Post by Admin on Mar 22, 2016 9:16:14 GMT -7
This Was The North by Anton Money - ISBN 0-517-518929
This was the most enjoyable book I read all winter. I liked it so much that I read it twice which is a rarity for me.
The author, Anton Money, left an upper middle class family in England and came to America and northern Canada to experience nature and life to its fullest. At the age of 23 in 1923 Anton jumped off the boat and landed in Telegraph Creek, British Columbia. The book is a narrative of his adventures in British Columbia and the Yukon. It also is a story of a man's yearning to find the Garden of Eden and settle down there. Like Henry David Thoreau's famous Walden quote, Anton Money moved to the woods "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.".
Anton spent several years in the far north, had many adventures and eventually discovered a gold mine. There he lived alone in a log cabin of his own construction for over a year. Indians camped nearby in the summer but during the long and cold winters he was alone and he often loved every minute of his solitude. A year later he went "outside" to Vancouver, met a lovely young woman, got married and after a year or so in civilization returned with his wife and new born child to the gold mine and cabin. He was deeply in love, lived in what he described as the Garden of Eden and earned a good living from his gold mine.
So what happened to his idyllic life? I will leave that for you to discover. Anton wrote the book in his later life and much of it is reflective. What would you do if you were in his shoes? Have not many of us moved to Montana to seek a better life? Is Glastonbury a Garden of Eden? How difficult is it to stay here? Read the book and draw your own conclusions. Enjoy!
The author, Anton Money, left an upper middle class family in England and came to America and northern Canada to experience nature and life to its fullest. At the age of 23 in 1923 Anton jumped off the boat and landed in Telegraph Creek, British Columbia. The book is a narrative of his adventures in British Columbia and the Yukon. It also is a story of a man's yearning to find the Garden of Eden and settle down there. Like Henry David Thoreau's famous Walden quote, Anton Money moved to the woods "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.".
Anton spent several years in the far north, had many adventures and eventually discovered a gold mine. There he lived alone in a log cabin of his own construction for over a year. Indians camped nearby in the summer but during the long and cold winters he was alone and he often loved every minute of his solitude. A year later he went "outside" to Vancouver, met a lovely young woman, got married and after a year or so in civilization returned with his wife and new born child to the gold mine and cabin. He was deeply in love, lived in what he described as the Garden of Eden and earned a good living from his gold mine.
So what happened to his idyllic life? I will leave that for you to discover. Anton wrote the book in his later life and much of it is reflective. What would you do if you were in his shoes? Have not many of us moved to Montana to seek a better life? Is Glastonbury a Garden of Eden? How difficult is it to stay here? Read the book and draw your own conclusions. Enjoy!