LURE OF GOLD IN RUGGED FAR NORTH FRONTIER BRINGS DISASTERS
White River Crossing
By Ian McGuire
(Crown Publishing)
Interview by Diane Slocum
In winter of 1766, a fur trader arrives at a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post with a rock and a tale of gold in the far north country. He convinces the company’s chief factor to pay him to tell him the location. The commander then sends a secret expedition consisting of his blustery and self-confident second-in-command, John Shaw, his inexperienced nephew, Abel Walker, a moody mariner, Tom Hearn, and two Native American couples to Ox Lake to find the gold. Conflicts between the distinctive personalities on the expedition, with their Ingenious companions and others they meet, and the harsh conditions of the far north lead to one catastrophe after another, while also testing what the lure of riches does to the souls of men.
AUTHORLINK: What was the first idea you had for this story?
MCGUIRE: I keep a notebook for jotting down new story and novel ideas. The vague and quite cryptic suggestion that eventually became White River Crossing was: “A fort (winter?) a prophet appears.”
AUTHORLINK: How did it develop from there?
MCGUIRE: I had to decide, first of all, where this imaginary fort was located and exactly when the story should be set. I did some Googling and discovered that the main Hudson’s Bay Company trading posts, although they had no military purpose, were usually called forts, so I started to do some more reading about the fur trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to see if that would work as the context of my story.
AUTHORLINK: I noticed that one of your resources is Ancient Mariner: The Amazing Adventures of Samuel Hearne, the Englishman Who Walked to the Arctic Ocean. Since your most central character, among the many who occasionally show their point of view, is Tom Hearn, did this reference play an important role in your story?
MCGUIRE: Yes, it was crucial. When, as part of my initial research, I read Samuel Hearne’s account (published in 1795) of his remarkable overland expedition from Fort Prince of Wales, on the western shore of Hudson Bay, to the northern coast of Canada, I decided that his journey would become the basis for my novel. Samuel Hearne travelled alone accompanied by a group of indigenous guides and he was searching for copper ore, but in the novel, there are three Englishmen, all with very different motives and personalities, and they go looking for gold not copper.
AUTHORLINK: You list multiple sources in your bibliography – can you describe your research into the Indigenous culture in that time and place?
MCGUIRE: Because the indigenous cultures around Hudson Bay were entirely oral, the only written records we have from the eighteenth century were produced by European fur traders. Samuel Hearne’s A Journey to the Northern Ocean is one significant source of information but there are also other important books written by James Isham and Andrew Graham who were Governors of Fort Prince of Wales duringthis period. I used those sources as well as consulting documents in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg, but I was also well aware of the one-sided nature of the historical record and so approached them with a degree of skepticism. In relation to the Inuit specifically, there are extensive anthropological accounts produced by the Danish/Greenlandic writer Knud Rasmussen in the 1920s which I also relied on quite heavily. Although Rasmussen was describing Inuit culture 150 years after the period in which my novel is set, I don’t believe very much had changed so some of the customs and beliefs he describes are in the novel without being significantly altered. As a historical novelist, of course, you are often using your research as a springboard. There are always going to be gaps, often very large gaps, in the historical record so you have to employ a combination of knowledge and imagination to fill them in as best you can.
AUTHORLINK: Did you have Indigenous individuals to consult with regarding your depiction of their culture and your Indigenous characters? If so, how did you find them and how did they proceed with their assistance?
MCGUIRE: I had a sensitivity reader look at the finished manuscript which was useful. I didn’t act on all their suggestions, but it was helpful to see how they reacted and what they noticed and didn’t notice.
AUTHORLINK: If you can do it without giving too much away, can you describe how your story can be described as a literary tragedy?
MCGUIRE: Although he’s not a king or a nobleman, as the protagonists of Shakespearean or Greek tragedy usually are, you could certainly think of Tom Hearn as a kind of tragic hero. Although in comparison to most of the other characters we are encouraged to admire him, he also has significant moral flaws which as the novel proceeds become more obvious and (without giving too much away) end up causing him some serious problems.
AUTHORLINK: I think this is your fourth published novel, how have things changed or stayed the same as you have gone on to become an author of multiple books?
MCGUIRE: Each new novel offers a fresh set of challenges so in that sense not very much changes. On the other hand, of course, you do gain some experience and along with that a certain increase in self-awareness and self-confidence. Having published four novels, I know that running into difficulties is just a normal part of the writing process so when things get tough I’m less prone to despair than I used to bebecause I have more faith in my ability to get through it and find a solution to whatever, seemingly insurmountable problem, I’m running up against.
AUTHORLINK: What are you working on next?
MCGUIRE: A novel set in London in the early 1970s. It’s mostly about politics. One of the things I find most interesting about that period is that people could still realistically imagine capitalism being swept aside and replaced by something quite different. There was an element of plausible revolutionary belief which is quite hard to imagine in our present moment.
About the Author: Ian McGuire became a lecturer in American Literature at the University of Manchester in 1996. He later lectured in creative writing and teaches in the Centre for New Writing. He lives in Manchester, England. His published novels include The North Water, Incredible Bodies, The Abstainer and White River Crossing.
