt, Custis Straw, Lucy Stoveall. The interplay of these characters especially drives the novel.

This is one of a trilogy. I already have The Englishman's Boy, which I will read eventually. If my suspicions that these are better than my experience with this one, I will probably read the third as well. All remains to be seen.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see the reader below me gave this book one star. He is an idiot. This is one of the best books I read in 2013, hands down (perhaps only behind Mitchell's 10,000 Autumns). I have a hard time summarizing it's greatness, but I will try. To begin with, the plot and characters are extremely compelling. Charles and Addington Gaunt are wealthy Englishmen sent to the New World by their controlling father to find their lost brother Simon, who has disappeared on a Christian mission. Charles and Addington are like oil and water, but added to this dynamic are a cast of equally interesting characters: Custis Straw, an honourable Civil War veteran drawn by his heart into a murder mystery; Lucy Stoveall, a poor but strong-willed young woman who is bent on finding and executing her sister's murderer; Jerry Potts, a tactiturn half-Indian who is enlisted as a guide, but whose own history and backstory become a central plot element; Aloysius Dooley, a simple saloon owner who must do what is right and who is a faithful friend to Custis through thick and thin; Caleb Ayto, a racist foul drunkard and an obsequious sycophant to Addington Gaunt who plays to the ego of the latter by promising to turn their quest to find Simon into a "biographical adventure"; the Kelso Brothers, notoriuos trouble-makers thought to have murdered and raped Lucy's little sister. This disparate group of characters is thrown together on a multi-purpose quest of sorts, as they set out to find Simon Gaunt in the American and Canadian western frontier.

The story is driven by the hidden agendas and thoughts of the individual characters, and the author does an absolutely phenomenal job of using first-person narrative to build the story and weave the plot from each character's individual perspective. His mastery of establishing a consistent and unique voice for each character is absolutely convincing. There are several mysteries within the plot, and the reader is kept engaged and suspense is built around these nuclei.

Vanderhaeghe's prose is beathtaking and completely faithful to the period. His sentences are beautifully constructed and his description of the landscape, of action sequences, and of key character vignettes are gorgeous (Simon and the horse in the blizzard; Custis and Lucy meeting the Kelso brothers; Addington and his mercury treatments and his ultimate fate with the grizzly bear; Jerry Potts and his encounter with his son; the final great Indian battle in the coulees; the list goes on and on).

The setting is of special interest to me as well, given that I live in the very region in which the story is set: the Cypress Hills of Southern Alberta. I can immediately identify with the topography, the landscape, the grit and the heat and the monotony and the beauty.

But on top of all this, the story itself is extremely engaging. The plot twists in a few ways that are unexpected. The characters become entwined variously, and the reader is drawn in on multiple planes of emotion and suspense. Complex, compelling, gorgeously and skillfully written. I loved every single word.

[Adela Bezemer-Cleverley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have so much to say about this book but I don't know how much I'll be able to articulate clearly, because I'm in a weird emotional spot due to the book and other things happening...

This is the first Vanderhaeghe I've read, and I have to read more, because he is absolutely brilliant (I seriously need to find a new word). This book draws you right in and throws you into a journey of discovery, disappointment, and moments of clarity and beauty that just can't be described. I started to have this weird feeling once the actual adventure began and it grew and grew and has not left since I finished the book. It's like the whole vast expanse of unsettled Canada, huge sky and miles of prairie, is inside my chest--like inside my spirit, soul, heart, whatever you want to call it... like I feel like a TARDIS or Mary Poppins' carpet bag with an entire country of wild open land inside me. It sounds crazy, I know, but maybe if you have read the book you can relate.

I just spent about five minutes mulling over how to talk about these characters, because they are so complex and so... I don't know. I don't really have a character--at first I really liked Charles, especially his dry humour as he subtly calls people out on injustices and how much he cares about Simon and everyone really, but I got kind of annoyed with him by the end. Too stuck in the rut of being a proper English gentleman, even throughout and after the shenanigans in Canada. Jerry Potts is an intriguing character with his mixed background and us never really knowing his motivations. Custis Straw I disliked at the beginning because of his borderline stalker obsession with Lucy Stoveall, but he turned out to be a pretty decent guy, actually. Especially the fact that he won't stand for Addington's abusive nature, and also his patience with Charles throughout the book is quite commendable.

