The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker

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Title: Northern Lights, Complete

Author: Gilbert Parker

Last Updated: March 12, 2009
Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #6191]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE ***

Produced by David Widger

NORTHERN LIGHTS, Complete

By Gilbert Parker

CONTENTS

Volume 1.
A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS
ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER
THE STROKE OF THE HOUR
BUCKMASTER'S BOY

Volume 2.
TO-MORROW
QU'APPELLE
THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE

Volume 3.
WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY
GEORGE'S WIFE
MARCILE

Volume 4.
A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY
THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS
THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN
WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION

Volume 5.
THE ERROR OF THE DAY
THE WHISPERER
AS DEEP AS THE SEA

INTRODUCTION

This book, Northern Lights, belongs to an epoch which is a generation
later than that in which Pierre and His People moved. The conditions
under which Pierre and Shon McGann lived practically ended with the
advent of the railway. From that time forwards, with the rise of towns
and cities accompanied by an amazing growth of emigration, the whole
life lost much of that character of isolation and pathetic loneliness
which marked the days of Pierre. When, in 1905, I visited the Far West
again after many years, and saw the strange new life with its modern
episode, energy, and push, and realised that even the characteristics
which marked the period just before the advent, and just after the
advent, of the railway were disappearing, I determined to write a series
of stories which would catch the fleeting characteristics and hold
something of the old life, so adventurous, vigorous, and individual,
before it passed entirely and was forgotten. Therefore, from 1905 to
1909, I kept drawing upon all those experiences of others, from the
true tales that had been told me, upon the reminiscences of Hudson's
Bay trappers and hunters, for those incidents natural to the West which