Far Cry, page 28
* * *
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It is all I can imagine now, the plan Lo Yim and I shared, the dream of a lonely cove. Of course, I am acquainted with that life already—smoked rockfish and rain, mink in the trap and the dark-finned basker moving open-mouthed across the swell. A beginning, it might have been for the two of us. Alone, I will make it my end.
I will go tonight. Carry what little I need across the back headland path, float the Coot and take up the oars. Lys will be here for you to find—she has been yours as much as mine from the start. It seems I will leave these pages as well. You will blame me, Kit, how could you not. But will you forsake me?
There now, your step on the boards, I would know it anywhere. Lys too, old dog. She turns in her dreaming. She raises her silver head.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to the following individuals for sharing their time and expertise: Ben York; Cynthia Toman; Sarah Glassford; Tim Cook and Mélanie Morin-Pelletier at the Canadian War Museum; Alexander Comber at Library and Archives Canada; Claire Gilbert at the Royal BC Museum.
There is no writing without reading. The following books fed this one: The Good Hope Cannery: Life and Death at a Salmon Cannery by W.B. MacDonald; The Salmon People by Hugh W. McKervill; Living on the Edge: Nuu-Chah-Nulth History from an Ahousaht Chief’s Perspective by Chief Earl Maquinna George; Salmon: Our Heritage by Cicely Lyons; Whistle up the Inlet: The Union Steamship Story by Gerald A. Rushton; Vancouver: The Way It Was by Michael Kluckner; Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood by Wayson Choy; Saltwater City: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in Vancouver by Paul Yee; Tales from Gold Mountain by Paul Yee; Red Lights on the Prairies by James H. Gray; A Window on Whaling in British Columbia by Joan Goddard; On the Northwest: Commercial Whaling in the Pacific Northwest 1790–1967 by Robert Lloyd Webb; British Columbia: A Natural History by Richard Cannings and Sydney Cannings; The Promise of Paradise: Utopian Communities in British Columbia by Andrew Scott; Shark Drunk: The Art of Catching a Large Shark from a Tiny Rubber Dinghy in a Big Ocean by Morten Strøksnes (translation by Tiina Nunnally); Weird Tales from Northern Seas by Jonas Lie (translation by R. Nisbet Bain); The Sinking of the HMHS Llandovery Castle, issued by Canada’s Department of Public Information; Sister Soldiers of the Great War: The Nurses of the Canadian Army Medical Corps by Cynthia Toman; War Story of the Canadian Army Medical Corps by J. George Adami; Seventy Years of Service: A History of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps by Gerald W.L. Nicholson; A Surgeon in Arms by R.J. Manion; Tapestry of War: A Private View of Canadians in the Great War by Sandra Gwyn; Hell’s Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Great War, 1914–1918 by J.L. Granatstein; When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War by Desmond Morton; A Nation in Conflict: Canada and the Two World Wars by Andrew Iarocci and Jeffrey A. Keshen; When the Boys Came Marching Home by Ben Wicks; A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.
As ever, thanks to the beautiful book people at Penguin Random House Canada, especially Anne Collins, who sees (and loves) both forest and tree.
Thanks also to my agent, the kind but mighty Ellen Levine.
Family and friends, I owe you everything.
Clive, my heart, I owe you even more.
ALISSA YORK’s internationally acclaimed novels include Mercy, Effigy (shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), Fauna and, most recently, The Naturalist. She is also the author of the short fiction collection, Any Given Power, stories from which have won the Journey Prize and the Bronwen Wallace Award. Her essays and articles have appeared in such periodicals as The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Canadian Geographic. York has lived all over Canada and now makes her home in Toronto with her husband, artist Clive Holden.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TYPE
This book is set in Garamond Premier Pro, a modern font family based on roman types cut by Jean Jannon in 1615 and adapted from earlier types by Francesco Griffo and Claude Garamond. Considered the culmination of French Renaissance type design, Garamond’s elegant lines have been popular among book designers for centuries. Some distinctive characteristics include an “e” with a small eye, and an “a” with a sharp turn in the bowl of the letterform.
Alissa York, Far Cry