Lucy Stoveall is a character I have a deep admiration for... and while I had hoped that she and Charles could have remained happy together until the end (they were so cute I just... yeah), for the sake of the story it was inevitable and perfect the way everything played out. I mostly admire her ability to go on after the tragic destruction of her little sister--she manages to wade through her grief and hold on through times of utter despair and she is able to find some measure of happiness, of which I am so glad.

Addington... let's just say I was both bewildered by him and hated him with every fibre of my being. We'll leave it at that.

Now that I think about it, I guess Simon is probably my favourite character. He is the one we know the least about; we see him only through Charles's eyes, thoughts and memories, and we eventually come to the realization that Charles's comfortable portrait of his twin is not necessarily a very accurate one. Charles has the misfortune of caring too much about propriety and appearance, and one of his greatest flaws is the way he interprets, covers up, and refuses to acknowledge things that are contrary to his orderly and comfort-seeking state of being. But I'm rambling--I was supposed to be talking about Simon. Simon is kind of a fascinating character, and I don't want to say much about him in order not to spoil anything, but whole essays could be written about his convictions, his philosophies, and his choices.

This is the first novel I have ever defaced with earmarks and pencil scribbles, but it just seemed to be a natural and appropriate thing to do for some reason... I'll show you some things I found particularly remarkable. Like, for example, Charles struggling with painting the deep openness of a country so set apart from the careful hedgerows and pleasant countryside he has been taught to paint all his life.

"Pretty was not really my goal. You see, I'm rather at a loss as to how to render the scene. It's the sky that confounds me. These skies are not what I'm used to in England." I point and her gaze follows my finger. "Now how do you paint that?" We both squint into a cloudless heaven that seems to spill a fierce, pale blue light on our upturned faces. "When your training no longer answers--why then you must experiment. And it is not the skies alone, the quality of the light here changes everything, even the shadows." I trace our silhouettes, crisply etched on the ground. "I was taught to bleed the edges of shadows. But here, on this land, a shadow is a cameo, cut from black tin, sharply defined, stark." I rummage for a more expressive word. "Heavy." -pg. 140

I didn't realize at the time, but Charles' struggle with painting his surroundings in the New Country is a very clear metaphor for his struggle to wrap his traditional, English high-society scholar's mind around anything new, bigger than civilization, uncertain.

No moment I think is more drenched with perfect irony and dry humour than Charles's comment as he, Addington and Ayto sit drinking in the early stages of their adventure. Ayto is telling stories (and being disgustingly racist in the process--see "The army must deal with the Indians, not civilians. No nonsense from our red friends then. Let the logic of lead persuade them to mend their ways.") and praising his buddy Addington to no end, calling him the "cream of Anglo-Saxon civilization".

Then in comes Charles with a cuttingly clever comment on the power of media (or in their case, Ayto as Addington's personal writer) saying, "To the power of the press. To influence bought for a penny a line. To the milk of Anglo-Saxon civilization which floats the cream." - pg. 143

That stumps them for a minute or two. And then comes the sarcasm, to which the two older men are completely oblivious: "Put my bad behaviour down to envy. A painter feels his superfluousness when confronted with two monumental pillars of civilization such as yourselves." I think I actually laughed out loud when I read that.

This book is many pieces woven together--present, in the moment first person accounts, memories, objective third person bits... but one of my favourite sequences is Charles' walk down memory lane (literally) as he recalls a night-time stroll with Simon during their university days. That chapter so full of foreshadowing it's amazing, yet you can't pick it up unless you read the whole book and then go back. But before I show you some examples of that, I just really like this little part that really shows the inherent difference between Charles and Simon's characters. This is from page 154:

Simon: "I am filled with happiness here. Does your perception of the world promote your happiness?"
Charles: "My perception promotes my comfort. It permits me to make my way in the world. (...) Fairy moonbeams do not provide a steady light."

Let that sink in for a moment.

There is such a refreshing clairvoyance in Simon's dialogue in this scene, I just have to share some of it...

"We are a family of dissemblers," he said. My brother gravely pursed his lips, a judge momentously weighing a sentence. "And I am the greatest dissembler of us all," he said at last." - pg. 155

And that isn't even the best foreshadowing moment on this page--what about this little bit, which shows that Simon knows Charles far better than Charles could ever hope to know him or even himself:

"Do not follow your present course. It is a dead end. The dead end of the perfect English gentleman. Go away. Go to Italy, or to France." -pg. 155

I don't think it's a major spoiler to tell you that Charles spends many later years of his life in Italy.

