The Fur Country [Hardcover]

Jules Verne (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1592241786 | ISBN-13: 978-1592241781 | Publication Date: July 10, 2003

Lt. Jasper Hobson and other members of the Hudson's Bay Trading Co. and his team along with the company's guests, Mrs. Paulina Barnett and Thomas Black travel through the North West Territories of Canada to Cape Bathurst on the Arctic Ocean. At Cape Bathurst, Hobson intends on creating a new trading post for the company, Paulina Barnett is along for the adventure and Thomas Black intends on viewing a solar eclipse during the summer of the following year. The party establishes their outpost before winter sets in, but when spring arrives, nearby volcanic activity triggers an earthquake, which the colony survives; however, a startling revelation is revealed later in the summer when Thomas Black tries to observe the total eclipse. Cape Bathurst has changed its position to the north by almost three degrees of latitude and to the west by several hundred miles; Hobson determines that the Cape has become an island. Now the party's only hope is the onset of winter, so they might travel across the ice, to reach the mainland Russian America (Alaska). When a mild (by Arctic standards) winter sets in and the island is locked by the ice directly north of the Bering Strait; but the ice is not sufficiently frozen enough for safe passage across the ice. The islands colonists wait for the spring thaw and hope that island will move south with the Bering current and that the boat they've built will be able to take them to safety. Includes 100 illustrations.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Wildside Press (July 10, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592241786
• ISBN-13: 978-1592241781
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,637,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic Verne in the Arctic Circle, February 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fur Country (Paperback)

I bought this book last fall, and after a month or two it finally arrived from England. It was worth the wait. Excellent. The story is captivating and the characters are memorable. The environmental issues cannot go unnoticed, nor can the allusions to Noah's Ark. Verne takes some shots at the fur industry of North America during the mid-1800s. He criticizes their endless and mindless killing of animals just for the purpose of making a buck. The story also demonstrates the will of man and the power of faith in God when facing seemingly insurmountable odds.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific adventure in the icy north, December 9, 2009

By 

Victor Rodriguez (Monticello, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Fur Country (Hardcover)

Of all the far-flung places in and outside of this world none fascinated and inspired Jules Verne more than our arctic regions. In The Adventures of Captain Hatteras (see my review), The Purchase of the North Pole, and in The Glacial Sphinx, a sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's wonderfully sustained novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Verne showed a keen familiarity and fascination with arctic science and exploration that thrill readers to this day. Even in his masterpiece Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea he traps the Nautilus under an icecap during a breathtaking, no pun intended, episode. In The Fur Country Verne once again takes us to the frigid outskirts of the Canadian Arctic, as he did earlier in Captain Hatteras. And its subtitle, 70 Degrees North Latitude, is a mere hint of the bone chilling tale about to unfold. The title refers to the development of the pelt industry by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, which set up posts throughout the Northwest Territories to trap polar bears, foxes, beavers, martens, ermines, muskrats, polecats, seals and walruses, and hares. But as most Verne enthusiasts will rightly deduce, it is not that simple; something ominous and spectacular is in the offing.

A group of pioneers and soldiers is led by Lt. Jasper Hobson to establish a trading post in Cape Bathurst overlooking the Arctic Ocean. Among the members of the expedition are two guests: a courageous and strong willed woman, a rarity in Verne fiction, named Paulina Barnett, and an astronomer named Thomas Black who comes along to observe a solar eclipse. However, the fort they construct is not on solid ground but part of an enormous iceberg that an earthquake dislodges from the mainland and sends it drifting westward. Will the 140 square mile island of ice and soil continue floating towards the Bering Strait and south to the warmer waters of the Pacific, break apart, dissolve and plunge the castaways into the deep? Or will they escape the disaster by constructing a ship that can sail them to the safety of terra firma?

The idea of an ocean voyage via a massive vessel was something Verne had earlier explored in The Floating City, and later on in his fascinating satire The Floating Island. Both are noteworthy tomes, but The Fur Country stands apart as a highly suspenseful adventure with a rousing climax impossible to forget. Merci Monsieur Verne.

-Victor Rodriguez
Author of Eldorado in East Harlem, and Ravenhall