Adrift in the Ice-Fields
Public-domain ebook
Adrift in the Ice-Fields
Language: en7,129 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #21607.
About this book
The work is a juvenile adventure set against the frozen Gulf of St. Lawrence, where a party of six hunters, an English gentleman, a Methodist merchant, a young Irish rigger, a New‑Brunswick Yankee, and two other companions, spend the spring of 186‑ on the ice‑fields of St. Jean. Their preparations for a seal‑hunting campaign quickly give way to a series of mishaps: the ice breaks up, they are forced to build shelters, hunt for food, and contend with the harsh weather until a sealing steamer finally rescues them. The opening pages lay out a detailed picture of the region’s geography, the customs of its French‑Canadian, Gaelic, Irish and Indigenous inhabitants, and the practicalities of life on a sealing vessel, promising a narrative that blends hunting lore with a study of northern cultures.
Written in a straightforward, descriptive style typical of late‑nineteenth‑century adventure tales, the prose is rich in period detail and carries the voice of a knowledgeable narrator who admits his own limitations. Readers who enjoy rugged outdoor exploits, historical sketches of early Canadian frontier life, and stories that balance action with ethnographic observation will find this book engaging. It appeals especially to young readers who appreciate tales of survival and camaraderie set in a vividly rendered, icy wilderness.
The opening · free to read
Later in the season the breaking up of the ice carries four hunters into involuntary wandering, amid the vast ice-pack which in winter fills the great Gulf of St. Lawrence. Their perils, the shifts to which they are driven to procure shelter, food, fire, medicine, and other necessaries, together with their devious drift and final rescue by a sealer, are used to give interest to what is believed to be a reliable description of the ice-fields of the Gulf, the habits of the seal, and life on board of a sealing steamer.
It would seem that the world had been ransacked to provide stories of adventure for the boys of America; but within the region between the Straits of Canso and the shores of Hudson's Bay there still lie hundreds of leagues of land never trodden by the white man's foot; and the folk-lore and idiosyncrasies of the population of the Lower Provinces are almost as unknown to us, their near neighbors.
The descendants of emigrants from Bretagne, Picardy, Normandy, and Poitou, still retaining much of their ancient patois, costume, habits, and superstitions; the hardy Gael, still ignorant of any but the language of Ossian and his burr-tongued Lowland neighbors; the people of each of Ireland's many counties, clinging still to feud, fun, and their ancient Erse tongue, together with representatives from every English shire, and the remnants of Indian tribes and Esquimaux hordes,--offer an opportunity for study of the differences of race, full of picturesque interest, and scarcely to be met with elsewhere.
The century which has with us almost realized the apostolic announcement, "Old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new," with them has witnessed little more than the birth, existence, and death of so many generations, and the old feuds and prejudices of race and religion, little softened by the lapse of time, still remain with their appropriate developments, in the social life of the scattered peoples of these northern shores.
Regretting that the will to depict those life-pictures has not been better seconded by more skill in word-painting, the author lays down his pen, hoping that the pencil of the artist will atone, in some degree, for his own "many short-comings."
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