"To the Bright Edge of the World" -- A fascinating new novel by Eowyn Ivey

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To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey | Trailer

From the internationally bestselling author of THE SNOW CHILD comes an extraordinary story of discovery, adventure, and a husband and wife tested by the different paths their society expects them to tread.

[bsteadman]

A Novel’s Team of Explorers Sets Out to Tame Alaska

The New York Times
by Amy Greene
9/2/2016

Excerpt:

TO THE BRIGHT EDGE OF THE WORLD
By Eowyn Ivey
Illustrated. 417 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $26.

In the spring of 1885, Lt. Henry T. Allen and his small band of explorers attempted to ascend the Copper River, one of the largest uncharted waterways in Alaska. Others had failed before. The last man to try had made it less than 60 miles upriver. The territory was unmapped and unforgiving. There were rumors of hostile Indians. Allen and his party set out in March, traveling by sled and snowshoe, hungry and low on ammunition. They were guided by an 18-year-old Ahtna chief who shared his food and helped to build the skin boats they navigated upstream. By the end of August, they had explored 1,500 miles of wilderness and become the first men to chart the Copper River. Although little was made of it at the time, Allen’s expedition was perhaps the most significant on the North American continent since Lewis and Clark’s.

What might a *party like Allen’s have learned on their journey, not only of the vast and cold wilderness they canvassed but of themselves? The Alaskan novelist Eowyn Ivey dreams up the answers to these questions in her powerful second book, “To the Bright Edge of the World.” She sends her own band of explorers out in 1885 to tame a fictional *river in Alaska Territory, an uncivilized land on the cusp of a gold rush, its resources sought after by men whose purposes ran counter to nature. In the words of one character: “If we can measure, we are sure we can grasp and claim as our own.” Col. Allen *Forrester leads the expedition up the uncharted Wolverine River, leaving behind Sophie, his pregnant young wife. As the men map the brutal terrain, they encounter local tribes and animals, starvation and mortal danger. They must also confront *forces that can’t be conquered, explained or even seen.

Ivey’s 1885 Alaska Territory is a mystical world where “a thin line separates animal and man,” where shape-shifters, lake monsters and the ancient dead move among humankind. As Colonel Forrester and his men venture deeper into the primeval woods, they find they have entered a world too unknowable to grasp in their minds, too untouchable to hold in their hands. The colonel calls it “a grand, inscrutable wilderness. Never are the people here allowed to forget that each of us is alive only by a small thread.”
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View the complete article, including image, at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/bo...owyn-ivey.html