Ben W. Powell

Ben Powell was born in Carbonear, Newfoundland, in 1921. At 15, with Newfoundland in the grips of the Depression and jobs nowhere to be found, Powell decided to go across the Straight of Belle Isle to Labrador in search of his older brother, who was living as a trapper in a small coastal settlement. During the first two thirds of the book, Powell relates details of the life he loves, spending most of his time out in the Labrador wilderness, setting and then emptying fur traps over an area hundreds of square miles large during some extremely challenging, cold and snowy weather. First he is taught by his older brother, but then he spends most of his time alone. The book is mostly episodic, as incident after incident is related, of tramping through wind and snow, rations dwindling, hoping just to reach one of the tiny shelters he has built around his trapping territory. Sudden death is always looming, but the matter of fact way in which these stories are told keep them from attaining any distracting melodrama. You'd think this would get repetitive, but each one has a fascination of its own, and they all add up to give a vivid picture of an astounding lifestyle. The wonder is that he chose this life, but his descriptions of his feelings of freedom and his joy out in nature and his love of the physical challenges soon make his life choice come clear.

At some point, Powell realizes that the trapper's life in Labrador is coming to a close, primarily because the price of furs continues to drop, and also because he doubts that future generations will continued to be enthralled, given the changes in society that become evident in the post-WW II years. So Powell and a friend make a plan to open a lumber mill and start a settlement around it. The final third of the book relates the agonizingly slow and painful, but ultimately successful, founding of Charlottetown, Labrador.

I started this more as a curiousity than anything else, but in the end found it a very compelling book.… (mais)