The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, settlers, and townsfolk.
International interest in the region and the genre was fuelled by the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99) and subsequent works surrounding it, fiction and non-fiction. The genre was extremely popular in the interwar period of the 20th century. Northerns are still produced, but their popularity waned in the late 1950s.
Characteristics
The North-West Mounted Police, and later the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were often the heroes of Northern fiction.The Yukon (occasionally near the Alaskan border) was a common setting for Northern fiction.
Northerns are similar to Westerns but are set in the frozen north of North America; that is, Canada or Alaska.[1] Of the two, Canada was the more common setting, although many tropes could apply to both. Popular locations within Canada are the Yukon, the Barren Grounds, and area around Hudson Bay.[2] Generic names used for this general setting included the "Far North", the "Northlands", the "North Woods", and the "Great Woods".
Common settings include boreal forests, isolated cabins, and mining towns.[3] Snow featured to such an extent that Northern films were sometimes termed "snow pictures".[3] Animals were a common feature too. Dogs and dog sleds were popularized by The Call of the Wild and White Fang. Scenes involving attacks by bears date back to The Klondyke Nugget.[3]
The primary antagonist in a Northern can be the wilderness, the weather and other natural elements, which the protagonists must endure, overcome and survive.[4][5]
The Western idea of lawlessness set in American towns was not a part of the Canadian Northern, though individual lawbreakers or uprisings by Canadians feature in works such as Quebec (1951), Riel (1979), and Northwest Mounted Police (1940). In Northerns and wider crime fiction, the general Canadian preference is for law enforcement to be performed by the state rather than vigilantes or private investigators.[6] Likewise, Northerns rarely feature the heroic outlaws often found in Westerns.[6] On the subject, David Skene-Melvin writes "Canada never had a Wild West because the Mounties got there first,"[6] while Margaret Atwood writes "No outlaws or lawless men for Canada; if one appears, the Mounties always get their man."[7]
Law and order in Northerns set in Canada is most often represented by the Mounties, either the North-West Mounted Police or Royal Canadian Mounted Police depending on era. Like snow, Mounties are a common enough feature to become a synonym for the genre, with Northern films sometimes called "Mountie films".[8] Their popularity was not confined to film; by 1930, 75 volumes of written Mountie fiction had been published, not including juvenile fiction and material published in magazines.[5] Where a protagonist in a Western is often part of both civilization and the wild (whether native or criminal), Mounties in Northerns are entirely a part of civilization.[5] The nature of fictional Mounties can vary depending on the nationality of the author.[5] Mounties as written by British authors are often younger members of upper class British families serving the British Empire in the colonies. American-authored Mounties are often little different from US Marshalls and project the values of Westerns in that they place their individual sense of justice and conscience above their duty to the law. Canadian-authored Mounties represent, and are self-abnegating champions of, the Canadian establishment and its laws. Further, their authority does not come from either their social class or physical abilities; such a Mountie "upholds the law by moral rather than physical force".[5] A common story outline for Northerns involving Mounties is a pursuit, confrontation and capture: the Mountie's pursuit of a fugitive takes place across the Canadian wilderness and may be resolved non-violently.[5]
According to Pierre Berton "the French-Canadian was to the northerns what the Mexican was to the Westerns — an exotic primitive, adaptable as a chameleon to play a hero or a heavy."[9] French-Canadians were a ubiquitous element of the genre. As characters, French-Canadians are typically depicted as rustic and uneducated. These characters were usually divided into two broad types: the heroic, happy-go-lucky bon-vivant and the villainous, lecherous killer. Some later examples merged the two stereotypes into a charming, roguish anti-villain.[9] Common visual elements were a tuque, a sash and a pipe.[9] All were present in the first appearance in film, in A Woman's Way (1908).[9] Female French-Canadian characters also followed the "tempestuous" stereotype of female Mexican characters. Mexican actress Lupe Vélez, in line with her identity as "The Mexican Spitfire", played the title character in Tiger Rose (1929) in this mode; as did Renée Adorée in The Eternal Struggle (1923) and Nikki Duval in Quebec (1951).[9]
A common anachronism in Northerns was the tyranny and absolute power of the Hudson's Bay Company and its officers, even into the modern period.[9] This was repeated not just in fiction but by reviewers and critics too.[9] The concept of La Longue Traverse, or the Journey of Death, comes from The Call of the North (1914) and was popular in later films. In this, the Hudson's Bay Company executes convicts by forcing them into the wilderness without equipment or supplies.[9] In 1921, the Hudson's Bay Company successfully sued the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation for the villainous portrayal of their Company in the latter's remake The Call of the North.[9]
Besides being set in Canadian Prairies, the stories often contrast the American frontier with the Canadian frontier in several ways. In films such as Pony Soldier and Saskatchewan the North-West Mounted Police display reason, compassion and a sense of fair play in their dealings with Aboriginal people (First Nations) as opposed to hotheaded American visitors (often criminals), lawmen or the American Army who seem to prefer extermination with violence.
