Foreword

My life-long friend, Mr. Garrioch, has written another book "The Far and Furry North." After reading it in manuscript I have great pleasure in contributing a Foreword for it.

The book may be described as an historical novel, a type of story perhaps not as popular in modern days as it once was. However, the author has succeeded to a very marked degree in sustaining interest in the tales he tells from start to finish. As in his former book, "First Furrows," there is a quaintness about his style and also about his descriptions of life in those Northern regions which cannot fail to arrest the attention of the reader. But, quite apart from the merits of the story itself, with the many little social incidents which he weaves into it, the book to my mind is quite an important contribution to the history of a period in the story of North-West Canada which was alike unique in character and had a charm and romance all its own. That period has passed forever, for with the advance of modern conditions, it can never come back. The author, having lived in the midst of it all, is well qualified to preserve an accurate portrayal of the life and to recapture the very atmosphere of those pioneer days. This he has done very well indeed. The manner of living, the modes of travel in winter and in summer, the hunting scenes of large and small game, the methods of trading and commerce and the early efforts to evangelize the native tribes, are all most vividly depicted. Those were the days of the regime of the Hudson's Bay Company, and I observe that the business ethics and the paternal treatment of the Indians and others by that Honourable Company of Adventurers, which have at times been grossly misrepresented, are worthily vindicated by the author, who for years was an eye-witness of what he records.

I warmly commend Mr. Garrioch's book as a reliable representation of "the far and furry north" in the days that are now past.

S. P. RUPERT'S LAND.
Bishop's Court,
Winnipeg, Canada.

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