FernFolio

Plucked alive from among the dead bodies in a lifeboat and brought by ship to the port of Montreal in 1809, Peter figures, based on his size and colouring, that he is 15 or 16 years old and English. Named Peter by the crew of a passing ship, the boy remembers nothing of his past life, neither his family, his name, or the vessel from which he climbed into a lifeboat. He gets a job working at an inn near the harbour, hoping that someone will recognize him, but becomes a victim of the casual brutality of the innkeeper, and the more pointed bullying of the innkeeper’s sons.

When he rescued by Boulard, a cheerful and sturdy French voyageur in the employ of the Northwest Company, Peter finds himself heading west in a canoe to meet the famous David Thompson, partner in the Company, who has made it his life’s work to survey Canada’s west as far as the Pacific Ocean.

Thompson is determined to find the headwaters of the Columbia river, believing that these will provide an overland route to the new, and rich, fur-trading grounds of the west coast. Impressed by Peter’s ability to draw, the explorer agrees to allow the boy to accompany him, his voyageurs, and their native guides as they undertake a dangerous, and thrilling, journey along Canada’s waterways from Montreal past the Great Lakes and across the prairies to the Rockies. Though winter is closing in, Thompson insists on pressing ahead with his explorations into the mountains. Accidents, bad weather, food shortages, hostile natives and increasingly resentful Company employees make the trip exhausting and difficult beyond Peter’s imaginings, but the boy finds within himself the courage and fortitude to withstand the challenges, and experiences the adventure of a lifetime.

Full of the day-to-day chores and realities of an early 19th century cross-continent trip by canoe, horseback, dogsled and snowshoes, and rich in the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of Thompson’s historic journey, Perilous Passage is a wonderful book for Canadian readers who love and take pride in their nation’s history. It is a good story about an extraordinary undertaking!

FernFolio Editor