North-West Stories & A De Herries Smith.
Mountie pulp fiction writers.
Mounties, Wolves & Pulp Writers: North-West Stories & A De Herries Smith
The Northwestern Genre & Pulp writers.
Created in 1903 by Jack London with the publication of his novel THE CALL OF THE WILD, the Northwestern Genre thrived for the first half of the 20th Century.
In 1907, Robert W Service’s The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses was published. Service would soon be called “The Bard of the Yukon.” Like Jack London, Robert W Service had lived in the Canadian Klondike. He based his popular ballads on his own adventures and local stories: “There are strange things done in the midnight sun. By the men who moil for gold…”
The Northwestern Genre was defined.
A number of great Pulp Writers followed Jack and Robert’s lead…
…quickly gaining an international following with their own thrilling adventures set in the savage Northcountry.
In countless magazines, novels and movies, the Northwestern told the gripping stories of bold adventurers (often scarlet-coated Mounties), fiercely independent women, loyal sled dogs, wild wolves and that almost mythic Northcountry.
North-West Stories (later retitled North-West Romances) was the genre’s most popular pulp magazine. It appeared from the mid-1920’s into the 50’s.
The exciting issue of North-West Stories featured on this post hit the magazine stands on March 22, 1927.
Cover painting (see above – centre page) was by George H Wert.
The lead-off novella, INVADERS OF THE ICE, was written by A De Herries Smith.
Augustus “Gus” William De Herries Smith, the son of a ship’s doctor, was born in County Cork, Ireland in 1881. After a wandering life in the South Pacific, he settled in Canada.
In later years, Gus would say that he had come to Canada so he “could skate on the frozen lakes in the winter.”
On April 21, 1908, he married Maria Ann Birnie and they homesteaded along the Paddle River, northern Alberta. They built a two-story log house. While expanding their farm, which included a saw mill, they had four children, Lily, Norah, Cedric and Achillies (Ackie).
During the First World War, he enlisted in the 202nd Canadian Infantry Battalion, serving in France. After the war, Gus returned to their homestead. Where Maria gave birth to four more children: Ron, Desmond, Caroline and Gerald.
Gus loved horses.
He raised them on the farm. In later years, when he and his family moved to the Edmonton area, he would join and ride with the Canadian Command of the Legion of Frontiersmen. Which was a mounted patriotic para-military group. Although he purchased a car, “it sat in the garage because he had no interest in learning how to drive it.” [1] He travelled locally by horse and further afield by train or boat.
He was a dedicated family man, a life-time abstainer of alcohol and a voracious reader. But never went to the movies, considering them “a waste of time.”
Once he was settled in Edmonton, Gus decided to follow his dream of becoming a writer. He was hired by The Edmonton Bulletin. His news and human interest items about the Northland were soon published under his own byline. He would become the Bulletin‘s Northern Editor.
With an interest in fiction, he also began to sell his “wilderness yarns” to a number of popular American “pulpwood” publications. When readers began to send in letters demanding “give us more stories by De Herries Smith,” a new career was begun.
De Herries Smith published numerous short stories in the pulp magazines of the 1920’s to mid 40’s, especially in North-West Stories. [2] As well as Action Stories, Adventure, All Star Western & Frontier Magazine, Argosy All-Star Weekly, Dime Adventure Magazine, Frontier Stories, Lariat Story Magazine, Outdoor Stories, Short Stories and Wild West Weekly.
Among his short stories were “Arctic Ambush,” “Brand of the Polar Sea,” “Bugles of the Ice,” “The Carcajou Killer,” “The Laughing Fox,” “Law of the Lone Land,” “Pards of the Snowshoe Trail,” “Red-Coat Law” and “Under Northern Stars.” His longer Complete Novellas included “Arctic Arrows,” “Breed of the Barrens,” “Dancing Drums,” “Snow Eagles” and “Mark of the Wolf.”
Two of his early Arctic stories can be found on Project Gutenberg.
