North to Cree Lake

In 1932, Arthur L. Karras (later a school administrator in Indian Head, Saskatchewan) accompanied his brother and a friend to northern Saskatchewan to escape the Great Depression. For the next seven years Karras lived in the wilderness, returning to larger centres occasionally to trade and obtain supplies. In this volume he recalls his years of trapping, fishing, building cabins, paddling on lakes and rivers, and driving dogsleds in northern Saskatchewan as an alternative to urban unemployment. Karras’ stories are punctuated by colorful characters – from HBC traders to trappers battling cabin fever – and balance moments of excitement and danger against descriptions of day-to-day life as a trapper.