Worshipful Company of Skinners, in the

Drawing on his research into the journals of early Canadian fur traders, poet Endre Farkas has crafted an imaginative account of one man's transformation in the strange land that becomes his home. Beginning with the narrator's harrowing sea voyage from the Orkney Islands to Newfoundland, and ending with his uneasy retirement in Montreal, this fictionalized journal describes the "crackling swirls" of the Northern Lights and the "silver threads" of rushing rivers, lists the business transactions of the almighty Company, and recounts everyday life in the fur trade, from celebratory nights of feasting and fire water, to catastrophic periods of famine, disease, and slaughter. This is a story of the unexpected change that comes over a man as he witnesses the beauty and hardship, compassion and cruelty, ambition and exploitation that forged a nation.