The Black Hunter by James Oliver Curwood

Chivalric romance in the French and Indian Wars

James Oliver Curwood (1878–1927) was a Michigan-born writer who built a successful career writing popular wilderness adventure novels along the lines of Jack London. Many of Curwood’s books are set in Alaska or the Yukon, and some feature canine protagonists, much like London’s The Call of the Wild, White Fang, or Jerry of the Islands, among others. Curwood’s 1926 novel The Black Hunter, however, is a dog of a different color. This is a historical novel set in Quebec during the French and Indian Wars of the 18th century.

The story takes place in 1754 and 1755. David Rock is a young man who lives in the Valley of the Richelieu, a rural area in Southwestern Quebec. Though of English extraction, David lives in New France and is loyal to the French crown. He comes from a poor family and spends much of his time hunting in the nearby forests. His girlfriend, however, is loaded. Anne St. Denis, the daughter of a seigneur, lives in the local chateau. She and David have known each other since childhood and intend to marry. When some bigwigs from Quebec City come to visit Anne’s father, they insult the rustic David, and he responds by throwing two of them into a fountain. Since one of his victims is a high government official—François Bigot, the Intendant of New France—David is sentenced to a flogging. Bigot, however, at the advice of his cronies, pardons David of the sentence. What Bigot really wants is to hook up with the lovely Anne, and he figures he has a better chance of working his way into her heart (or rather her dress) if he is nice to her boyfriend rather than torturing him. The wily Bigot then takes the suspicious David under his wing, offering him a promising career in Quebec, much to the joy of Anne.

When I saw that this novel is set in “Old Quebec,” I expected a lot of backwoods Canada adventure typical of Curwood. Instead, Curwood’s depiction of Canada (New France) feels more like medieval Europe. This is mostly a courtly drama of romance and honor, somewhat along the lines of a Sir Walter Scott novel such as Ivanhoe, except that the good-versus-evil, damsel-in-distress triangle in this storyline is about as formulaic as the cartoon adventures of Dudley Do-Right, Nell Fenwick, and Snidely Whiplash. The book defies believability in the lengths that the villains go to pretend they are David’s friends and benefactors. In reality, if a powerful man of the 18th century wanted a helpless woman, he would probably use more barbaric methods rather than go to such sly lengths, but this is fiction not history, and that wouldn’t make much of a novel.

Most of the characters in the book, including Bigot, are real figures from Canadian history. Even the Black Hunter is a figure of local legend. He is a White man with black hair and black clothes, a nomadic backwoodsman with mythical skills as a hunter and warrior, like a cross between the Outlaw Josey Wales and James Fenimore Cooper’s Natty “Hawkeye” Bumppo. While David is the star of the book, the Black Hunter is a supporting character who barely appears in the book.

Only in the last quarter of the book does Curwood really dive into the French and Indian Wars, but that is the best part of the book. He has clearly done his research, and the brutality and gore of the final chapters belies the genteel chivalric tone of what came before. The treatment of Native Americans in the book is complicated. They are depicted largely as savage killing machines, but it is acknowledged that they have been made so by the English and French, with bounties and booze, who use the Indians for their own selfish ends. If Curwood had concentrated more on the wars and the Whites relations with the First Nations, it would have been a better book. Instead, you have to wade through an awful lot of wholesome romance and courtly intrigue to get to the good stuff. Nevertheless, the novel is fine overall and one of Curwood’s better efforts.