Overview
In celebration of his first half century of life, Howard Frank Mosher set off on a journey he had long dreamed of, following America's northern border from coast to coast in search of the country's last unspoiled frontiers. What he discovered was not a border in the conventional sense but a vast and sparsely populated territory largely ignored by the rest of the United States and Canada, a harsh and beautiful region populated by some of the continent's most self-sufficient, independent-minded men and women. Mosher brings the remote North Country vividly to life, showing how a tough and interesting land breeds tough and interesting people. He flies the wild Maine border with bush pilot Ti Rene, learns about past and present hardships in the mines of the Mesabi Range, crosses into Manitoba to get to the sliver of U.S. territory called the Northwest Angle, fishes for trout in northern Idaho under the intense gaze of a strange survivalist. As he hears the stories of the many North Country people he meets, he reflects on the powerful characters he has encountered in his own life and how this land has shaped his life and his books.Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
A resident of the part of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom, novelist Mosher (Where the Rivers Flow North) undertook an unusual journey in 1993. Beginning at Lubec, Maine, he drove along the U.S.-Canadian border to the Pacific, resolved to make his trip "one of exuberance and affirmation rather than lament." Unfortunately, most of the places he visited complicated his task, as he found innumerable ghost towns, deserted home sites and abandoned mines. The people he met, however, were a different story. From coast to coast, they agreed that life is hard in the north country but that living there is a pleasure; all were willing to put up with the long, cold winters in exchange for the joys, particularly fishing, that the rest of the year brings. Among those he met were ex-smugglers, a former rodeo rider now an authentic cowboy, an idealistic Native American leader, an overworked veterinarian and two hostile survivalists, all but the last two with entertaining tales to tell. One of his most absorbing subjects is himself; Mosher started as a teacher, worked as a handyman and finally succeeded as a novelist. The only drawback to the book is the absence of maps. (May)Library Journal
Satisfying a personal urge to explore the northernmost areas of the United States, novelist Mosher set out on a six-week adventure that took him from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. In this work, Mosher shares his discoveries on this fascinating journey in a short story-type narrative of 50 lively chapters. Through Mosher's chronicles, one learns a great deal about the history and people from the border areas, in both Canada and the United States, enabling readers to discover such places as Alberta's Cypress Hills and Maine's Madawaska Republic; we meet a variety of interesting personalities such as animal carver Jimmy Black Elk. Similar in motivation to David Lamb's Over the Hills (Random, 1996), Mosher's work is a celebration of America. The vivid descriptions, strong research, and entertaining anecdotes earn it a place in public libraries.Jo-Anne Mary Benson, Osgoode, OntarioKirkus Reviews
A richly observant memoir of a coast-to-coast journey along the US-Canada border, which the author undertook "a little unsure of how to proceed but eager to see what I could."The people along that line, writes novelist Mosher (Northern Borders, 1994, etc.), are a breed apart: self-reliant, tenacious, suspicious of the governments in Washington and Ottawa alike, to the point of harboring secessionist sympathies. The land, Mosher suggests, requires that ruggedness and independence of its inhabitants, remote as it is. And that very remoteness (Mosher describes the country as being marked by good brook-trout fishing, severe weather, and most of all, static over the radio) makes the border, along most of its length, a haven for outlaws of all kinds—cigarette and drug smugglers, tax resisters, even the infamous "supergun" builder Gerald Bull, who built a prototype atomic cannon destined for Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Mosher ranges along the line, collecting sometimes wondrous anecdotes of the lives of scrappy old-timers and young people who have chosen to make their homes away from the big cities. (One of the best anecdotes concerns the town of Marquette, Mich., which banned a movie shot there, Anatomy of a Murder, because Lee Remick's panties figured prominently in a courtroom scene—a scene shot, Mosher notes, just a block or so away, from the town's red-light district.) More descriptive than analytical, his account attains a certain poetry at times, as when Mosher quotes a taciturn New Englander who remarks, "As for the border, I don't see any border, do you? Just a beautiful country with a river running through it."
Mosher, a Vermonter, is better at describing the eastern part of his trip than the western, where he is less at home. Even so, his book makes for an armchair traveler's delight.