To the Bright Edge of the World

Author/Guide: Eowyn Ivey

Why a Booktrail?

1885: As Alaska was opening up to the world, people rushed hoping to conquer it, but Alaska would end up conquering them in the most unexpected of ways.

ISBN: 978-1472208606
Genre: Fiction, Folklore, Historical

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What you need to know before your trail

1885, Colonel Allen Forrester leaves Vancouver with a small group of men and heads out to a explore the area around the Wolverine River in Alaska. Alaska has recently been ‘opened up’ to international prospectors after been in the hands of russia for so long and now this river, is the key to prosperity and fame for many.

All kinds of explorers,traders and even just the curious head off to find and control this natural and raw, rugged beauty. Who ever conquers the Wolverine River could hold the key to the future of Alaska itself. The prize is therefore high, but so too is the price.

Colonel Forrester has left his wife behind in the barracks ofVancouver. Recently married, she fills her time with her sense of adventure and wishing she could be with her husband. She writes letters, fills diaries and tries to keep her own adventurous spirit under control.

Home or away, Alaska has the ability to move, shape and infiltrate people’s lives in the most unexpected of ways.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Wolverine River in Alaska.

A fictional setting in name but a very real and evocative landscape for the author.

You can tell Eowyn is part of this landscape herself and how she lives and breathes the remoteness, the endless fields, the raw, rugged landscape..the chilling atmosphere…

And what a time she illustrates and evokes – Alaska is like a playground for prospectors, traders and hunters of every description and those who just want to come along for the ride. Curious men and women who are there to see what the fuss is about and to see for themselves this new and unexplored landscape.

For no one really knows about this landscape and what it holds. Rumours are that it has bountiful resources of every kind, amazing wildlife never seen elsewhere and that landscape – the rivers, trees, endless views and the fear of the unknown. Quite a draw.
Since there is little habitation here, the rivers criss cross the vast landscape like motorways. People here move around by boat or via ice fields. Indians and the natives live hidden and undisturbed. But this Wolverine River as well as being the main artery of life here, once cut open and accessed by others, could bleed out and all life here could in fact be lost.
For now the freeze protects it as rivers here are unaccessible when the winter is at its peak. But once the ice melts, the free for all can begin.

And so starts the Colonel’s journey of some 1,000 miles, recording what the group discovers with photographs and diaries. meeting the natives, forging friendships or relationships of some kind and all the while trying to stay alive

Booktrailer Review

Susan @thebooktrailer

I am in awe of this author. Such a world she captures in only few lines, and it’s a world which chilled and fascinated me in equal measure. This was truly a novel to savour and to read slowly to allow it to build up and really take hold. If I hadn’t thought what it would be like to go on a trek across undiscovered land, I was right there, following in the snowy footprints of these explorers.

I can’t praise this novel enough. I loved every word and savoured the evocative and very vivid descriptions. The cover is amazing and only hints at the beauty of the scenery within. Am I gushing? Probably but Eowyn has I think here captured not just the sense and allure of the place, but the mystery of its history, it’s unique landscape and the chaos that a vast undiscovered land can endure once the world gets a look in.

I particularly like the way the story is told Allen and Sophie’s personal diaries and scribbled thoughts create a picture that I will never forget, slowly built up and examined via their letters and notebooks. These stories from the past are added to with the present day thoughts of Allen’s great nephew. When I realised what a struggle it would have been for Allen and Sophie to write, receive and then reply to these letters, the time it would take and the difficulty of getting post through this landscape, the mind boggles.

There’s just so many layers to this novel – imagine that eagle on the front cover, its feathers ruffled as the Alaskan wind blows – the feathers never blow the same way and each time they reveal something else….that’s this novel. The setting also is evoked with the magical inclusion of a raven and an old Indian man who add shivers to an already magical tale

The journey to Alaska in the 1880s is fraught with danger and challenges that no one can predict and this book takes you on one magical and evocative tour.

I also loved Sophie’s acerbic commentary on Army wives, her descriptions of the mechanics, techniques, and practices of photography in the 1880’s, and the love between Sophie and Allen which shines through the book.