Tunnels of Treachery

Alana Trumpy is a graduate student in English at the University of
Toronto.

The underground tunnels of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, were a piece of
splashy news when they caught fire in 2004, unfortunately exchanging in
consequence a few minutes of national coverage for a major setback to a
local tourist industry that has dedicated itself to letting people in on
a little-known aspect of what many might assume was a bland Prairie
existence in 1920: a thriving underground rum-running industry.

Mary Harelkin Bishop’s third instalment in the Moose Jaw Adventure
series invites young readers to engage themselves with the exciting
remnants of Saskatchewan history. By including two new characters,
Chinese-Canadian twins who discover their Chinese–Western Canadian
past, it also asks readers to think about some of the more shameful
hidden aspects of 1920 prairie life. The plot highlights the link
between laundry and grocery stores and opium-smuggling operations, and
the relative powerlessness of the store owners. Andrea and Tony, the
heroes of the series, travel back in time and work with their then-young
grandparents to rescue the twins from these horrible conditions. It is a
fun plot.

Unfortunately, the author’s treatment of the latter subject is, like
so much historical fiction for young readers, more than a little
heavy-handed. The historical detail Bishop has collected for this novel
is bountiful. She would have done well to describe the social
environment and merely let her characters move within it. Young readers
are intuitive enough to form their own moral conclusions from there;
that’s what fiction is all about. Recommended.