And lastly, the riddles (as Charles says); the best foreshadowing for Simon's character (in my opinion) in this scene. Says he: "I edge towards honesty. But this is only a first step. I must learn courage by degrees. (...) I would not have you think ill of me. Do not think ill of me, whatever happens." -pg. 155

Next I have a little snippet of Lucy's thoughts, something Madge would say to her about finding happiness in the now which I thought was just exquisite:

She'd whisper to me to take my tiny piece of happiness, hold its honey in my mouth until it melts away. -pg. 233

The next earmark is also from Lucy, though it's in one of her melancholy moods... but it kind of hit home for me, so I had to remember it:

It might be high summer all about but inside me everything is fall. The lonesomeness of a sad, slow closing of days, knowing frost is nigh and wind needling through the cabin chinks is just around the bend. That's me, right now. -pg. 251

Then a little bit of blunt wisdom from Mr. Custis Straw, the diligent peacemaker in the margins:

"I may be ignorant, Dr. Bengough, but I'm not stupid. The difference between ignorant and stupid is that ignorance can be corrected and stupidity can't." -pg. 255

Oh look, another Custis moment--I see this little bit as illustrating the despair he has in any search for goodness in humanity:

"The first time I read the Bible cover to cover, I was in an army hospital in Washington," I said. "I had a mind to make myself believe every single word was true. The second time I read it to satisfy myself it was all a lie. Now I read it to weigh both sides, and find some truth."
Bengough nodded. "And what in the Good Book have you decided is absolutely and indisputably true?"
I thought for a moment. "That verse that says 'Jesus wept.'" -pg. 260

The characters in this book are all pretty philosophical... perhaps that's one of the things that I like so much about it. It's such an interesting study of Canadian history, of society, of character and "civilization". I'm very glad I picked it up from the Winters' flea market that day!

Here's another heavy metaphor for Charles that jumped out at me as soon as I saw it. It's immediately after Custis has effectively renounced his pursuit of Lucy Stoveall and shifted his burden (Charles's word, not mine!) onto Charles's shoulders. Then...

All night the wet snow falls, sticks to the tent; the canvas roof sags above me. -pg. 343

*break* ... perhaps this is more effective if read in context, but oh well.

Okay, so now we get into some more really interesting character and culture stuff. I had a tiny feeling (spoiler!) that Simon might be queer from some almost imperceptible hints early in the book, and I was therefore surprised and a little muddled when we learn of his having taken to the lodge of the bote, a prominent woman figure among the Crow. But then we learn the significance of the bote: she is a Two Spirit--born a man but called to the life path of a woman and held in reverence among many indigenous tribes in North America. It seems like such a natural way for a culture to respond to trans people that it really shouts at you what a wreck Western society made of everything. It is Custis explaining the nature of Simon's companion to Charles, saying that a future bote will show signs and ask to be allowed to keep company with the women as a child and... "Not to do as the child wishes would be wrong because he is born on a path, and it would be evil, a crime against nature to make him deny his spirit." -pg. 356

Wow. Right? I'm sorry that this ended up being spoiler-y but I felt like this was something that shouldn't be left out of my review because it is an incredibly interesting aspect of the story and of that culture. (I learnt about Two Spirits in my Philosophy of Gender and Sexuality course last term so I had a little bit of context for this)

The new character who visits Charles at the end, Harkness, was a perfect addition. I liked him a lot less, however, after his comment about the uncolonised parts of Canada being a "cultural wasteland". So I was glad when the plot twist I suspected ended up being his mysterious wife, Marjorie, rather than himself.

I really, really like the end of the book. I really, really like the entire book, in case you didn't gather that from the kind of ridiculous length of this review. I have the second-last paragraph underlined but I think I'll leave that for you to discover for yourself. Probably better that way.

In other news, as you can see I finally noticed the html instructions on the side that tell you how to italicize something here. Good to know.

[C.A. Simonsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as good as August Into Winter - not near as gripping as The Englishman's Boy, yet still a worthwhile read.

I share Vanderhaeghe's taste in settings. I appreciate his blend of history and fiction. In this case, Vanderhaeghe takes on a little-known Canadian legend in Metis outdoorsman Jerry Potts. Part of me wished, during the reading, that Vanderhaeghe would have devoted more time and story to Potts and less to the three British brothers. What a fascinating frontiersman he was.

Set in the late-1800s, The Last Crossing follows brothers Charles and Addington as they travel from England to British North America to find their missing sibling, Simon. Along the way, the decent Custis Straw is obsessed with solving a gruesome murder.

Not Vanderhaeghe's best but a fine read!

