Far North By: Will Hobbs

    Imagine being a kid from San Antonio, Texas who moves North. Like WAY North: past the middle of the United States, the northern United States, and arrive in Canada; where you head straight to a city in northern British Columbia called Fort Nelson to wait for a plane that will take you even further north to Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories. Now imagine making this trip all by yourself because your dad is working on a remote drill site in between Yellowknife and the Arctic Ocean and your mom is dead. Welcome to the life of Gabe Rogers, a 15 year old kid who is about to embark on an unexpected adventure of a lifetime that will most likely end his lifetime... This is Far North by: Will Hobbs.

    On the flight to Yellowknife, Clint, a 22 year old man who works for the air charter that is taking Gabe up to Yellowknife, talks about heroic men and less heroic men who have gotten stranded in the Nahanni Valley (better known as Dead-men Valley). The Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada is a vast mountainous and hilly tundra that is in between Fort Nelson and Yellowknife. Clint tells Gabe about the unforgiving and freezing climate, waterfalls twice as tall as Niagara, haunting tales of men who got lost and were found dead and headless, and mysterious legends and myths of how they died. Was it bears? Maybe frostbite? Or maybe it was the head-hunting Nahannies, a cannibalistic tribe ruled by a white European Queen? Nobody knows.

    In Yellowknife, Gabe attends a boarding school where he will do tenth grade. Gabe is assigned a room where he has a roommate named Raymond Providence. Raymond is from the Dihnay tribe, a tribe that lives in a remote village on the other side of Dead-men Valley. Gabe and Raymond instantly become friends and talk to each other about their very different lives. Raymond is giving up in school and his grades are plummeting. He loves hockey and is really good at it but cannot be on the school's hockey team because of his low grades. Gabe does his best to help motivate Raymond, but it doesn't work.

    At the end of October, Gabe's boarding school lets out for a three-day weekend. Gabe is wondering how he will spend it when he gets an invitation from Clint to show Gabe around his new homeland in his plane. Gabe is pumped. He wakes up super early the next morning and heads out to the airport where Clint is waiting. Clint explains that they will go to Nahanni Butte, a famous waterfall on the edge of Dead-men Valley. Clint tells him that he is not the only passenger on the flight and they need to return some native people to their village. They need to wait for them. Soon, the other passengers arrive. An old native man with white hair who looks very depressed. Behind the old man is.... Raymond? Gabe is shocked and Raymond is embarrassed.

    The plane takes off for Nahanni Butte. During the flight, Gabe learns that the old man is Johnny Raven, Raymond's great uncle and he doesn't speak English. Soon they arrive at Nahanni Butte. The plane lands on the river so everyone can look outside at the wilderness surrounding them on all sides. As they get ready to take off once more for their final destination, the Dihnay village, the engine dies. Clint tries once more to turn the engine on: still nothing. He takes a look out the front window and what he sees is not good. The waterfall is approaching fast. With no hope left in the plane, Clint orders everyone to grab some supplies and swim to shore. The water is freezing and the currents are extremely strong but Gabe makes it to shore. He looks around for the others but nobody is there. He decides to continue along the banks of the river closer to the waterfall. All of a sudden, he sees 2 figures struggling in the water. He lends a hand and pulls ashore Raymond and his great uncle. They turn to see the plane and the rest of their supplies are gone. Gabe's worst nightmares have come true, they are stranded in the middle of Dead-men Valley with limited supplies, no shelter, and a rapidly dropping temperature. But wait, where's Clint?

    I really liked this book because of the action, suspense and surprises. If you like action, then I highly doubt you will be able to put this book down. Combined with the suspense and surprises, I became riveted to the book and read it in one sitting. If you are not a big fan of action, I would still recommend this book to you for it's story of an ever-strengthening friendship, courage, and determination as two very different boys join together to attempt at the impossible. The book has also won a lot of awards including An American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, an ALA Top Ten Book for 1996, and a Colorado Book Award, among so many others. I definitely hope you get the chance to read this book because it packs in so much more than you could even expect in a 214 page novel.

    

     Thanks for reading!

 -Pieter

 

Image Sources:

Map: Clipartmaps.com (I drew the markings)

Cover Image: Amazon.com