History
David Skene-Melvin classes the "second period" of Canadian crime literature (1880–1920), as "the heyday of the 'Northern' and the literary exploration of Canada's remote and romantic frontiers."[6] He refers to Joseph Edmund Collins as an important figure in this period because, despite his work being of low quality, he was the first Canadian author to address some aspects of the 'Matter of Canada' in his novels, such as The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief (1885) and Annette, the Métis Spy (1886).[6] Northerns continued to be written after 1920 but Canadian authors largely moved to other genres after World War I as they moved away from a frontier and colonial ethos.[6]
The Klondike Gold Rush during the 1890s in Canada and Alaska brought a lot of wider, international attention to the far north of North America.[2] Adventure novels from veterans of the gold rush—such as Jack London's The Call of the Wild (1903), Rex Beach's The Spoilers (1906) and Robert W. Service's The Trail of Ninety-Eight (1909)—became best sellers.[2] These inspired more adventure fiction which grew in popularity throughout the first half of the twentieth century.[2] The genre was extremely popular in the inter-war years,[2][3] with a "Mountie craze" hitting its peak during the mid-1920s.[9]
A large amount of Northern fiction is the work of non-Canadians. Nevertheless, Skene-Melvin writes "Just as the Western is widely regarded as emblematic of American culture, it can be argued that the Northern is the only truly indigenous Canadian art form, even if most of its exponents have been foreigners."[6]
One of the earliest international examples of the genre is the British play The Klondyke Nugget, which was first performed in 1898.[3] Its author, Samuel Franklin Cody initially wrote it as a Western but changed the location to capitalize on the contemporary gold rush.[3]
While the Hollywood Western began to change in the post-World War II era and the Western myth eventually lost popularity, Hollywood Northerns remained mostly unchanged until their production waned in the late 1950s, the underlying mythology never being challenged.[9]
Examples of Northerns
Poster for the play Heart of the Klondike (c. 1897)Poster for the film McKenna of the Mounted (1932)Photo of Richard Simmons as Sergeant Preston and Yukon King from the television series Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
Folklore of Canada (Canadian oral stories)
Chasse-galerie, the enchanted canoe that flies over the water of the river like a bird
Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 44,975 as of 2023. However, Whitehorse, the territorial capital, is the largest settlement in any of the three territories.
The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of Yukon, in north-western Canada, between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896; when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in films, literature, and photographs.
The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively more primitive and wild in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.
James Oliver Curwood was an American action-adventure writer and conservationist. His books were often based on adventures set in the Hudson Bay area, the Yukon or Alaska and ranked among the top-ten best sellers in the United States in the early and mid 1920s, according to Publishers Weekly. At least one hundred and eighty motion pictures have been based on or directly inspired by his novels and short stories; one was produced in three versions from 1919 to 1953. At the time of his death, Curwood was the highest paid author in the world.
Chilkoot Pass is a high mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains in the U.S. state of Alaska and British Columbia, Canada. It is the highest point along the Chilkoot Trail that leads from Dyea, Alaska to Bennett Lake, British Columbia. The Chilkoot Trail was long a route used by the Tlingit for trade.
White Pass, also known as the Dead Horse Trail, is a mountain pass through the Boundary Ranges of the Coast Mountains on the border of the U.S. state of Alaska and the province of British Columbia, Canada. It leads from Skagway, Alaska, to the chain of lakes at the headwaters of the Yukon River, Crater Lake, Lake Lindeman, and Bennett Lake.
The Dempster Highway, also referred to as Yukon Highway 5 and Northwest Territories Highway 8, is a highway in Canada that connects the Klondike Highway in Yukon to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River delta. The highway crosses the Peel and the Mackenzie rivers using a combination of seasonal ferry services and ice bridges. Year-round road access from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk opened in November 2017, with the completion of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway, creating the first all-weather road route connecting the Canadian road network with the Arctic Ocean.
Charles Constantine was a Canadian North-West Mounted Police officer and superintendent, from Bradford, Yorkshire.
The history of Yukon covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians through the Beringia land bridge approximately 20,000 years ago. In the 18th century, Russian explorers began to trade with the First Nations people along the Alaskan coast, and later established trade networks extending into Yukon. By the 19th century, traders from the Hudson's Bay Company were also active in the region. The region was administered as a part of the North-Western Territory until 1870, when the United Kingdom transferred the territory to Canada and it became the North-West Territories.
The Klondike Gold Rush is commemorated through film, literature, historical parks etc.
