BORN ON SNOWSHOES

by Evelyn Grinnell Shore ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Mrs. Shore gives us a special, unadulterated taste of hard living in her autobiography of childhood and adolescent years in Alaskan Territory. The family eked out a living on the trapping runs; there was berrypicking and fishing on the side. But nature took its toll, crippling her father with arthritis that hospitalized him, drowning the boys in icy waters, striking down the baby with sickness. Mom and the three girls were left to join old trapper John on his run up the Salmon, and they canoed, dogsledded, and trapped through the long, fierce winters. Descriptions of trapping methods, the ways of the dogs, peppered with canine personalities such as lead dog Katy's and human ones like a pyromaniac companion who sometimes practically roasted them alive, show the ways of the North. There was the season that found the quartet bringing the largest wolf catch to Fairbanks, and there was the growing loneliness of the grown girls who wanted more than the wearying drudgery and danger of trapping. Finally they broke their traces to marry, and then two married trappers! Stirring in its authenticity.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Houghton, Mifflin

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1954

Categories: NONFICTION