A Wilderness Called Home
Dispatches from the Wild Heart of Canada
Charles Wilkins

Canadians are much more complicated than most other people give them credit for. We have a mysterious relationship with our land, and with each other, yet it isn't something that is easily put into words. Trying seems to descend into anti-Americanism all too often. That isn't happening here.

Starting on the M. V. Paterson in Thunder Bay and travelling all over Canada, Wilkins's evocative work is must reading for Canadians and anyone who hopes to understand them. There are elements that don't fit, of course, but many more that do.

A travelogue is as much about the travel as it is about the person doing the travelling. Sometimes the physical journey matches the spiritual one, beginning at one point and ending at another. Wilkins's journey isn't so straightforward. It takes strange detours, on and off the Lakes, across the Prairies, through a Finnish sauna, an evening of star-gazing with an astronomer, a trap line, and much else. Through it all we learn about the author, and about the people he meets. Regardless of their professions or their hobbies, we soon see them as people a lot like us. Although we have become city dwellers for the most part, we can still identify with people living close to the land.

These vignettes are woven together, somehow, into a coherent whole that says more than what it first appears to. I understood myself a little better, and feel that I understand my fellow Canadians much better after this book.

Plus, I enjoyed reading it. I liked how Wilkins puts together words, linking people and images, geography and events, social activism and solitary camp outs. The book reminded me of John McPhee's writing, bringing that same literate look at the world to bear on Canada.

Viking, 2001
ISBN 0-670-89416-8