The Klondike Quest

Toward the end of a Value Village trip a couple of months ago I found a copy of The Klondike Quest, and although the dust jacket and binding were both a bit beaten up, it's a nice collection of photos to have around, so I decided to grab it. The text is by Pierre Berton and the design by Frank Newfeld (former art director and VP at McClelland & Stewart, Alligator Pie illustrator extraordinaire and more recently author of a memoir, Drawing on Type, also on my to-read list). Barbara Sears did the photo research and although I don't know anything else about her, photo research is task I have recently discovered I loathe and it must have been a monster job for this book, so she gets special mention here. I haven't read it all the way through, but it's in my bedside stack and I like paging through the photos when I'm between books or too tired for a proper before-bed read.

The town where I grew up was on the Gold Rush Trail and I was kind of weary of the subject by the time I moved away for university. Or weary, at least, of the various efforts to resuscitate its allure for the tourist market. Efforts which included planting gold-painted boulders and plywood cancan dancers on the town's outskirts. You get the idea. I've more or less made peace with the tackiness but it took me a long while to regain any appetite for books or movies to do with that era. However, in addition to The Klondike Quest, I have also lately begun watching the HBO show Deadwood, which aired a few years ago. Along with the period costumes and grit, which are their own draw I suppose, the show has exceptional dialogue. A far cry from the script used in the reenactments (oh yes, there were those too) put on every summer in our fair village. Printing enthusiasts will also appreciate the scenes that take place in the shop of the town's newspaper publisher and job printer A. W. Merrick (one of the handful of characters based on real people, in case you feel like diving down that rabbit hole).

So things have been right pioneering around here lately. But it's still hot and I do intend to get back to the remainder of the summer book club list before the season's out. Just you wait.