Guest Post by Philip Schubert
I'm
really pleased to accept Faiza Iqbal Butt's invitation to be a guest blogger
and tell her readers about my biography 'Letters to the Granddaughter - The
Story of Dillon Wallace of the Labrador Wild' (print edition: ISBN 9781482388442). It has been out since January 2013 and can be
purchased in print and eReader format on: Amazon.com,
Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Create
Space, Kobo, Nook or Smashwords. It can also be purchased as an iBook and read
on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Reviews
of the biography are posted on Amazon.com,
Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk.
Dillon
Wallace was a key figure in the Hubbard and Wallace Saga which took place more
than 100 years ago in Labrador and northern Quebec. Approximately 10 books have
been published on the saga over the years but this is the first biography on
Dillon Wallace.
Wallace
ensured that the story would never be forgotten by publishing one of the finest
books ever written on the North, 'The Lure of the Labrador Wild', and by taking
part in the three canoe trips linked to the saga. To date no one person has
been equal to the challenge of fully retracing these trips.
I
discovered the joys and dangers of travel in trackless wilderness starting in
1999 after reading Dillon Wallace's 'The Lure of the Labrador Wild'. I spent a
decade retracing the routes in Labrador and northern Quebec described in 'The
Lure', in Wallace's follow-on book, 'The Long Labrador Trail', and in Mina
Hubbard's 'A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador'.
Nothing in Dillon's early life as an impoverished youth on a farm suggested
that he would still fascinate people nearly 150 years later. Dillon was blessed
in fact with "Grit A'Plenty", which no one would suspect from his
unimpressive physique and unsmiling face. He pulled himself up by his
bootstraps, rising from gristmill employee, to self-trained telegraph operator,
to stenographer, to finally becoming a lawyer. His life from that point on,
however, was equal parts tragic and heroic, but continued to be marked by
splendid accomplishments. Starting at the age of 40 in 1903, he carried out a
series of trips in Labrador and today's northern Quebec covering several
thousand miles.
Buy this Book from Amazon!
The
first trip sadly resulted in the tragic death of his trip leader and best
friend, Leonidas Hubbard, and a narrow escape for him. His book on the trip,
The 'Lure of the Labrador Wild', published in 1904, became a best seller and is
still in print. It would change Dillon's life forever. It told the story of the
trip as it was documented in his and Leonidas' trip journals. Leonidas' widow,
Mina Hubbard, who would be forever changed also due to the unbearable loss of
"her laddie", had commissioned the book. When Dillon refused to
rewrite the book and make Leonidas into the larger than life figure she had
been expecting, she became Dillon's sworn enemy for life.
There
then followed two extraordinary trips in 1905 across Labrador, following the
route planned in 1903. Dillon led one. Mina, drawing on skills that no one had
realized she had, led the other. She planned hers in secret, and then provoked
a life-long estrangement from Leonidas' family by telling the press as she left
that she suspected that Dillon played a role in her husband's death and was on
her way to investigate it. A third fascinating figure, voyager George Elson,
the other survivor of the first trip, safely canoed Mina the length of Labrador
down some of the most challenging rivers that George and his crack team of
outdoorsmen had ever seen. No one was more impressed than George, or more
disappointed than Mina, when Dillon and his only team member, forestry student
Clifford Easton, successfully completed the trip as well. The evidence that
George, a heroic figure in his own right, had fallen in love with Mina and
which may have motivated him to agree to organize the trip at Mina's behest,
added another fascinating dimension to the saga. The 1905 trip formed the basis
for Dillon's second book and he went on to publish another 25 books, becoming a
legend in his time.
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This
is the story of Dillon Wallace as told by me, with an introduction by Dillon's
granddaughter, Amy McKendry. It includes extensively illustrated maps and
dozens of my colour photographs of the challenges faced and overcome in the
wilds by the saga participants.
This
book will appeal firstly to hard-core canoeists like me who have learned to
survive in the kind of wilds experienced by saga participants 100 years
ago. It will appeal secondly to those in
love with nature at its most unspoiled and pristine. Finally, it will appeal to those looking for
stories involving a character like Mina Hubbard who loved and hated with equal
intensity and a character like the quietly courageous Dillon Wallace whose
achievements have never been equalled to date.
