Customer Reviews

Drifting Home

5 star:		(3)
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I loved this book! Pierre Burton takes his large family on a one week canoe trip down the Yukon river. They camp and cook over a campfire, and have a few funny and scary incidents as they float away the days. As he tells a little about each person's unique personality, you can tell how much he loves his family.

But the wonderful part of this book is the history of his own father and childhood. As his family progresses down the Yukon, he recounts his father's young years as an Alaskan miner, trapper, explorer, lovelorn suitor, and eventually family man with a desk job. He recalls fond memories of picnics with his mother, rascally playmates, faithful pets. He and his family explore ghost towns and cabins and places his father lived, and find the abandoned hulls of the mighty riverboats that dominated the Yukon of his youth. This book is more a tribute to his father and an extinct way of life than it is a diary of a family vacation.

He gives us just the right mix of nostalgia, natural beauty and family nonsense to make it a great book. I'll be looking for more of his writings.

There are few writers I would care to know. Many are surly, aloof and unapproachable. But Pierre Berton seems affable, approachable and very smart. I have read almost all of his books and, while I cannot recall the specifics of Drifting Home, it doesn't matter. ANYTHING by Berton is worth reading. He is smart, sharp, witty and as level-headed as they come. He writes beautifully and is a natural story-teller. What also comes across is his fierce pride in, and dedication to, Canada and her provinces. Born in the Yukon Territory, he traveled the world and finally settled in the outskirts of Toronto, Ontario. He wrote for Macleans and other publications, kept and active and lively presence on the radio and TV, and wrote books that celebrated Canadian life. There are few writers who can hold a candle to Berton. I have been enriched by his books. Highly, highly recommended.

This book started out as a fun story about a man and his family retracing the path of his father as he came to Dawson to seek his fortune. But it was so much more than that. It was a tribute to his father and all the men and women who sacrificed, worked and suffered in that harsh enviornment. It made me miss my father even more than I do, 27 years after he passed. I highly recommend it.