In Quest of Fur: The Travel Journal of William OK Ross, 1909

Geoff Hamilton, a former columnist for the Queen’s Journal, is a
Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

The subject of this book is a journal composed by William Oliver Kennedy
Ross, a fur buyer from Quebec City who in 1909 travelled—by foot,
dogsled, and boat—as far as the west coast of Newfoundland. Ross
recorded his daily activities over a roughly three-month period,
including his negotiations with fur dealers and locals, and his braving
of the challenging conditions of rural travel. Accompanying the journal
itself are a map of the route travelled by Ross from Quebec City to
Newfoundland; an informed and stimulating introduction to the journal by
its editor, Philip E.L. Smith; several contemporary photographs of Ross
and the regions he visited; an appendix containing the transcript of the
original text before editing; an extensive bibliography of sources
relating to the region and its people in the late 19th and early 20th
century; and a very detailed “Endnotes” section, significantly
longer than the journal itself, which elaborates on references Ross
makes within it.

Ross was not a literary man, but his writing is ruggedly articulate and
absorbing. One gains a vivid sense of the risky adventure involved in
his voyage, and of the practicality and determination of the man
himself. Several anecdotes are highly memorable, such as Ross’s
(albeit brief) description of a boat trip involving perilous navigation
through a maze of icebergs. Smith’s copious endnotes flesh out the
narrative and suggest a wealth of characters and intrigues lurking just
beyond the margins of Ross’s text (one entry, for instance, describes
“a celebrated hermit named Michel Hémon who … spent half of his
life [28 years] in solitude at the mouth of the Mistassini river”).
Students of Canadian history will, no doubt, find this a useful
resource; Smith’s scholarship is extraordinarily meticulous, and can
be relied upon for authoritative commentary on the period. Those with an
interest in real-life adventure stories will also not be disappointed.