Lost in the Barrens

If you love the north country and the outdoors, and haven't read this book yet, you have a great adventure coming! It doesn't really matter if you are very young or very old, you can enjoy this book because it is so well written. I first read this book as a ten-year-old girl, and loved it. I still re-read it as a middle-aged woman, and I still love it! Every time I read this, I want to escape to Canada to go hiking and canoeing (and often I do). The details of outdoor survival are all authentic. The adventure aspects are as thrilling as anything I have ever read. There are lessons to this story, and they aren't shallow. These boys make some mistakes, take their knocks, and learn lessons that make them into real, responsible men. A great aspect of this book is that the moral is not to avoid mistakes, but to do what has to be done once the mistakes are made, and grow by making them. The two Indian tribes, the Eskimos, and the white people all have their own fears of "foreign" people and their territories. The boys encounter their fear of the unknown, physical danger, and of unknown people and surmount them by being steadfast. The sequel to this book, The Curse of the Viking Grave is also really good. If you enjoyed reading this book you might also enjoy "The Old Man and the Boy" by Robert Ruark.

Again, Farley Mowat demonstrates that which makes him clearly on of Canada's greatest treasures. A fictional book, it nevertheless portrays the beautiful tundra of the north. Anyone reading it will be carried by the story but will learn of the beauty of the Barrens, despite its unforgiving brutality. A book I have read many times and never cease to be impressed by the true beauty of the North!

I,too, ordered this book from the Arrow Book Club in the early '60s under the name Two Against the North. I must have read it dozens of times and was thrilled to find it in the library under the title Lost in the Barrens for my children to read. Those of you who have loved it need to read Mowat's latest book, One Man's River. In it he describes a harrowing journey he took in 1947 and I kept feeling echoes from the earlier book. The tale he tells in the recent book must have been the inspiration for the novel. I'm so glad that Lost in the Barrens is back in print and I hope that the current generation will enjoy it as much as I did.

Two boys, one American-Indian and one of European descent, find themselves pitted together in a struggle for survival in one of the most inhospitable climates of the world. Together they battle hunger, cold, hostile enemies, and loneliness. I discovered this book as a child, and as an adult I still reread it when I need to get lost in a good story. Highly recommended.

Farley Mowatt knows how to warm the young heart to the grand glory of the Canadian Arctic Wilderness. There is something wonderfully primal and romantic in this simple story of 2 boys survival adventure that no video game or modern day urban experience can compete with. It was a joy to read as a child, and it's great to see it back in print.