Literascape - The Man from the Creeks by Robert Kroetsch

The Man from the Creeks
by Robert Kroetsch
Random House Canada, Toronto
307 pages, $32.00
reviewed by Joy Gugeler

Pitched on his head, and pumped full of lead, was Dangerous Dan McGrew,
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou.
-- Robert Service, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew"

Like a half-mad prospector bellying up to the Klondike, it is hard not to scratch your three-day beard and wonder how often it is possible to mine the veins of the Gold Rush and still come up with a shiny nugget -- of fiction, that is. If Robert Kroetsch's new novel, The Man from the Creeks, is testament, it is surely clear there is still "gold in them thar hills".

Kroetsch is no stranger to the geohistorical trek through the rich territory of our past, as Badlands and elements of his other novels (The Studhorse Man, The Puppeteer, and others) attest. Kroetsch revels in trickery, myth, and word play, thrills to an inverted metaphor or an upended icon, and the Gold Rush is certainly ripe for excavation on all accounts.

But this book, for British Columbians especially, will signify more than an obligatory nod to the legend that ties the Gold Rush to their province of residence (and Kroetsch's -- he lives in Victoria); it signifies a commitment to making the sepia photographs and "backwoods" prose of the era live and breathe in the realm of fiction as well as non-, in the realm of our imaginations.

Love is not incompatible with the rough terrain of the stampeders for Kroetsch, who moves beyond the heroic national epic to true romance. It is a romance between the fated Lou and "the man from the creeks" and just as quickly a romance between audience and storyteller. For how could we not love a tough single mother named Lou, shirt-sleeves rolled and cocky as all get-out? How could we not pledge allegiance to Ben, a scruffy but chivalrous maker of whisky barrels headed for his riches in the north and hell-bent on blind faith and good will? How could we say no to a young boy named Peek whose misadventures and pubescent wanderings land him smack between these two least likely of lovers? Surely we are, like many a prospector, doomed from the start.

Peek (named for a mountain top by a chronically bad speller) and Lou (renamed herself to command respect and muscle) head out for the land of plenty with a meagre grubstake, stowing away on the shaky Delta Queen. Early on they are discovered by the less-than-hospitable Captain Poole, who steers the overcrowded, underfuelled, leaking and lost ship unsteadily up to Skagway.

But just when you think the jig is up, Ben, a paying passenger and all-around good heart, steps forward to pay for Lou's indiscretion in barrels of whisky. Unfortunately this is not enough to protect them from the insistence of the angry (and now drunk) mob that they be set adrift near shore. When Ben graciously agrees to accompany the two hooligans to safety, the three find themselves sharing a tent, miles from their destination, with winter looming. Luckily, they are rescued by Tlingits and taken to Skagway, where they can begin the trek through treacherous Chilkoot Pass.

Chased by the notorious crook Soapy Smith and wrongfully accused of murder, plagued by avalanches, illness, the ghost of Peek's father, and terminal bickering, the three make it through the mountains and into the clutches of one Gussie Meadows, a saloon barmaid turned entrepreneur who has set up the only hardware store in Bennett, the last camp on the Yukon River. Peek finds himself employed in more ways than one when Gussie takes him on in the Hardware and in the back room, giving him his first taste of the sweet spice of lust and affection.

When the ice breaks, the race against the elements is on. Four thousand boats light out, risking life and limb in the punishing rapids before Dawson City. Down to a small fraction of the original whisky stock (survival comes at a price), Ben, Lou, and Peek limp into Dan McGrew territory. Ben saved Dan's life once, and now he needs to call in the favour. But Ben's luck has run as low as the booze, and he refuses to sell his last ounce of liquor. It is then that gold fever hits Ben full force, and no amount of Lou's discouraging can dissuade him from pursuit of the motherlode.

Meanwhile Lou and Peek are set up in fine quarters courtesy of Dan McGrew, Lou weighing in the daily finds and Peek tinkling the ivories in the local saloon. Dan McGrew is knee-deep in debt at the card table and making his move while his "partner" is up to his elbows in grit, dust, and disappointment. For Lou, Ben's absence weighs more heavily than the findings.

Kroetsch brings us full circle to the opening quote from Robert Service when Ben returns to the saloon determined to take what's his and to surrender to his love for Lou.

Kroetsch can turn a fabulous phrase. His sharp-shooting wit crackles on every page, and we cannot bear to tear ourselves away from the trail or the trials of fair Lou. The reader in search of a refined literary aesthetic (if such a thing can be unanimously defined) must look elsewhere. This book, like the trio's expedition, is not for the faint of heart. Kroetsch has us swinging from the rafters, grit under our fingernails and whisky on our breath. Yee hah!

Joy Gugeler is the publisher at Beach Holme Publishing Limited and is completing a PhD on Canadian materials in high schools.