DRUMS OF THE NORTH
His full-length novel DRUMS OF THE NORTH, which was serialized in North-West Stories in four parts, was published as a hardcover by Macaulay Company, New York, 1928: “Lima Bellerose, daughter of the owner of the trading post of Dahadinni, was proud of her native Indian ancestry. She wages a lone fight against a woman from the Great Outside for Bruce Redwood, man of her heart.”
The prolific De Herries Smith also published fiction under the pseudonyms of Owen Finbar, Sergeant Dan O’Rourke (later shortened to Dan O’Rourke) and Derek West.
The Table of Contents for the March 22, 1927 issue of North-West Stories is:
- Invaders of the Ice – A De Herries Smith · novella
- Aerial Mapping in Canada – Anon · ar (article)
- The Dark Whisper – Theodore A Tinsley · ss (short story)
- Athabaska Trapper Cheats Death – Anon · ar
- Courage of the Strong – Frederick Lewis Nebel · ss
- 2000 Buffalo to Be Slaughtered – Anon · ts (true story)
- Tonopah’s Dawg (A Tonopah Lee Story) – Eli Colter (May Eliza Frost) · ss
- Game in the Yukon – Anon – ar
- Over the Boundary – Robert Roy · ss
- Rustler’s Trail (Part 5 of 6) – Robert Ames Bennett · serialized novel
- Conspiracy – Sergeant Dan O’Rourke (A De Herries Smith) · ss
- Fisherman’s Luck – Albert William Stone · ss
- Indian Hero Becomes Postman – Anon · ar
- Red Terror – Harvey A Brassard – ss
- Yukon Pioneer Passes – Anon · ar
- The Round-Up – R E Alexander · poem
- Thunder Bird – George B Rodney · ss
- When Good Fellows Get Together – Readers’ Letters
And Gus continued to sell Northern news items to The Edmonton Bulletin and The Toronto Star.
Gus, like most freelance article writers, recycled each of his news items into three or four features. Some, if not most, of the “Anon” articles listed above would have been written by him.
In fact, it was common in those times for a prolific, popular author to have a number of stories in a single magazine issue, each one under a different name.
For example, Gus had four of his stories published in this classic Fall 1937 issue of North-West Romances:
“Wolves of the Wastelands” (as by A DeHerries Smith), “Untamed!” (Owen Finbar), “Fool’s Gold” (Sgt. Dan O’Rourke) and “Trail Tales of the North: The Snow Gods’ Way” (Derek West).
The outbreak of World War Two in 1939 changed everything for the Smith family, as it did most Canadians.
Gus and Maria saw four of their sons, Ackie, Desmond, Cedric and Ron, join the Canadian Forces. All served in active duty. Gus never missed a CBC or BBC radio newscast — or newspaper wire services report — trying to read between the lines to follow his boys at war.
Two sons, Cedric (in 1940, at sea) and then Desmond (1944, in the air), were killed in action. Both parents were devastated. On December 11, 1945, Gus died from a sudden stroke. Maria carried on to see their other children and grandchildren grow and thrive. She died in Calgary at age 103.
A productive and masterful storyteller, the popular De Herries Smith couldn’t be completely replaced in the hearts of the North-West Romances readership. New writers, especially Dan Cushman and Les Savage Jr, developed followings with their thrilling Northern adventures, but the editors had to feature old reprints of Jack London and Robert Service writings to keep sales up. [3]
Other Pulp writers…
About Robert Roy, author of “Over the Boundary” in this reviewed issue: twenty-three 0f Roy’s stories appeared in a creative burst in the adventure pulps from 1925 to ’27 — a few stragglers appearing up to 1930. He gained an eager following of his Northern yarns. Besides “Over the Boundary,” other favourites included “Breed of the Wolf,” “Honor of the Mounted,” “Mounted Justice,” “Mountie’s Luck,” “One Fox — For Christmas” and “Red-Coat Code.” A popular poem was his sentimental “Sonnet to a Team Dog.”
