Pleasantly predictable
Harold Bindloss was a prolific author of adventure fiction during the first half of the 20th century. Though he was born and died in England, most of his sixty-plus novels are set in Canada, where he lived for some time during the late nineteenth century. Bindloss’s work is an interesting mash-up of the wilderness adventure stories of Jack London and the romantic moral novels of someone like Anthony Trollope. As in London’s novels, Bindloss’s heroes, usually British-born like himself, wander the northern wilds seeking fortune in minerals, timber, or furs. Bindloss, however, takes a much more genteel approach to adventure fiction by tempering the thrill of exploration with the practical needs of civilized society. The daring characters in a Bindloss novel return often to the city to don evening dress for dinner, raise capital for their expeditions, or investigate potential matrimonial interests.
Bindloss’s novel The Lure of the North was published in 1918. In England it was published under the title Agatha’s Fortune, apparently because “the North” means something different in Britain. While most of Bindloss’s Canadian adventures take place in the West, The Lure of the North is set in Ontario and Quebec. Jim Thirlwell is an engineer at a struggling silver mine in northern Ontario. When one of his coworkers drowns in a canoe accident, Thirlwell begins a correspondence with the deceased’s daughter Agatha, a school teacher in Toronto. Before he died, the old man, named Strange, raved about a silver lode he had found in the remote wilds and even brought back a few rock samples to support his story, but because he was an alcoholic no one really believed him. Eventually Thirlwell meets Agatha in person, and she informs him that she intends to go searching for her father’s long lost lode. Though Agatha is a plucky gal, she has little experience in mining or the wilderness. Thirlwell doubts her ability to survive in the wild North, so he agrees to accompany her and lend his expertise to the expedition.
From the brief plot description above, it’s not difficult to tell where this story is going, and it pretty much goes everywhere you’d expect it to. At least it does so, however, in an enjoyable manner. Bindloss crafts a mystery around whether Strange’s death was really an accident, which creates the suspenseful possibility of some danger for the heroes. A businessman from Winnipeg hears the rumors of Strange’s lost silver mine and decides to go after the lode himself, providing a villain for the story. And of course, when a man and a woman cooperate on a quest, there is bound to be some romance. Bindloss tells the story in a very understated manner that doesn’t glamorize the wilderness or over-romanticize the love story. He depicts the landscape in an earthy naturalistic manner that transports the reader into the Canadian North of a century ago, including the environmental mindset of the time, which was mostly concerned with resource extraction, though perhaps with a dash of Ralph Waldo Emerson thrown in. The romantic subplot between the two leads is refreshingly free of emotional impetuosity as they both very practically and properly consider the long-term prospects of a merger.
This is the third book I’ve read by Bindloss, following Northwest! and The Protector, which were both set in far western Canada. The Lure of the North is the best of the three. Though Bindloss’s plots can get somewhat formulaic, this novel is actually a welcome relief from the typically glorified, overly macho gold-hunting narrative. Bindloss may have faded into obscurity over the past century, but his books are still worth reading.
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Extracting resources and romance from British Columbia
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| Harold Bindloss |
Harold Bindloss, an English-born Canadian author, was a prolific early twentieth-century writer of popular adventure novels set in western Canada. The Protector, published in 1918, takes place in the city of Vancouver and the surrounding wilderness of British Columbia. I had previously read Bindloss’s novel Northwest!, and though I wasn’t thrilled with it, it was good enough to convince me that this author deserved a second look. As an enthusiast of outdoor adventure fiction and a fan of all things Canadian in general, Bindloss’s work should be right up my alley. Once again, however, I find myself disappointingly unimpressed.
Wallace Vane came to Canada from England nine years earlier to try his hand at wresting a living from the natural riches of the land. One of the lucky ones, he discovered a mine in a remote corner of Vancouver Island and has struck it reasonably rich. The money has not gone to Vane’s head, however, as he is content to spend his time paddling, sailing, and trekking around the forests, islands, and waterways of the region with his right-hand man Carroll. Nevertheless, duty calls, and Vane must attend to business matters in Vancouver. His fortune may be in danger as some sneaky shareholders attempt to launch a hostile takeover of the mine. At this inopportune moment, a promise to a dying man sends Vane and Carroll on a wild goose chase into the wilderness, searching after a legendary grove of spruce trees that can be lucratively converted into wood pulp.
