Icefields - Thomas Wharton

Set amidst the beauty of the Canadian Rockies in 1897, this stunning debut (Joy Gugeler, Ottawa Citizen) records a world on the brink, and its people, who are trying to build a society in a land where nature's power rules supreme. \nWinner of: \n \n \n- The Banff Grand National Prize for Literature \n- The Writers Guild of Alberta Best First Book Award \n- The Commonwealth Best First Novel Prize (Caribbean and Canada Region) \n At a quarter past three in the afternoon, on August 17, 1898, Doctor Edward Byrne slipped on the ice of Acturus glacier in the Canadian Rockies and slid into a crevasse . . . \n Nearly sixty feet below the surface, Byrne is wedged upside down between the narrowing walls of a chasm, fighting his desire to sleep. The ice in front of him is lit with a pale blue-green radiance. There, embedded in he pure, antediluvian glacier, Byrne sees something that will inextricably link him to the vast bed of ice, and the people who inhabit this strange corner of the world. In this moment, his life becomes a quest to uncover the mystery of the icefield that almost became his tomb. \n Within the deceptively simple framework of a tourist guidebook, Icefields takes a breathtaking, imaginative look at the human spirit, loss, myth, and elusive truths. Here is an impressive literary landscape, and an expedition unlike any you have ever experienced.