Serving originally in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Robert Roy transferred to the New York State Police in 1926. A year later, while entering the home of a larceny suspect to make an arrest, Roy was shot to death. He was 28.
Mounties, Wolves & Pulp Writers: North-West Stories & A De Herries Smith
After walking out of high school on his first day there, fifteen year old New Yorker Frederick Nebel moved to Canada, where he worked on his great-uncle’s homestead. He was a young man looking for challenge and adventure and found it. He loved the Canadian wilderness, keenly exploring it and learning about it’s history. His experiences formed the basis of his first fiction sale: “Trade Law” in the July, 1925 edition of North-West Stories.
Other tales by Nebel appeared in that magazine, including “Voyageur of the Wasteland,” “The Valley of Wanted Men,” “Red Coat of Tradition,” “Code of the Iron Fist” and “Whelp of the Timber Wolf,” also published as “Tell It to the Mounted.” He would go on to have his stories published in top mystery magazines such as Dime Detective and Black Mask. Later, in the prominent Saturday Evening Post and adapted into Hollywood screenplays.
As was common with many of the popular pulp writers, some of the authors listed above lived adventurous lives of their own.
CONCLUSION: Here’s the opening lines of DeHerries Smith’s “Long-Knife Law” — a Thrilling Northern Short Story from North West Romances magazine, April, 1943 edition:
The Lake of Calling Spirits was smooth and still. A strange hush lay over the fringe of woods about it. The high red sun overhead cast a coppery sheen on the tiny ripples which the west wind caused. At the bottom of the lake, odd-shaped shadows moved in a dizzying maze.
A flock of gray-feathered geese gabbled quietly near one shore, preening their feathers, and searching for water spiders. The chattering of the squirrels, which had raised a minor pandemonium in the tops of the spruce trees, had quieted into an expectant lull.
Suddenly an old gander, on sentry, flapped his wings furiously and let out a warning squawk, lifting himself into the air on his wide wings. The other geese honked an alarmed chorus, and accompanied by swirls of white water, climbed into the safety of the air.
Ducks, which a moment before had nosed along the reedy shores with the subdued quacking of content, dived or scuttled further into the bullrushes for shelter. The squirrels screamed their hatred from the security of their tree-tops.
Man, the destroyer, had come!
Two humped figures in a birchbark canoe hurtled about a long point, shooting their vessel across the lake with long, deep driven strokes. Time and again Joel Kaster’s stubbled face turned backwards over his dirty gray shirt, narrowed eyes peering beyond the rippling wake left by the canoe…
Gus Smith, like most writers who actually lived and worked in the Canadian North, loved that country. And loved to take you there. And like a lot of those talespinners, Gus deeply disliked what was being done to his sacred land in the name of “Progress.”
Old conservatives like A DeHerries Smith wrote about “Man, the destroyer.”
For more about Mountie and Great Northern Fiction You Have gotta See My BEARS, WOLVES, DOGS & MOUNTIES
Frontier Footnotes…
[1] “the car sat in the garage…” quote is from a short bio of his father compiled by Ron Smith for a Smith family reunion in June 1985.
[2] Featured Image at top of page is North-West Stories, May 22, 1926. Cover art by H C Murphy. Contained his short story “Soldiers of the Ice” (as by A DeHerries Smith) and three uncredited articles.
[3] For more about North-West Romances Magazine, see PULP COVERS: North-West Romances, Wilderness, Mounties & Dangerous Women.
Mounties, Wolves & Pulp Writers: North-West Stories and A De Herries Smith.
ARCTIC ARROWS – Complete Novelette by De Herries Smith – “Arctic Silences, Flickering Shadows and Northland Courage” in North-West Stories, Nov 1925.
A De Herries Smith, A DeHerries Smith, A De Herries Smith biography, book review, Canadian patriot, Dan O’Rourke, Frederick Lewis Nebel.
Mountie fiction, Mounties, North-West Romances, North-West Stories, Pulp Fiction, Robert Roy, western writer, who was A De Herries Smith.
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