The Expedition

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Clayton Bailey, a professional photographer and professor at
l’Université de Montréal, has created a uniquely interesting work of
intrigue, photographic history, and historical fiction about the
pioneering adventures of North American railroad surveyors breasting the
Continental Divide. Much of the book’s intrigue resides in the
deception of Joanna Reid, who poses as a youthful male photographer
named Reid J. Reid in order to travel with an all-male survey crew that
is engaged in exploring and mapping the best routes for the mid-1800’s
westward push of the fledgling railroad system.

As the settings of the story evolve from flat plains and quiet rivers
to dense forests and impassable mountains, and while Joanna jealously
guards her privacy from the increasingly suspicious eyes of the crew
leader, Captain Aaron Masse, readers are introduced to the bewilderments
of early photographic equipment and primitive development techniques.
The stories of the crew overcoming both nature’s obstacles (storms,
rapids, raging rivers, and mountains) and impediments of their own
making (dissension, despair, disrespect, and dislike) are equally
compelling.

While tension abounds in a voyeuristic-like fashion over whether
Joanna’s deception will be discovered by the males around her, even
more heightened drama occurs when Masse capsizes his canoe and is left
stranded on a canyon shelf to diarize the last days of his life.
Joanna’s days also appear to be numbered when she is captured by an
Indian band, confined to a cave, and threatened unless she can work the
magic of her camera despite the loss of parts and the chemicals needed
for processing the film.

Bailey’s successful adoption of the idiomatic language and
grammatical structure of the times adds to the realism of the story. The
Expedition will engage both general readers and those with a specific
interest in historical fiction.