[MaryJo Dawson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. I was anticipating a good read after the 1st chapter, but by another 50 pages or so was disgusted and disappointed.
Oh Vanderhaeghe knows how to write, that wasn't the issue.
But why do some authors think they have to tell their story by relating every gross and disgusting and evil detail of their character's thoughts and actions?
A really good writer can tell their story without doing being so graphic, so explicit.
I like reality and as an adult can handle it. But this was over the top.

[Allegra · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe was a tougher read for me. Now, I don't know whether it was because I was busy and didn't have a chance to pick it up more than I normally would, but I find even in that case if I'm enjoying a book enough, I'll make time for it. I think when you're not reading books that you have explicitly chosen, they can differ so greatly from one another that it's hard to go from one voice to another right away. I had just finished Clara Callan which was written so simply, so casually and so personally that I was in a completely different head space going in to The Last Crossing. Yes, both books have different narrators, but Vanderhaeghe's language is much more archaic and it started to... feel like work to read it. It wasn't every voice, however, just who I would describe as the main character, Charles Gaunt.

Let me give you a brief synopsis of the story. There are three brothers: Charles, a disillusioned artist, Simon, a saintly intellect, and Addington Gaunt, a disgraced military captain, who hail from England. Charles and Simon are twins, and are very close growing up. As the years go by, however, Simon meets a Cree man in England and he mysteriously starts to change. He is more secretive, he spends a lot of time at school and he starts to drift away from Charles. Charles becomes concerned, and approaches the situation in the wrong way. They have a row, and Simon decides to leave England for "the New World" with a very close friend of his, a priest. This back story is presented throughout the novel, but the book itself opens with Simon and the priest riding through a cold winter night and getting lost. The next we hear of Simon is that he is missing. Looks like a quest is in store! It is.

Charles is sent to Fort Benton on the edge of the Montana frontier to meet up with his obnoxious, entitled and selfish brother Addington where a caravan of characters is put together: Addington's man servant who is writing a "novel" about Addington and his exploits, Civil War veteran Custis Straw, his simple-minded friend and barkeep Aloysius Dooley, Lucy Stoveall, whose sister was recently, and mysteriously murdered, and is out to seek revenge, and lastly Jerry Potts who is part Blackfoot, part Scot to guide them North. This potpourris of characters sets off to where Simon was last seen, although the members of the party are all heading North for different reasons. There's a love triangle, racism, disease, poisoning, adventure, revenge... sounds like the makings of an epic tale, right? So why didn't I like it?

CBC's Canada Reads picked this novel as the winner of the debates in 2004. I don't see it. I think I'd like to listen to the debates. This novel has all the makings of exactly the sort of story I would like, yet I was never really immersed in it. I think it was the language used. The novel is written from every character's perspective at some point and Vanderhaeghe goes above and beyond what I've seen authors do before, and he writes with starkly different voices. It's part Ebonics, part vocabulary; the novel has clearly been meticulously researched. Now this is pretty contradictory for me to say, as I love language, but the voice of Charles Gaunt was just too hard to read. Vanderhaeghe has mastered the language of the time. So much so, that I had to look up words every time Charles was narrating. Which words, you might ask? Fear not. I kept a record:

pusillanimity: lack of courage

iconoclast: a destroyer of religious images or sacred objects

evinces: proves

peregrinations: an extensive voyage

peroration: conclusion

obdurately: unmovable

destriers: war horse

pugilistic: apt to fight (pugilism = boxing)

imprecations: a spoken curse

profligacy: reckless extravagance

salubrious: health-giving; healthy

parlous: full of danger or uncertainty; precarious

garrulous: excessively talkative, esp. on trivial matters

encomiums: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly

So if you know those words, and it's just me, then well done you, but seriously? I don't think there are many readers that would go through those passages knowing what those words meant. I suppose that I could have just skipped over them, but how could I when a word like "imprecations" is such a tasty word to pronounce? I simply had to know what it meant.

No turn downs in this book (other than the words I had to look up, of course). It was... good. I am glad I read it, but I wouldn't readily recommend it to a fellow reader unless they told me they liked westerns, or novels that exemplified certain time periods. It was well written, just not for me. On that same token, I don't think it was a good choice for the whole of Canada to read, either. If you have read it, and enjoyed it, I would love to hear why. I think I could be swayed to agree.

P.S. I recently finished Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden which was, without a doubt, the best book I read in 2011. Stay tuned for the review that will be posted later this Saturday. If you haven't read this book, go buy it. Like, now.

