NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST – A Mounties Book Review
NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST by Samuel Alexander White – Canadian Mounties Book Review
“Run off,” breathed Nash aloud. “By thunder, they’ve run off my thousand-dollar horse!”
The spreading camp-fire light revealed Plains Burner, tail up and mane flying, as he went wildly galloping away. In the rear, the red rays struck lithe coppery figures swaying on bronco backs as they rode like fiends.
Nash sighted on the swaying riders, and his rifle spoke.
A yell of defiance echoed with the report. An axe whistled through the air, like a streaming meteor in the firelight, whizzing straight for his head.
He ducked swiftly. The flying blade scratched his gun barrel with a metallic rasp and the flat of the missile grazed his skull.
Nash staggered and the rifle fell from his hand…
NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST tells the story of Alec Nash, a Winnipeg settlement buffalo hunter who befriends Sergeant Hume of the newly created North-West Mounted Police.
The Mounties are headquartered at Winnipeg’s Stone Fort as they drill and prepare for their historic Great March West. Among his other duties, Sgt Hume trains the Police horses and their riders.
And it’s not just about two heroic men. It’s about their horses.
Nash, soon to be elected Captain of the 1874 Buffalo Hunt, knew he needed a steed called Plains Burner. Plains Burner had been bred and raised by men of the Blackfoot nation, who knew how to breed the best prairie ponies. The swift, fearless medium sized horse was now owned by Louise Belcourt. He surprised Louise when he accepted her high asking price.
And Sgt Hume’s Night Hawk. The Sergeant described his big black Police horse as “Trained to a fine art. If I get in trouble, Night Hawk always pulls me out. Night Hawk’s the brightest jewel on the Force.”
When the Hunt is over, Nash joins the Mounties as a Scout.
Samuel Alexander White tells a Homeric Tale of the Canadian Wild West. He gathers up all the real-life stories of that place and time and creates National Myth…
The Métis Buffalo Hunt, of course. The Native Tribes. Huge prairie storms and clouds of locusts. The Little Crimson Manual. Whiskey traders, their wagon trains and their misbegotten forts. Wolfers and their poison trail. Smallpox, with all its cruelty. Northern winters and dogsleds. And a new awakening: the Prairie Spring.
And who is it who saves them all in the end? As Louise Belcourt says, “Plains Burner and Night Hawk — and you, Alec.”
When Samuel White’s New York literary agent Otis Adelbert Kline asked him for “stories that readers really want from Canada,” White responded with NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST. NIGHTHAWK was a hit. And White followed it with nine more Northwestern Mounties novels. All of which Kline sold to Phoenix Press of New York and Ryerson Press of Toronto.
And, as with other Canadian wilderness writers, White’s Northwestern novels also found a receptive readership in Australia, Great Britain and northern Europe.
The hardcover French edition of NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST was published in Paris, 1958, as part of the Bibliothèque Rouge et Or Série as LE FAUCON DU NORD-OÙEST. It was translated by Marguerite Tisseyre and illustrated by Henri Dimpre. Going through a number of reprints, in hardcover, softcover and once in magazine format, it’s still keenly collected today. It’s perhaps Samuel’s best selling title.
My favourite Samuel White title is MAN SCENT – A Northern Canada Book by Samuel Alexander White. Classified as an Animal Story, it’s a collection of interconnected tales of Humans and Wild Animals in a time of devastating railroad construction through the wilderness.
– Brian Alan Burhoe.
Did you like this Mounties Fiction Review? Want to learn more about Samuel Alexander White’s Life and Works?
THEN YOU’VE GOT TO SEE “THE WRITERS OF THE NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE” — MY MOST POPULAR LITERARY HISTORY POST:
“Thanks for a wonderful in-depth article on Mountie fiction. I’m a big fan of the Mounties. I really enjoyed the amount of details you provided and found many, many more books to put on my wish list.” Jack Wagner
“I just discovered your blog recently and need to dig deeper into it. That post on Mountie fiction is great!” Western writer James Reasoner
A wide-ranging exploration of the writers who created the Mythology of our North-West Mounted Police. My Top 10 Mountie Fiction Writers in some detail, including Samuel Alexander White. And a look at many other authors. Lavishly illustrated with marvelous magazine and book covers. SEE The GREATEST AUTHORS OF NORTH-WEST MOUNTED POLICE FICTION
(ARTWORK: Top Image is a detail from LE FAUCON DU NORD-OÙEST cover, illustration by Henri Dimpre. Middle Image is the cover of the paperback reprint edition — A Sundown Book — from W Foulsham & Co, London, 1949. Foulsham held “the copyright throughout the British Empire, excepting the Dominion of Canada.”)
NIGHTHAWK OF THE NORTHWEST by Samuel Alexander White – Canadian Mounties Book Review
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