Product Description

"Mayday! Landed on river. Engine out.
Floating toward the falls."

When the engine of their float plane fails during a water landing near the head of Canada's monumental Virginia Falls, what began as a sightseeing detour turns into a survival mission for two high-school students and their elderly companion.

With the brutal sub arctic winter about to fall like a hammer, Gabe Rogers, his boarding-school roommate, Raymond Providence, and Raymond's great-uncle, Johnny Raven, are trapped in a deadly wilderness. Braving icy rapids and desperately hunting for moose in their struggle to fend off starvation, all three travelers must rely on the others' knowledge and courage, or survival is out of the question.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31087 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-01
• Released on: 2004-04-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Those insatiable fans of Hatchet are the likeliest audience for this winter survival tale, which weds its adventure-seeking thrills to education about Dene Indian culture. Fifteen-year-old Gabe, a Texan, enrolls in a boarding school in Canada's Northwest Territories to be near his father, whose love of the wilderness has become infectious. But Gabe gets more than he bargained for when an airplane accident leaves him and his roommate Raymond, a Dene, stranded near the fierce Nahanni River at the start of a long winter. Guided by their fellow survivor Johnny Raven, a Dene elder, Gabe and Raymond learn to hunt beavers, trap rabbits and make snowshoes and mittens from animal hide. More significantly, they learn respect for ancient Dene beliefs. When Raven dies of the cold, the two boys must struggle out of Deadmen Valley on their own. Predictably sentimental, Hobbs's (Beardance) fast-moving tale nonetheless delivers breathless action and an inspiring sense of Canada's vast landscape. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5 Up?From the compelling cover illustration to the terrifying and plausible details, this survival adventure clearly demonstrates the author's love for and familiarity with the northern wilderness. Gabe, 15, formerly of San Antonio, enrolls in a boarding school in Canada's Northwest Territories to be closer to his father, an oil field worker. Gabe's likable but depressed roommate, Raymond, is an Athapascan Indian. A map helps readers follow along as circumstances involving a plane crash leave the teens and Johnny Raven, an elder from Raymond's village, stranded with minimal supplies as winter hardens. The plotting is fast paced and action filled as the teens' cultures clash, and as they struggle against the cold, blizzards, isolation, starvation, injury, a wolverine, grizzly bear, and Johnny's death before finally reaching safety. The weakest elements of the book may be the sermonlike "testament" the boys find in Johnny's pocket after his death, and the thread of mythic raven lore that is mentioned, then given up before becoming a major element again. Quibbles aside, with echoes as old as Jean Craighead George's classic My Side of the Mountain (Dutton, 1988) and reverberations from Paulsen and Phleger, this satisfying tale will engage YAs' hearts and minds.?Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Jr. High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American
After their plane and its pilot plunge over a thundering falls, 15-year-old Gabe, his Dene Indian boarding-school roommate Raymond Providence, and the elderly Indian Johnny Raven are left stranded in the Canadian wilderness. The expected occurs: the wise old man, who speaks little English, calls on his deeply rooted knowledge of the land to keep the tiny group alive, leaving the boys to battle nature alone when he dies. You know Gabe survives, because he's telling the story, and as with many books in this genre, the characters and the plot are subordinated to the setting and action. But Hobbs drafts the events at just the right pace and with extraordinary detail-from setting dead Johnny on fire on a funeral pyre to battling frostbite and bears. What the boys accomplish is standard genre stuff, but thanks to Hobbs' strong, sure hand, it's never dull.

Customer Reviews

AWESOME BOOK!!!!!
Far North was a great book. I've read ghost canoe but this isjust great. I like the way Will Hobbs' books are so adventurous. I like this book so much I got in trouble reading it. You should go to your local library and check this book out!

You cant go without reading this book
If you like intriguing books about wilderness and how people survive on their own, then youíll like this book about Gabe and Raymond and how they survive on their wild adventure in the Northern Canadian wilderness. This book is about Gabe and Raymond; two teenage boys fighting to survive in Northern Canada. Their plane goes off a cliff, and the pilot dies. They were starving and hadnít had any food for days. When Raymondís uncle goes out hunting for a moose he has a heart attack and dies as well. I liked this book a lot. It started out slow, but picked up quickly. I liked it because it was a good action adventure, with a lot of twists and turns. I also liked the descriptive writing of the author. My favorite part of the book was when Raymond killed a mountain sheep with an ax. I also like when the winter bear shows up and catches Gabe and Raymond in a tree.

Great Read!!!
I bought this book to use in a literature unit with two 8th-grade homeschoolers, one an avid reader, and the other a very reluctant reader. The book was a hit with both! The reluctant reader even started reading ahead on his own because he wanted to find out how the story turned out. The story stimulated some great discussions on literary technique (foreshadowing, cliffhangers), social and cultural ideas, wilderness survival, making choices, and gaining maturity through adversity. There were also lots of opporunities to expand the boys' vocabulary.

We highly recommend this book!!