[Marjorie DeLuca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved Vanderhaeghe masterpiece, "The Englishman's Boy" and expected great things when I picked up "The Last Crossing". I wasn't disappointed. This sweeping, epic narrative highlights a setting rarely featured in novels about the Wild West. I'm talking specifically about the US-Canadian borderlands between Fort Benton, Montana and Fort Whoop Up, Alberta. Aptly named since it was a trading post that specialized in trading illegal whisky with the local Indian tribes.
Vanderhaeghe tells the story of two brothers, one an arrogant and vicious womanizer, the other a sensitive, humble sort - sent by their father to search for their brother who disappeared somewhere deep in the west. Enter more colourful characters. Jerry Potts, a "halfbreed" scout, Lucy Stoveall, a tough "no nonsense" type looking to avenge her sister's murder and Custis Straw, a Civil War veteran. The unlikely group set out on a journey through the wild borderlands. With subtle and poignant detail and drama, Vanderhaeghe takes the reader on a haunting journey that highlights the injustices suffered by the scattered Indian tribes and the hardships endured by those attempting to survive in the early frontier days.
The characters in this book are so memorable I felt a sense of loss when the book ended. And his knowledge of the setting transports the reader into the time and place with such intricate and authentic detail I was driven to read more about it afterwards. Vanderhaeghe captures the voice of each character so masterfully and drives the action forward in such a compelling way I had difficulty putting the book down. A must-read for lovers of the Old West.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Last Crossing is my first attempt at Canadian writer, Guy Vanderhaeghe. I did take my time reading it but I found it getting better and better and I couldn't wait to see how it resolved itself.
The story is basically a western, or if you like, historical fiction. For the main it is set in the midwest US and western Canada in the 2nd half of the 19th Century. Charles Gaunt and his brother Addington are sent from England to the New World by their father to find their brother Simon. Simon had voyaged to North American with a missionary to convert the native Americans. Charles and Addington are to find Simon and return him home.
Also in the story are various people the meet in the West, at Fort Benton; Lucy Stoveal, whose sister has been murdered, Custis Straw, in love with Lucy and trying to keep her safe and Jerry Potts, half - white, half - Native American, torn between his two worlds and acting as guide for the Gaunts.
It's a fascinating story, peopled with interesting, varied characters, enough action and history to keep you happy (the battle between the Cree and Blackfeet is so well - described) and a reasonably satisfying ending that leaves you with many possibilities. Very pleased with the story and nicely surprised how much I enjoyed it. (4 stars)

[Jason P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book - the third Guy Vanderhaeghe I’ve read in the past year or so. What a fantastic author. His ability to weave a series of plots into a gripping narrative set against a deeply researched historical backdrop makes for a great read. In short - what a great voice. And what a great Canadian voice - reflective of the amazing past of this country and its tragic impact on the peoples who were here long before.

[Frances · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book quite a bit, despite its bearing a cover photo taken by Edward S. Curtis and a jacket summary that uses silly words like "frontier", "American West" and "epic masterpiece". Vanderhaeghe writes a pleasant portrait that moves in and out of what Frederick Jackson Turner called the "death of the frontier" in 1896, both affirming the status of the frontier and undermining the reader's assumption about what constituted the frontier as a space in the first place. That ambiguity alone is worth the read.

The writing becomes steadily more engaging as the story progresses. Vanderhaeghe refuses to conform to standard historical fiction in several ways. First, not much actually happens in the story (two brothers set off with a few other folks in 1876 Montana, searching for the third bro who has gone missing), and he still manages to keep it engaging. The majority of the plot is spent wandering around the Montana prairie, and the various characters ruminate on things like stars, grass, and each othe...and yet you want to keep reading to find out what the others think. Which brings me to my second point--Vanderhaeghe's narrative structure. Curiously, Vanderhaeghe chooses a very Faulkner-esque mode of narration. Each chapter is split between several characters who tell the story for a few pages from their perspective--much like As I Lay Dying. Unlike Faulkner, however, Vanderhaeghe's character voices are often indistinguishable from one another, despite the fact that one is a woman, one is English, one is a half-blooded Blackfoot who is supposed to have bad English skills, another is Irish, and so one. You would think their dialects and individual cadences would vary substantially...sadly, this is not the case, which was a bit disappointing. We are also unclear who each person is addressing in each section. They are all written in the past tense, often with reflective tones that seem to be speaking from quite a few years later: "I knew it was going to have to be that way" sort of thing. Yet by the end of the novel, more than one character is dead. Are they excerpted journal entries? If so, why didn't Vanderhaeghe just take the plunge and write as an epistolary novel, opening himself up a whole new way of distinguishing characters via their obviously varying literacy levels?