Yukon Vengeance is a 1954 American Northern film directed by William Beaudine and starring Kirby Grant, Monte Hale and Mary Ellen Kay. It was the tenth and final film featuring Grant as Mountie Corporal Rod Webb, assisted by his dog Chinook.
Trail of the Yukon is a 1949 American Northern film directed by William Beaudine and starring Kirby Grant, Suzanne Dalbert and Bill Edwards. It was based on a novel by James Oliver Curwood about a North-West Mounted Police officer and his faithful German Shepherd dog Chinook. It is part of the Northern genre. The film was popular, and inspired Monogram to make a series of nine further films starring Grant and Chinook.
Corporal Rod Webb and his faithful dog Chinook were the major characters in a series of films made by the American studio Monogram Pictures between 1949 and 1954. Webb was played by the actor Kirby Grant in eight films, while in two others Grant played the almost identical character of Bob McDonald, accompanied as usual by Chinook.
Yukon Gold is a 1952 American Northern film directed by Frank McDonald and starring Kirby Grant, Martha Hyer and Harry Lauter. The film was seventh in the series of ten films featuring Kirby Grant as a Canadian Mountie.
Call of the Klondike is a 1950 American Northern film directed by Frank McDonald and starring Kirby Grant, Anne Gwynne, and Lynne Roberts. The film was the fourth in the series of ten films featuring Kirby Grant as a Canadian Mountie.
Fangs of the Arctic is a 1953 American Northern film directed by Rex Bailey and starring Kirby Grant, Lorna Hanson and Warren Douglas. The film was the eighth in the series of ten films featuring Kirby Grant as a Canadian Mountie.
Yukon Manhunt is a 1951 American Northern film directed by Frank McDonald and starring Kirby Grant, Gail Davis and Margaret Field. The film was the sixth in the series of ten films featuring Kirby Grant as a Canadian Mountie.
Northwest Territory is a 1951 American Northern film directed by Frank McDonald and starring Kirby Grant, Gloria Saunders and Warren Douglas. The film is the fifth in the series of ten films featuring Kirby Grant as a Canadian Mountie.
James Beardsley Hendryx, was an American author of western fiction.
References
↑ Beverly, Edward Joseph (2008). "Preface". Chasing the Sun: A Reader's Guide to Novels Set in the American West. Sunstone Press. p.11. ISBN9780865346031. Some book reviewers, however, contend that the one thing all Western settings have in common is aridity, and wouldn't consider novels set in Missouri or along the Pacific Coast or in the other non-arid regions to be Western fiction. Some include stories set in Canada and Alaska; others differentiate these as 'Northerns.'
1 2 3 4 5 Pronzini, Bill (2017). "The Bull Moose and Other Scourges of the Frozen North". Six-Gun in Cheek. Courier Dover. ISBN9780486820347. Northerns—tales set in the rough-and-tumble frontier days of Alaska, the Yukon, the Canadian Barrens, the Hudsons's Bay region—were a popular adjunct to the Western story during the first half of this century.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Solomon, Matthew (2015). The Gold Rush. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN9781137516114. Chaplin's decision to have The Gold Rush take place during the 1897–8 Klondike Gold Rush placed it squarely within the well established Northern genre, which spanned theatre, literature and film, encompassing stories about trappers, adventurers, lumberjacks, miners, Mounties, Eskimos, and others-even animals-in the Far North.
↑ "Canada". International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities. Routledge. 2007. ISBN9781134317066. 'Mounties' (RCMP officers) have been widely mythologized and lampooned in Anglophone popular culture, from the dozens of early Hollywood Mountie films or 'Northerns' (McGuire of the Mounted, Rose Marie) and popular television series Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and Due South, to the cinematic spoof Dudley Do-Right [...]
MacLulich, Thomas Donald (1988). Between Europe and America: The Canadian Tradition in Fiction. ECW Press. ISBN9780920763957.
Drew, Bernard Alger (1990). Lawmen in Scarlet: An Annotated Guide to Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Print and Performance. Scarecrow Press. ISBN9780810823303.
Dawson, Michael (1998). The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney. Between The Lines. ISBN9781896357164.
Strange, Carolyn; Loo, Tina Merrill (2004). True Crime, True North: The Golden Age of Canadian Pulp Magazines. Raincoast Books. ISBN9781551926896.
MacKenzie, Scott; Westerståhl Stenport, Anna (2015). Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN9780748694174.
Baker, Richard G. (24 Jun 2015). "'Nothing But Hill and Hollow': The Canadian Border as American Frontier in the Hollywood Northern". Comparative American Studies. 13 (1–2): 107–121. doi:10.1179/1477570015Z.000000000102. S2CID218667023.
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