When Eagles Call

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Many of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s recruits during the early 1800s
were Hawaiians. The hero of this historical novel is Kimo Kanui, a young
man from Oahu who leaves the unwelcome changes he sees occurring on his
island (“rows of dingy taverns dotted the waterfront, beckoning
drunken seamen from every part of the globe”) to seek his fortune on
the shores of the north Pacific Coast. There he meets and falls in love
with Rose Fanon, a half-Kwantlen, half-French-Canadian woman. The HBC
rules by which Kimo must abide are strict, and living conditions are
harsh. His affair with Rose becomes a backdrop for the tense relations
between the HBC men and the many Aboriginal groups of the
region—Kwantlen, Cowichan, Sechelt, Klallams, Sumas, and other tribes
along the Fraser River.

Dobbie, a docent at the Fort Langley Historical Museum, has more than
enough knowledge of early coastal history to inform her story. Her
strength, however, lies more with melodrama than with history. Dobbie
writes evocative prose. She is at home when describing the lush country,
characters, or the harshness of life: “It had rained for so long that
the people had grown dispirited with the unending leaden gray skies. The
landscape reeked of dampness and dank. People struggled in vain to keep
their homes and clothing dry.” But she’s equally at home with the
heightened language of emotions: “He liked her laugh, the quick
response. It struck him the hardest part of a man’s contract with the
Hudson’s Bay Company might not be in enduring the killing work pace,
but in staying celibate. ... For himself, all he wanted was honest
friendship.”