Structural issues aside, the novel itself is quite engaging. Although the non-traditional protagonists (the Indian, the female) that Vanderhaeghe attempts to write are not always as complex as the white male characters, the entire narrative drives well--as a reader, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. As a novel that isn't quite historical fiction or literary fiction, The Last Crossing takes some chances that pay off enough to where its weaknesses can, for the most part, be forgiven.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't really begin to appreciate this book until I was nearly 300 pages into it; fortunately, I stuck with it and was rewarded with what in the end turned out to be a great story.
My difficulty in the beginning was Vanderhaeghe's method of relating the story -- by constantly changing narrators from one character to another. It's impossible to determine who the real central character is. Virtually every one of his main characters has a few turns at it and I found it difficult to really latch onto any of them, since they would just get started relating the story from their point of view when they would leave the scene for a while and the reader was presented with a completely different perspective. It was sort of like a play made up of an endless series of soliloquys but hardly any real dialogue.
Although the tale centres around the three Gaunt brothers, with all of their individual (and less than endearing) personalities, it's the secondary characters such as Lucy and Custis who really add depth and dimension. An account of an idle, spoiled, religious zealot who sets out to "save the red Indian" or one who embarks upon an expedition across the North American frontier, with a flunkey journalist in tow to record his adventures may remind one of why Englishmen abroad have often been so cordially detested but it would hardly make for an interesting read. The problematic position of "half-breeds" like Jetty Potts also greatly enriches the story, along with wonderfully detailed local colour and touches of humour. Fiunally, I must mention the author's tremendous skill in the use of descriptive language, which raises the level of the book to a work of prose.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely deserved the Canada Read prize. Must read for any prairie people on either side of the border in order to better understand the tragedy of colonization and its impact both on the plains people and the colonizers. Thank you Guy Vanderhaeghe for bringing this period of our history alive in this must read novel.

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

To Americans, a bestseller in Canada is like a tree falling in the forest. Unless it's written by Margaret Atwood, they don't hear it and it doesn't exist. A beautiful novel by Francis Itani followed that parochial rule last fall. No. 1 in Canada, "Deafening" barely made a sound on the other side of the border. This baffling literary disconnect between the world's two most connected nations is about to be tested again. Guy Vanderhaeghe's "The Last Crossing" was selected as one of the best books of the year by Canada's major newspapers. The Canadian Booksellers Association chose it as their favorite novel of 2002, and readers there have sent it to the top of the bestseller list. If there's any literary justice, any thirst for adventure, any love for a great Western, then "The Last Crossing" won't just cross the Canadian border, but shatter it.

With points of view that rotate among half a dozen characters, settings that jump from England to America to Canada, and time periods that slip back and forth across the 19th century, it sounds like an arduous journey (of course Canadians would like it), but part of Vanderhaeghe's genius is melding all these elements into an irresistible story.

Mr. Gaunt, a ruthless industrialist in England, has three sons who have disappointed him in different ways despite his efforts to mold them into great men. His eldest, Addington, pursued a promising military career until it was cut short by his rash cruelty. Charles insists on studying art, which is no way for a grown man to behave. And Simon lilts about in second-hand clothes like a cryptic mystic, reading romantic poetry and posing Socratic questions.

The story begins with the discovery that Simon has disappeared somewhere in the American West while following a charlatan who planned to convert Indians. The minister's body has been found frozen and disemboweled (no converted Indians nearby), but Mr. Gaunt insists that Simon is alive, and he dispatches his remaining two sons to find him and bring him back to England.

For Addington, this assignment to the New World offers a welcomed return to command. Since his discharge for brutally quelling an Irish riot, he's been spiraling into dissipation and depravity (described here in disturbing detail). He arrives at Fort Benton, Mont., with a journalist in tow to record his brave adventures and begins assembling enough supplies to circle the globe.

Charles is not shocked by his elder brother's bragging, his presumption of command, or his constant need for praise. All these annoying traits he knew to expect. But what unsettles him is the sense that Addington has no real interest in finding their brother. The expedition, Charles worries, is a kind of lark, a chance to impress young ladies and hired hands with tales of bravery.

Just before they set off from Fort Benton, a young girl is found raped and murdered. Her older sister, Madge, prevails upon Addington to let her tag along with the search party in hopes of tracking down her sister's killers. And that, in turn, inspires a Bible-reading horse-trader to tag along in hopes of winning her heart.

