A Tale of Courage

After reading The Last Giant of Beringia about the geology of the Bering Strait, I was drawn to read a bit more about the frozen frontiers of Alaska. Someone gave this book to our family recently, and since I also adore tales of survival, this one was a perfect fit for me.

The book is loosely based on a true story of an Eskimo boy who was lost in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1960s. Thus, alongside the Inuit boy Kayak, Houston brings the story to a more popular American audience by adding another boy, Matthew Morgan, who’d just moved to Frobisher from Arizona with his geologist father.

When Mr. Morgan and his pilot-friend fly out by helicopter into a wicked storm in search of a secret vein of copper, they fail to return and cannot be found by the searchers. Figuring they know exactly where the helicopter may have landed, Matthew and Kayak steal a cousin’s snowmobile and venture out into the -40 degree weather to cross nearly 100 miles in search of the lost men. Things go awry, however, for the mostly unprepared teens, and they instead find themselves stranded 75 miles from Frobisher without any hope of continuing. Their safe return is imperiled, and the only thing than can possibly save them is their wits, courage, and determination.

For obvious reasons, this book reminded me a great deal of Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet series, a series I now really want to read again! Although it’s marked as good for kids 12 and up, it’s not a book I’d probably read to my kids (ages 9 and 11), though I’m sure I’ll encourage them to read it in the coming years, as their tastes develop beyond fantasy into more realistic, suspenseful fiction. There were scenes that also reminded me of stories from Jack London’s Tales of the North and even that epic survival book, Touching the Void.

I really enjoyed this novel and am interested to see what else James Houston might have written. The minimalist illustrations by the author at the end of each chapter were pretty sweet too—my kind of art.

©2022 E.T.