Mackinac And Lake Stories by Mary Hartwell Catherwood

 

Though in those days of the young century a man might become anything; for the West was before him, an empire, and woodcraft was better than learning.—“The Black Feather”

This 1899 anthology of short-fiction center around voyageurs, trappers, and the culture of the mountain and river men of the US-Canadian Border.

The author was exceptionally strong in her historical detail, so much so that no less an authority than esteemed historian Francis Parkman praised her novels for their accuracy, and she was dubbed by some reviewers as “The Parkman of the West.”

Now, onto the prose.

The historical details are correct.

The tales themselves seem to straddle the line between aiming for high accuracy and elevating a bit above “Boy’s Own Adventure Tales.”

While not necessarily compelling literature, if one is an enthusiast of the exploits of the voyageurs of the northern Rivers [and I am] she is fine author to sample now and then.