NOTES FROM THE CENTURY BEFORE

This is a novelist's peppering of impressions and sundry excitations in a three-month trip through British Columbia's northern wilds, a frontier area that is still hunting-trapping-fishing grounds for its sparse population of Indians and whites. On the way to conjuring up recollections of the region's craggy individuals and stinging-cold natural beaty, Mr. Hoagland also celebrates himself as a feverish observer--downing chow and responding to the locals who guided him, put him up or merely caught his eye; or bemoaning lost loves and sexual extravaganzas. Many, many serene-to-lonely people all introduced with a cymbal clash of appreciation; some mighty scenery more quietly explored--and Mr. Hoagland's middle-years weltschmerz. Although perhaps too rawly personal for most travellers' tastes, this is still an original, adventurous ""return to man himself from a previous existence, about to be sealed off and stoppered""--the pristine life of the North.