Snow Treasure

Last updated
Snow Treasure
SnowTreasure.jpg
First edition
AuthorMarie McSwigan
IllustratorMary
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Series5
GenreChildren's literature, historical fiction
Publisher E. P. Dutton
Publication date
1942
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages156
ISBN 0-590-42537-4

Snow Treasure is a children's novel by Marie McSwigan. Set in Nazi-occupied Norway during World War II, it recounts the story of several Norwegian children who use sleds to smuggle their country's gold bullion past German guards to a waiting ship, the Cleng Peerson. [1] [2] [3] Published in 1942, it has been in print ever since. [4] The book was made into a film of the same name in 1968, directed by Irving Jacoby. [5] [6]

Contents

Plot summary

The book is set in Norway in 1940, and starts out with four Norwegian children, Peter, Michael, Helga, and Lovisa playing on their sleds after school. Later, when the children are in bed, Peter wakes up to hear several men talking downstairs and goes down to eavesdrop. The men; Including Peter's uncle and father, need to smuggle gold past the Nazis, who have not yet invaded Norway. Peter's uncle, Uncle Victor, sees Peter and tells the other men that the solution to their problem lies with the children.

The next day, the townspeople build bomb shelters, and the day after that, the Nazis invade Norway. Uncle Victor tells Peter, Michael, Helga, and Lovisa about the men's plan. [7] The plan is that all the children above ten years of age in their school will carry the gold past German sentries on their sleds and leave it by Uncle Victor's ship, which would then take it, for safekeeping, to America. [8] [9]

This plan works for two weeks until the Nazi commander in their town wants to re-open the school, which would prevent the children from sledding. The town's doctor creates a false epidemic that affects only the smaller children and paints them from head to toe with red dots. Then he tells the German commander that it is impossible to start school with this epidemic going around. He also says that he encourages the healthy children to stay outside. So, the school stays closed, and the children keep sledding.

The children are later in the story discovered by a Nazi, whom Uncle Victor and Rolls, his sailing mate, take captive. Their prisoner denies that he is a Nazi, although he is in a Nazi uniform. He tells them that his name is Jan Lasek, and that he is a young Pole who was captured by the Nazis when they invaded Poland, and forced to serve in the German army. He then asks Uncle Victor to take him to the United States because he says he has relatives there. Uncle Victor agrees, under the condition that Jan be kept prisoner until the ship departs, in case this is a Nazi trick.

At the very end of the story, all the gold is safely away on the ship going to America. Peter and Jan Lasek, the young Pole, also embark.

Historical origins

The characters and some of the events described are fiction, but the story may have some basis in fact. A cargo of gold bullion, worth $9,000,000, arrived by the freighter Bomma in Baltimore on 28 June 1940. The ship's captain reported that the gold was smuggled past the Germans by Norwegian children on their sleds. [8] The book is often described as being "based on a true story." [4] [10] McSwigan stated in an author's note "that she [had] tried to be as accurate as possible in describing how the children carried the gold on sleds" while admitting that some details were changed. [4] A journalist by trade, she wrote in 1960: "Some of my children's books are based on actual happenings. Over and over, an Associated Press dispatch or one from United-International has set me to wondering: What kind of patriots were those Norwegians who saved their gold by having their children sled it down a mountain past the occupation forces, as I subsequently made my characters do in Snow Treasure? Or what was he like, the real 'sixteen-year-old who, on a homemade portable radio transmitter, broadcast resistance against the Japanese as did my Juan of Manila? Or, what about those Czechs who stole a railway train and drove it into West Germany, as mine would do in All Aboard for Freedom? These stories came out of the newspapers." [11] In the book's foreword McSwigan also asserted: "This story is based on an actual happening. On June 28, 1940, the Norwegian freighter Bomma reached Baltimore with a cargo of gold bullion worth $9,000,000... Two changes were made in the scant account given in the news dispatches that accompanied the disclosure of the cargo of gold. The Bomma, a coasting motorship, became the Cleng Peerson, a fishing smack. Also, the distance the gold was sledded was not twelve miles but actually thirty-five miles. Otherwise, how the Norse children set about eluding the German forces of occupation is here reconstructed as well as possible from what brief facts were permitted." [12]

News reports published in The Baltimore Sun in 1940 described the Bomma as "a little gray Norwegian coasting motorship [and] the central figure in a mystery shipment of $9,000,000 in gold which moved in and out of the port Monday night." Under the command of Capt. Henry Lois Johannessen, speculation grew around the absence of a name "on her bows or stern [and] adding to the secrecy swirling around the ship was no mention in The Sun's shipping columns of her arrival in local waters." The newspaper said that "The Bomma docked and three heavily guarded trucks arrived at the pier simultaneously. While guards kept a sharp lookout, the trucks were piled high with cases said to contain foreign bullion. Once loaded, the armored trucks trundled off the pier and traveled through deserted city streets at midnight accompanied by a squad of police on motorcycles and in radio cars. They were en route to Camden Station where a B&O train stood waiting to receive the valuable shipment." [12]

