DRIFTING HOME

by Pierre Berton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1973

A very agreeable pursuit for all hands, as the Canadian author (most recently The Impossible Railroad, 1972), his wife, their seven children and four guides travel up the Yukon River in three rubber boats on what is for Berton a sentimental journey. His father, one of the goldrushers, came up north by much the same route at the turn of the century to settle eventually in Dawson where the author grew up. Along the way Berton quotes from his father's journal, dredges up his own memories of places and people, comments on time and the river. The young people -- and attractive, bright and amusing companions they are -- whoop it up, run the rapids, and produce some impromptu entertainment. The scenery with its human artifacts is hypnotic (except for an occasional pocket of man-made pollution). In Dawson Berton roams his home town, remembering and seeing it through ""four pairs of eyes"" -- as his father's ""biggest city north of San Francisco""; as the comfortable town of his own boyhood; as the present dying backwater headed for a tourist-museum existence; and as his children's ""charming Disneyland"" of the past. A likable, evocative drift home which may, alas, speed up traffic on the hitherto fairly pristine Yukon.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION