Ordinary Wolves

Seth Kantner
Milkweed Editions 2005

Seth Katner’s first offering, a novel Ordinary Wolves, hits hard and fast and pulls no punches. A story of a white boy growing up in a sod hut on the banks of a river in Arctic Alaska. Not sure where he fits in in the world, this is a story of Cutuk Hawcley and his journey to find out as his family lived as natives in Alaska.

Seth goes places in this book that are seldom depicted anywhere, but are truths of rural Alaska. This story may take you to somewhere you never knew existed, culturally, socially and geographically. I highly recommend this book.

Here’s what an Amazon reader had to say about Ordinary Wolves:

“If never read a book quite like this one and from my perspective, I don’t feel a reader can fully understand. In other words, you had to be there to understand what a snow machine clutch outerhalf, “dog” is an the damage it can do to fingers and hands of a careless driver / mechanic, who left the guard off. Village English too is a treasure trove of creative diversity and creative imagination. P/ b dichotomy, and t/d as well. “I lost my that kind”, “my jipper (zipper) broke and I can’t go.” When we moved out of fly in bush to Mentasta, highway bush, our twin 5 year old sons spoke village English as their first language. I used some yesterday with my grandson. “Trevor, why you make me can’t see!! Off the way!”. Good on you my friend for producing this memory.”

Available at many online stores

Are you interested in other North country books? Here’s my review of North of Familiar: A Woman’s Story of Homesteading and Adventure in the Canadian Wilderness by Terry Milos.