An article published in The Cairns Post , an Australian newspaper, on 22 August 1941, reported that £15,000,000 in gold bullion — packed in 1500 crates and requiring 30 trucks — had been smuggled past German troops from Oslo to Åndalsnes, 480 kilometres (300 mi) to the north, where British warships were waiting. The reports states: "Hiding by day in forests and lonely belts of country, and travelling by night, they slowly crept north. Outriders went ahead advising patriotic Norwegians of the coming convoy to prevent its ambush by Quislings... Then, one by one, the trucks, led by village guides, slipped through the Nazi lines and reached Andalsnes. A number of cases was put aboard a British destroyer. The rest of the gold was ferried across the fjord to Molde... That night Norwegian patriots, men, women and children, were gathered together and told what lay in the cases. Every type of craft still afloat in Molde was crewed, and the gold put on board. Small fjord boats, fishing smacks, yachts, motor boats, pleasure craft — even row boats — all set off that night and crept north along the coast until daylight." [13]

Speaking in 2001, O.C. Holm, an expert on World War II Norwegian shipping, said "Many think the story is true. It is not." [12] While confirming that the Bomma did transport kr40,000,000 worth of Norway's gold to Baltimore, Siri Holm Lawson states that "[the book] may be based on the above event, or one of the other Norwegian ships transporting gold to the U.S., but the story itself is fiction." [14]

Reception

Snow Treasure won the 1945 Young Reader's Choice Award. [15]

Awards
Preceded by Young Reader's Choice Award recipient
1945
Succeeded by

Adaptation

Snow Treasure was made into a film in 1968. It was produced, directed, and co-written by Irving Jacoby with Marie McSwigan. [6] The movie starred Paul Austad as Peter Lundstrom and Tina Austad as Peter's sister; the cast also included James Franciscus and Ilona Rodgers. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knut Hamsun</span> Norwegian novelist (1859–1952)

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsun's work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to consciousness, subject, perspective and environment. He published more than 20 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, works of non-fiction and some essays.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sled</span> Land vehicle used for sliding across snow or ice

A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners similar in principle to skis. This reduces the amount of friction, which helps to carry heavy loads.

<i>Treasure Island</i> Novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, telling a story of "buccaneers and buried gold". It is considered a coming-of-age story and is noted for its atmosphere, characters, and action.

<i>The Famous Five</i> Series of childrens novels by Enid Blyton

The Famous Five is a series of children's adventure novels and short stories written by English author Enid Blyton. The first book, Five on a Treasure Island, was published in 1942. The novels feature the adventures of a group of young children – Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their dog Timmy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race</span> Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, more commonly known as The Iditarod, is an annual long-distance sled dog race run in early March. It travels from Anchorage to Nome, entirely within the US state of Alaska. Mushers and a team of between 12 and 14 dogs, of which at least 5 must be on the towline at the finish line, cover the distance in 8–15 days or more. The Iditarod began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sled dog</span> Working dog

A sled dog is a dog trained and used to pull a land vehicle in harness, most commonly a sled over snow.

SS <i>Central America</i> Sidewheel steamer ship

SS Central America, known as the Ship of Gold, was a 280-foot (85 m) sidewheel steamer that operated between Central America and the East Coast of the United States during the 1850s. She was originally named the SS George Law, after George Law of New York. The ship sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with 425 of her 578 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds (13,600 kg) of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yamashita's gold</span> Purported treasure hidden in the Philippines

Yamashita's gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the alleged war loot stolen in Southeast Asia by Imperial Japanese forces during World War II and supposedly hidden in caves, tunnels, or underground complexes in different cities in the Philippines. It was named after the Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita, dubbed as "The Tiger of Malaya", who conquered Malaya within 70 days from the British. Though there are accounts that claim the treasure remains hidden in the Philippines and have lured treasure hunters from around the world for over 50 years, its existence has been dismissed by most experts. The rumored treasure was the subject of a complex lawsuit that was filed in a Hawaiian state court in 1988 involving a Filipino treasure hunter, Rogelio Roxas, and the former Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sledding</span> Gliding sport

Sledding, sledging or sleighing is a winter sport typically carried out in a prone or seated position on a vehicle generically known as a sled, a sledge (British), or a sleigh. It is the basis of three Olympic sports: luge, skeleton and bobsledding. When practised on sand, it is known as a form of sandboarding. In Russia sledges are used for maritime activities including fishing and commuting from island to island on ice.