Chief among this marvelous caravan of characters is Jerry Potts (based on the historical figure), a Saskatchewan "half-breed" who signs on as the party's reluctant guide. He remains impassive to Addington's attempts to impress or annoy him, but in Vanderhaeghe's narrative, we see the dark complexity of what really troubles Potts: his alienation from both cultures, the gulf between whites and Indians into which he's lost his wife and son.

Charles quickly emerges as the troubled conscience of the novel, a man drawn tight between threads of filial devotion, love, and hatred, tangled in his own contradictions.

He depends on Addington's command, even though it grates on his pride. He adores Simon's purity, but looks for ways to spoil it. He yearns for his father's approval, but when finally given the commission, snickers over plans to paint his portrait with defective oils.

In the backwoods of the American West, Charles finds the space to consider all these crosscurrents of his family life. Vanderhaeghe knows just how to tighten that peculiar vise of brotherly affection and competition, forcing Charles to confront the shame of jealousy and effete ambition. But for all its costs, Charles's studied caution nonetheless keeps him alive, safe from following Simon's holiness into oblivion or Addington's daring into madness.

On the spokes of this fantastic novel spin cowboys and Indians, gunfights and Civil War battles, romance and broken hearts, murder and revenge.

As the saloonkeeper remarks in frustration, "Everybody chasing after everybody else!" But the most arresting moments are quiet ones, tableaux that Vanderhaeghe designs with startling effect: Jerry Potts spying on the son he cannot touch, a village silenced by smallpox, Addington's naked body smeared with silver medicine.

With its bracing mixture of violence and spiritual yearning, "The Last Crossing" rides deep into the psychological territory of these desperate characters. Vanderhaeghe is a genius at distinguishing their various voices, emanating from entirely different cultures, some already doomed despite a last moment of glory. Their alternating points of view, puzzle pieces forced together by the rough hand of history, create a jagged mosaic of spectacular change.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0217/p1...

[Lizling · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me several chapters to get a handle on this book. It was mainly the writing style that was my issues. I was unfamiliar with many of the words - were these from the time period?. The descriptive writing took some effort, so not a quick read.
Although the change in point of view at first kept me confused about the timeline, I overall enjoyed the perspective of the many characters. I only fully understood the sequence of events of the first few chapters after getting further along in the book.
But that and the mysteries kept me reading. I especially liked the complex, flawed characters and discovering their histories. You could also see the extensive research the author had done into the time period.
Overall a good ending but I felt I was missing out on several characters’ full story.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am beyond happy I am finally done with this disaster of a book. It was my last read for this semester and the sense of accomplishment is real, kids - especially because I did not enjoy any of the books I had to read for class.
Truth be told, I have certainly read worse books, but rarely has any story been as bland as this one. While I generally liked the writing - I found it especially nice that the style changed depending on the current PoV character - it was not exactly to the point. There were many lengthy descriptions no reader could possibly care about, as well as a concerning amount of repetition. The characters were either despicable - yes, I mean Addington - or rather boring, which made the general lack of plot even less bearable. There was an aspect of crime to the story that seemed very relevant in the beginning but increasingly faded into the background only to never be properly resolved. Granted, the reader knows who did it, but I believe that it ought to have been discussed by the protagonists, too.
All in all, I found The Last Crossing to be quite boring. Neither the plot nor the characters managed to capture my attention and I did not care how it was going to end.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the many things I enjoyed about Guy Vanderhaeghe's *The Last Crossing* I most enjoyed his use of narrative voice. The book moves between characters third person limited perspective with delineated sections for each and in ways that allows the same event to be experienced "differently" by the reader as it is shown from a different voice. This narration is particularly appropriate in that this book, set in the 1860s in the (eventual) American and Canadian northwest, is historical fiction: a genre that demands we readers think about the whose perspective is being offered *and* about how multiple versions of history contradict, complicated and confuse an idea of "what really happened."
I love Charles Gaunt as a character best of all. Charles opens the book as he receives a letter advising him to return to Canada. The bulk of the narrative is then taken up explaining why Gaunt might want to return to Canada - what and who is there for him? and the book closes with the return to Gaunt's present as he decides what to do about the letter. I love Charles because he sees his own limitations and failings and does not shy away from them. He realizes, too, those things about himself he cannot know - a sort of conscious ignorance and accepts that this ignorance will impact his decisions. He's just the sort of thoughtful and reflective person I'd like to be.

