HIGH ADVENTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20420, 23 November 1929, Page 10 (Supplement)

HIGH ADVENTURE.

ACROSS UNCHARTED SNOW.

Not satisfied with hooks merely for boys, Putnam's, the enterprising Amen can publishers, mnko a feature of hooks by boys. Their own true stories of adventnro by laud and sea make stirring reading, and of the, gallant little band none can have taken much greater risks than 14-year-old liobert Carver North, who, despite old-timers' warnings of tho dangers of freezing and starvation, "trekked" with his father in 52dcg. below zero weather over winter trails where no white man ever before survived. His narrative bears tho mark of simple truth through its very lack of tho literary skill with which an older writer might have depicted the possible horrors of that lonely trail. From Ontario north to Hudson Bay in tho depths of winter is a journey which might well have daunted older men, but thero is in young North's account a very refreshing absence of conceit or " swank to him it all seems one great picnic, even when ho is attacked by the painful mal do raquetto (or snowshoo sickness), or when ho has to march 30 miles with a badly blistered heel. Renioto and isolated as lifo must necessarily be in these far northern outposts, the installation of radio has inado an extraordinary difference and it is a strange sight io see the inhabitants solemnly dancing to music from New York night clubs. The young author pays a fino tributo to (he Hudson Bay Company, which, as ho says, not only assists tho Indians by providing a steady market for furs which keeps them occupied and busy, but also at tho opening of tho season gives credit where deserved. Through the company tho Indian has gained the comforts without the luxuries and vices of civilisation. North draws a very pleasant picture of primitive Creo tribes making a regular custom of family prayers which is preceded by a curious rite, in which the visitor is expected to join, of carefully combing tho hair before tho reading begins. They tako tho Christian religion ve> 7 seriously. Throughout tho book the tone is thoroughly. clean and manly without any mawkishness, and if Putnam's other young authors arc up to North's standard tho experiment has certainly justified itself. "Bob North with Dog-team and Indians," by Robert Carver North. (Putnam's).