<i>The Secret of the Unicorn</i> Comic album by Belgian cartoonist Hergé

The Secret of the Unicorn is the eleventh volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. The story was serialised daily in Le Soir, Belgium's leading francophone newspaper, from June 1942 to January 1943 amidst the Nazi German occupation of Belgium during World War II. The story revolves around young reporter Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friend Captain Haddock, who discover a riddle left by Haddock's ancestor, the 17th century Sir Francis Haddock, which could lead them to the hidden treasure of the pirate Red Rackham. To unravel the riddle, Tintin and Haddock must obtain three identical models of Sir Francis's ship, the Unicorn, but they discover that criminals are also after these model ships and are willing to kill in order to obtain them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auric Goldfinger</span> Fictional James Bond villain

Auric Goldfinger is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Ian Fleming's 1959 seventh James Bond novel, Goldfinger, and the 1964 film it inspired. His first name, Auric, is an adjective meaning "of gold". Fleming chose the name to commemorate the architect Ernő Goldfinger, who had built his home in Hampstead near Fleming's; it is possible, though unlikely, that he disliked Goldfinger's style of architecture and destruction of Victorian terraces and decided to name a memorable villain after him. According to a 1965 Forbes article and The New York Times, the Goldfinger persona was based on gold mining magnate Charles W. Engelhard, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Captain Flint</span> Fictional pirate in Stevensons Treasure Island

Captain J. Flint is a fictional golden age pirate captain who features in a number of novels, television series, and films. The original character was created by the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). Flint first appears in the classic adventure yarn Treasure Island, which was first serialised in a children's magazine in 1881, and later published as a novel in 1883.

<i>Goldfinder</i> Autobiography of British diver and treasure hunter Keith Jessop

Goldfinder is a 2001 autobiography of British diver and treasure hunter Keith Jessop. It tells the story of Jessop's life and salvaging such underwater treasures as HMS Edinburgh, one of the greatest deep sea salvage operations and most financially rewarding in history.

The Flight of the Norwegian National Treasury was the transfer of Norway's gold reserves to the United States via the United Kingdom, to avoid them falling into the hands of Nazi Germany.

Kimberly is a ghost town in the northwest corner of Piute County, Utah, United States. Located high in Mill Canyon on the side of Gold Mountain in the Tushar Mountains, Kimberly was formerly a gold mining town. Originally settled in the 1890s, it lasted until 1910. Kimberly had a minor rebirth in the 1930s, but has been uninhabited since approximately 1938. The town is perhaps best known as the birthplace of Ivy Baker Priest, a former United States Treasurer.

<i>The Golden Keel</i> 1963 novel by Desmond Bagley

The Golden Keel is the debut novel by English author Desmond Bagley, first published in 1963. Written in the first person narrative, the introductory biography of the protagonist is closely patterned after that of the author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiltgunt Zassenhaus</span> German philologist

Hiltgunt Margret Zassenhaus was a German philologist who worked as an interpreter in Hamburg, Germany during World War II, and later as a physician in the United States. She was honoured for her efforts to aid prisoners in Nazi Germany during World War II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary A. Reardon</span> American painter

Mary Agnes Reardon (1912–2002) was a Catholic liturgical artist; she was a painter, muralist, designer and illustrator of children's books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Operation Fish</span>

Operation Fish was the World War II evacuation of British wealth from the UK to Canada. It was the largest known movement of wealth in history, where most of the UK's gold reserves were removed from London and shipped to Canada during the Second World War.

<i>Snow Treasure</i> (film) 1968 American adventure film

Snow Treasure is a 1968 American adventure film directed by Irving Jacoby and starring James Franciscus, Ilona Rodgers and Tor Stokke. It is based on the 1942 novel Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan, set during the German occupation of Norway during World War II.

References

  1. Hallor, Ellen (6 January 2001). "Caught by the tale". The Boston Globe . Boston, MA. Archived from the original on 24 March 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2012.(subscription required)
  2. "Tales of War". The Washington Post . Washington, D.C. 10 July 2002. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2012.(subscription required)
  3. "Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan – Goodreads". Goodreads Inc. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 Westmore, Jean (23 November 2005). "Kid Bits: Snow Treasure". The Buffalo News . Buffalo, NY. Archived from the original on 14 April 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2012.(subscription required)
  5. "Snow Treasure". VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever. 1 January 2008. Archived from the original on 9 March 2016. Retrieved 28 November 2012.(subscription required)
  6. 1 2 3 "Snow Treasure (1968) – IMDb". IMDb. 4 October 1968. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  7. "Snow Treasure – thrivingfamily.com". thrivingfamily.com. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  8. 1 2 "Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan – Scholastic". Scholastic. Retrieved 25 November 2012.
  9. McSwigan, Marie (1958). Snow Treasure: Marie McSwigan – Amazon. ISBN   084037691X.
  10. Vuko, Evelyn Porreca (14 June 1999). "Teacher Says: Keep the Kids Reading During Summer Vacation". The Washington Post . Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 28 November 2012.(subscription required)
  11. "Marie McSwigan". Catholic Authors. 2005. Retrieved 29 November 2012. Originally published in Romig, Walter: The Book of Catholic Authors (1960).
  12. 1 2 3 Rasmussen, Frederick N (14 July 2001). "Story tells of gold-shipping during WWII". The Baltimore Sun . Baltimore, MD. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  13. "Norway's gold: Taken across the Atlantic". The Cairns Post . Cairns. 22 August 1941. p. 1. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  14. "M/S Bomma". Warsailors. 11 April 2011. Retrieved 29 November 2012.
  15. "YRCA Past Winners". Pacific Northwest Library Association. Archived from the original on 12 October 2016. Retrieved 29 March 2014.