THE CARIBOO TREK OF CALLUM MCBAY

Hoping to save his family’s farm, 18-year-old Callum sets out on the long journey from Scotland to the Cariboo gold fields of British Columbia.

In a restrained narrative that requires patience from readers, Campbell sends his young prospector across the Atlantic to New York, around Cape Horn, and on up north to remote Williams Creek to join the 1860s gold rush. Callum travels through rugged terrain via steamboat, canoe, wagon, mule, foot, and (in a rare passage where the stiff tone temporarily unbends) even imported camel. Readers can, with difficulty, plot the last stage of his course on the book’s single, cramped map. A summer’s work and a few vague descriptions of gold-mining techniques later, he’s ready to start the equally arduous return journey with pockets full. But he’s barely set off when the author leaves him. Aside from one mention of a landscape stripped by miners, Callum rarely takes note of his natural surroundings, spoiled or otherwise, and the people he meets on his trek are barely even two-dimensional. Following the abrupt ending, a note on the area’s First Nations residents by university scholar Nicola Campbell, who is Nłeʔkepmx, Syilx (Interior Salish), and Métis, includes the tidbit that the gold rush drew workers from many parts of the world; that diversity is not reflected in the story itself.

No gold, for all the miles traveled and intriguing setting.