Categories: Animal StoriesBook ReviewsBrianAlanBurhoe

MAN SCENT by Samuel Alexander White – Northern Canada Book Review

Northern Canada Book review

The Canadian Northern (or Northwestern) novel once had a high place in the Best Seller fiction lists — back in the first half of the 20th Century. From the release of Jack London’s masterwork THE CALL OF THE WILD in 1903, stories of the Land of the Northern Lights drew an enthusiastic readership for fifty years. Among them:

Samuel Alexander White released MAN SCENT in 1935, a gripping collection of interconnected animal stories appearing originally in the Northern Messenger.

“The new steel of the Canadian Pacific Railway had arrived in the Algoma country, and its contractors were making war on the wilderness…”

MAN SCENT by Samuel Alexander White

Samuel’s stories told of “Blood-Fang” the fierce outlaw husky. And “Grey-Muzzle” the outlaw’s wolf mate, who would be taken as a sled dog by the men. “Winter-Foot” their wolf-dog son. “White-Coat” the Varying Hare who escapes them all. “Bronze-Back” the “wisest beaver in Ojibway country” who outwits the railway builders trying to destroy their dams. And “The Black Prowler” the hungry bear who seeks wild honey and cookhouse bacon.

The tale of “Forager” the otter starts off so warm and cuddly: “Gaily the otters had been plunging down the slides, playfully rolling in the creek. Holding mock water-fights, scratching, biting, wrestling and mending each others imaginary hurts with kisses and cuddling gestures. They were at the height of their enjoyment when the cold, inquiring wolf-dog nose spoiled it all.”

Grey-Muzzle had stalked Forager before. And now she followed him again along the shore as he dove deep into the water and swam downstream. She followed with wolfish intensity. Until she found him among the beaver lodges. But “twice before Forager had drowned unwary wolves which had attacked him” and now a life and death battle had begun in the dark waters…

“Lotor” the raccoon stopped washing his freshly caught crab when he saw the canoes coming down the river. Lotor knew that when men flashed by in their canoes, often their savage huskies followed them along the shores. When he heard the approaching howls, the raccoon ran for the nearest tree. But the tree was slanted and the wolfdogs followed him. And the tree was old and it broke. And Lotor fell into a canoe…

We also meet porcupine, weasel, marten, wapiti, lynx, moose, musk-rat, wolverine and more in tales of sudden tragedy and happy outcomes.

All illustrated with Samuel’s own pen and ink drawings.

An original work. A seminal work. A unique, exciting blend of Northwest adventure and Animal Story. The interaction of Human and Animals, both good and bad.

My personal pick as Samuel Alexander White’s best book.

“The weird, purple shades of evening slanted down through the birch groves and the spruce thickets on the Michipicoten River, glooming the restless waters that flowed to Lake Superior.

“Within the lofty pineries the purple changed to ebony and the tree boles stood as black as velvet-coated pillars. Night had fallen like a sable blanket on the Northland.

“Out of his secret den in the Michipicoten rocks padded Blood-Fang, fiercest outlaw husky in all the wilderness between Superior’s inland sea and James Bay’s sub-Arctic waters.

“Blood-Fang had dreamed in his day’s sleep of drinks of red deer’s blood and sweet mouthfulls of yearling moose meat, and now at night the pain of hunger stabbed his lean stomach like a knife…”