Elliott Merrick (1906–1997)

Ever since reading The Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace years ago, I have indeed been hooked on the place. This is the 4th or 5th memoir I've read about the region. They all center on the small town of North West River which was originally settled by French voyagers and Scottish fishermen. It is a fascinating place the more one learns about it, being perched on the doorstep of two great wildernesses - the northern inland forests to the west and the sea to the east. It is also the northern-most town on the Eastern seaboard with access to a road. Keep driving north and the road stops there. This is a memoir by a young Australian nurse who worked at a medical mission in North West River the late 20s and early 30s, before meeting and marrying her husband Elliott Merrick who was also there as a school teacher. Merrick came from blue blood, his father ran the countries largest lead company in New Jersey and Elliott was a Yale grad, but he enjoyed nature and went his own way. He wrote about a dozen books during his lifetime including penning this memoir about his wife, as retold in her voice. The memoir recounts her experiences with patients and the characters she encountered. At some point the mission doctor became sick and left, she took over doing duties and performing treatments she had no formal training it but never lost a patient. Life there in the 1920s was so much different than today, they were closer to 1720 then 2020. Elliott wrote a couple other books about Labrador including True North which looks more my speed with expeditions into the wilderness, but this provides stories about the people and life of a frontier nurse.… (plus d'informations)

I haven't finished it but I notice that if one doesn't type something into the review box then one doesn't usually win another first-read. Unless one is Chris Wilson, who defies all rules and logic to win freakin' first-read after first-read (we hates him for that). I've been sitting on this one for a long time, reading it slowly. Some thoughts to place here, so that I can maybe have a chance at winning more books again:

- this dude lived out a childhood dream I've had since reading Gentle Ben, leaving all the cities and roads behind to live up north

- his view of the native peoples was disturbing. it's like the conflicted feelings society seems to have generally about poverty, where aww we should help them but they're all criminals so they need to keep away.

- nature is so damned beautiful

- not much about his wife

- while I'm jealous of his adventure, I'm also a bit irritated that he did this. Like this dude: [b:American Shaolin: One Man's Quest to Become a Kung Fu Master|1116851|American Shaolin One Man's Quest to Become a Kung Fu Master|Matthew Polly|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181139409s/1116851.jpg|200605].… (plus d'informations)

In 1929 Elliott Merrick gave up his advertising job and headed to Labrador, Canada. [True North] is his diary from his 1930 trip with the local trappers and his wife. The writing ranges from philosophical musings to straightforward accounts of day to day activities. Generally I enjoyed the narrative, though there were a couple of places where I felt the things he was talking about did not mesh well – for instance the professed love and respect for nature while at the same time working with trappers who kill animals for fashion purposes. However, there were a lot of interesting tidbits about the daily life and some beautiful descriptions of the landscape. A nice passage at the end of the book when the trappers are preparing for their next hunt:

“…when they start again in winter, the first few days are unadulterated misery. It is a little like going to war. Toward the beginning of February all the trappers figuratively tighten their belts and clench the muscles of their jaws. It is time to start back into the woods again on the long, bitter haul to the furring grounds. Each man is conscious of an enormous presence that begins just back of the house, the wilderness that is waiting. He hates it and loves it; he fears it and defies it and understands its grimness and its bounty. His utmost endurance and the fortitude that is a steel-strong habit in the long days will not change its sphinxlike face by so much as an ice crystal. But in the mystery of paradoxical sensations that the wilderness rouses, each man senses that he has been made whatever he is by the great Unknowable where he is going. It cares not whether it kills him or makes him rich, but he knows the great Unknowable well enough to have borrowed and armed himself with a little of its own immortal carelessness.”

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.… (plus d'informations)