Terra Incognita

Kristin Butcher writes novels for young adults. Her most recent works
are The Tomorrow Tunnel (shortlisted for the 1999 CLA Book of the Year)
and The Runaways (regional winner of the 1998 OLA Silver Birch Award).

Sixteen-year-old Madeleine Hebert is convinced that men have all the
excitement and adventure in life. But when her mother’s death prompts
her and her older brother, Philippe, to leave Paris in search of their
father who is soldiering in New France, Madeleine is determined to
change that. The year is 1670, and the fur trade is a bustling—if not
highly esteemed—source of income for the growing colony. Discovering
their father is not in Montreal where they expected to find him, but at
a trading post in Michilimackinac on Lake Huron, Philippe secures
passage there with a young courier de bois named Gabriel Jarret.
Refusing to be left behind in a school for girls, Madeleine chops her
hair off, disguises herself as a boy, and joins the expedition. The
remainder of the book is concerned with the adventures she encounters
while masquerading as a male.

In her first novel, Anne Metikosh has used an adventure story to convey
historical facts prescribed by educational curriculums. Though
Madeleine’s sensibilities are perhaps more reminiscent of modern girls
than 17th-century young ladies, and though her range of knowledge is
inconsistent—at times she seems to know things she would be unlikely
to know, while on other occasions she is overly naпve—the story is
still credible. The cover and title are unlikely to entice young readers
to pick up the book on their own, but it would make a worthy supplement
for classes studying the fur trade. Recommended.