In any case - I enjoyed the book. I found it provocative as well as "readable" - that ineffable quality of just being a pageturner. It's well worth the read. Though you've probably already read it being as I'm showing up to the party a decade late (made more hilarious - to me at least - in that this book would have been/is *perfect* for my now complete dissertation. Oh well - even more enjoyable to discover it now when I can just "enjoy" it and its complexities without wondering how I'll explain and analyze each passage).

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a slow read, and I think deliciously so.

With shifting narrators come varying language styles, perceptions, values, hopes, dreams, and this is the way a reader comes to know the characters. The temptation many times is to actually read the page out loud, to savor the dialects and crawl inside the hearts of the speakers.

True enough, this slows down the pace of the action. The plotline itself is elegantly simple: a certain group of people set off on an adventure into the wilderness, each in pursuit of his/her own dream/goal. Along the way they get more than they bargained for.

If you're reading for the action, you'll be disappointed, though there are plenty of exciting developments. If you're reading for a sense of life in the settling of the American West, for all its pain, all its grime and glory, all its splendor, you'll enjoy this novel.

For me the drawback in the device of the shifting narrators is a shallowness that comes in being repeatedly ripped away from involvement/investment in a character, as it unfolds. At the end I felt like I was reading to solve a puzzle rather than to find out what happens to real people.

While the denouement is a good resolution of the various strands of relationships, I would rather have been shown rather than told what happened. In a word, perhaps in focusing on quite so many stories/people, I lost attachment to all of them.

Nonetheless, the themes of family and identity, roots and loyalty are profoundly explored in a novel that stays with you long after you've finished reading it.

[Dyana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was NOT a light fast read. No kidding - I had to carry a dictionary around with me while reading this book - learned alot of new words like encomium, fice, destrier, peroration, toxophilite, etc. This was an adventure story about two English brothers ordered by their father to travel to the North American wilderness of Montana in the 1870's to find a third brother, Simon, who has disappeared and feared killed by Indians.

Addington Gaunt, an insufferable disgraced military captain, leads the expedition along with his brother, Charles Gaunt, a disillusioned artist. They hire a half breed (Blackfoot/Scotsman), Jerry Potts, to guide them. Along the way they pick up Lucy Stoveall who is out to find the men who killed her sister and falls in love with Charles; Caleb Ayto, a toadying writer hired to record Addington's adventures for a future book; Custis Straw, A Civil War veteran in love with Lucy; Aloysius Dooley, saloonkeeper and best friend of Straw; and two wagon drivers.

What I found fascinating was the author's vivid descriptions and characterizations of cowboys, Indians, gunfights, Civil War battles, sickness, romance, murder, revenge, scenery and the motivations behind all the character's feelings and actions. The ending was a surprise, but if you read between the lines of the story, you have an idea of what will happen. There were plenty of clues. "A feast of a book."

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book during a Canadian Novel course in university and I must say, not one of our prouder moments as a country.

This novel bored me to death. I have never fallen asleep so many times trying to read a book. I understand that the drawn out nature of the plot line is in direct reference to the idea that the trip the characters are taking is a long and cumbersome one but wow. I could not keep with it. After reading ten pages, it felt like two hundred. I cant even say for sure if I finished reading it. It was lacklustre enough for me to not really remember much about it other then its arduous nature.

The narrative was bizarre. I dont mind changing the narrators for a fresh perspective on the story line but to have so many made it confusing to keep up with. Again, also drawn out when the same situation was described several times, in very similar manners but by different people.

Did not enjoy.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe I'm just looking for excuses to get to some of the good books I got for Christmas... but I don't think so. I'm giving
this up after 2 short chapters. The cover claims the author's won writing awards, but the writing is jarringly bad.

"The glaring light stabbed thorns in her eyes; they streamed with tears. What she was straining to see could not be a vision; visions were given freely to her. This seemed to be a thing of the earth, but very strange. She hurried on.".

Despite the fact that her non-vision was a guy hiding & finding warmth in a horse's dead body, I'm putting this one back on the give-away table!

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful! Loved the characters and their individual story lines and how they all intertwined. Enjoyed the part about Mr. Potts and the then NWMP (now RCMP) and the story lines involving Calgary, where I now live, and the mentioning of various forts and routes taken, all part of the western part of Canada.

[Rosemary Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very well written book and a good story- the descriptions of the people and of the scenery is very vivid.

[Thomas Vaseux · Rating 1 out of 5]

Style très étrange. Impossible d'accrocher.

[Peggy MacDonald-Finley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this one!