Crazy Man's Creek

Description

196 pages
Contains Photos, Maps, Index
$15.95
ISBN 0-920576-71-0
DDC C813'.54

Publisher

Year

1998

Contributor

Reviewed by Matt Hartman

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Review

The author’s purpose, stated in the introduction, is to preserve the
stories of the trappers, guides, mountainmen, and woodsmen who were the
friends of his parents in the “isolated communities” in which he
grew up. “Almost all of these men,” he says, have now passed on,
“leaving me with the hope that many of the fondest memories will live
on in these pages.” The stories are set in the rugged mountains east
of Prince George, B.C., near the Alberta border; most take place during
the first three decades of the 20th century, a time when the only routes
into that wilderness were by riverboat and the Grand Trunk Pacific
Railroad.

The book takes its title from the “craziness” that was the fate of
many of these men as they succumbed to loneliness, “an insidious,
continuous malady that can eat at a person’s mind until madness or
suicide ensues.” Along with the solitude came the dangers presented by
the wildlife, which included the wolf packs (“20 or 30 strong, that
sometimes followed the men through the forests for miles”) and, most
threatening of all, the grizzlies into whose habitat the men had to roam
in search of furs. This fine example of Canadian outdoors oral history
is recommended for public and school libraries.

Citation

Boudreau, Jack., “Crazy Man's Creek,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed January 17, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/515.