From War to Wilderness

Monika Rohlmann is an environmental consultant in Yellowknife, Northwest
Territories.

From 1899 to 1916, Cyril Shelford’s father wrote numerous letters to
his family. The letters came from a variety of places: England, Africa,
New York, Kansas, Vancouver, Fairbanks, and, finally, Hazelton, British
Columbia. The letter writing slowed only when marriage and family
brought about a full-time homesteading life. Cyril’s father passed
away in 1951, when Cyril was 30 years old. A trunk full of letters back
in England along with many storytelling memories of his father inspired
this book: a collection of letters that takes the reader from the Boer
War in Africa to the wilderness of northern British Columbia.

Chapter by chapter, the letters provide an intimate view of many
historical and cultural events. There is a soldier’s account of the
Boer War, passage by ship across the Atlantic, job-hopping across the
Midwestern United States, ferrying north from Vancouver to Fairbanks,
firsthand accounts of the effects of Russia’s selling of Alaska to the
United States, and, finally, the challenging task of building a life and
home in Canada’s wilderness.

The spirit of adventure and enthusiasm displayed by early Canadian
settlers, along with the farms and communities they built, are among the
many details revealed in the letters that Canadian naturalists and
historians will find of interest.