As the previous sentence indicates, this is hardly a typical wilderness adventure novel. The Protector is really more Jane Austen than Jack London. Within the first few chapters, at least three female characters are introduced as prospective brides for Vane, and the rest of the book more or less revolves around which one will end up the lucky lady. The plot combines the financial adventures of the rugged-outdoorsman-as-businessman from London’s novel Burning Daylight with the West Coast urban society rom-com of Frank Norris’s Blix, but the resulting amalgamation is less compelling than either. Tedious chapter after chapter of sailing in hard weather is meant to inspire thrills, but the reader just ends up thinking that Vane and Carroll should have been better prepared before venturing into the wild. One distinctive quirk of Bindloss, that’s common to both The Protector and Northwest!, is his decision late in the game to make the sidekick the protagonist. After spending the greater part of the novel building up Vane as an ideal hero, the climax of the novel ends up resting on Carroll’s everyman shoulders.
The message of The Protector is that a life lived in touch with wild nature can be more satisfying than all the money in the world. While that may seem like an admirable lesson to impart, the characters of Bindloss’s novels primarily enjoy nature by extracting its resources. The trees are beautiful because they can be chopped down. The rivers are picturesque because they can carry the logs to port. The mountains are majestic because one can imagine the mineral riches hidden beneath. One can’t be too judgmental towards the environmental ethos of a century ago. The main offense of The Protector is not its view of wilderness as something to be conquered by man. That could be forgiven as an artifact of its time, if the story weren’t so darn boring.
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Mild adventure in the Canadian Rockies
Harold Bindloss was an early 20th-century English author who wrote many novels set in Western Canada. Northwest! was published in 1922. I have heard Bindloss described as an adventure writer, and—always on the lookout for the next Jack London or Bret Harte—I thought I’d give him a try. If this book is any indication, however, Bindloss barely qualifies for the adventure genre. Northwest! is like an English society novel that just happens to be set in the Canadian wilderness.
The story takes place somewhere between Calgary and Vancouver, at a luxury hotel perched in a scenic mountain locale. Jimmy Leyland is an Englishman, the heir to a cotton mill fortune. Forced to undergo a waiting period before he assumes his portion of the family business, he drifts around Europe for a while before deciding to explore Canada. Jimmy hooks up with a mountaineer named Stannard who acts as a sort of mentor, instructing him in the ways of the idle rich. The two live the lives of extravagant tourists, lounging around the hotel and engaging in all-night bouts of gambling between hunting, fishing, and climbing trips. Traveling with them is Stannard’s daughter, who just happens to make a convenient love interest for Jimmy. British Columbia is a long way from London or Lancashire, and life in a western town can be a great leveler of class distinctions. As a result, Jimmy and Stannard find themselves associating with rougher characters like Deering, a professional gambler, and Okanagan Bob, a local jack-of-all-trades with Indian blood in his veins. A fine English gentleman but a bad card player, Jimmy soon finds himself racking up debts that may lead him into trouble.
The main thrust of the story revolves around a pursuit through the Rockies, but it takes a dozen chapters of dining room conversations just to get the ball rolling. Regrettably, the whole business hinges on a stupid mistake—a literal shot in the dark. The action is slow and the attempts at suspense are tame. The dangers of the wilderness never seem perilous enough. In Bindloss’s hands, the wilds of British Columbia come across like an English game preserve. There is a stretch of the book in which Jimmy is “alone” in the wilderness, yet he isn’t really alone. He has an Indian guide and packer with him. Yet the Indian is basically invisible, and never speaks. Bindloss treats him like a backpack, not worthy of notice, even though he might very well be keeping the hero alive. Contrast that with London’s tales of the Canadian wilderness, in which Native Americans are integral players in the narrative.
This book is not terrible, but there’s little to distinguish it from the ordinary. Adding to the mediocrity is Bindloss’s repetitive prose. His favorite adjective is “keen,” and he uses it 86 times. People are keen, glances are keen, temperatures and winds are keen. To the book’s credit, at times I did care about the characters—Jimmy is likeable for the most part, even though he’s a bit stupid and naive—but often I couldn’t care less.
Bindloss was a prolific author, and I still think he might have a good book in him, but Northwest! isn’t it. It’s an OK read, but not worthy of the audacious exclamation point in its title. I have heard his novel The Gold Trail is good, so I might give that a try.
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