The Devil's Share

Can we ever own land--or does the land instead possess us? That question underpins this elegantly written account of a young man's action-filled year in the Wrangell-St. Elias wilderness, where mountains rise to pierce the sky. There he faces dangers hidden behind both the smiles of humans and the beauties of the vast country where Canada and Alaska meet. Jack enters the mountains to work at a lakeside wilderness lodge near his birthplace--a homestead from which his family had been evicted when he was a toddler, as the land became a national park. What starts as a simple summer job helping a family friend with his guiding business becomes a complex struggle for survival among the snares set by bears and glaciers, smugglers and park rangers, bitter weather, and one beautiful, troubled young woman. Jack's adventure makes for a unique coming-of-age story; a genuine mountain man cannot fit easily into the twenty-first century, and he becomes truly a man out of time.