Phantom Lake: North of 54

Linda M. Bayley is a freelance writer based in Sudbury, Ontario. She is
the author of Estrangement: Poems.

Phantom Lake is one part autobiography, one part town history of Flin
Flon, Manitoba. “Personal essay” is what Sproxton calls it in a note
at the end; “creative documentary,” another term he uses, could
apply as well. I like to think of it as an excavation, one in which he
digs through layer after layer of fact and fiction, prospecting for
truth and meaning. He is mining for the ideas of Flin Flon, life on the
Canadian Shield, and northern identity.

Sproxton makes his exploration from the headframe of a return visit to
his hometown. While he and his brothers revisit the haunts and
adventures of their youth (most of the adventures being centred around
Phantom Lake), he recounts the story of the town’s beginnings,
starting with it being named for that great explorer, Josiah
Flintabbatey Flonatin, Esq. It is only after several pages that Sproxton
lets on that Flintabbatey Flonatin is not real; it is one of his chief
fascinations that Flin Flon was named after a character in an old
English novel that it seems to have imagined into existence. “Old
Flinty” pops up again and again in Phantom Lake, as do many of the
real (though larger-than-life) prospectors and explorers who figure in
the area’s early days.

My only complaint about the book is that Sproxton does not render his
own history with the same detail and love that he gives to Flin Flon and
the Canadian Shield. Very often he does not describe his relationship to
other characters, so that the reader is left guessing who he’s talking
about when he mentions Sally, or Sheila, or any one of a dozen other
friends and family members. It is as though he could not get far enough
out of his own head when writing these passages, or did not think that
the book would be read by anyone who didn’t already know him.
Otherwise, Phantom Lake is a goldmine, shot through with rich language
and worth patient exploration.