Alaska Highway Two-Step
ISBN 978-1-55017-801-2 • Harbour Publishing
Gorgeous new edition of this book - $19.95
E-book available at your favourite online retailer.
Nominated for the Arthur Ellis Best First Mystery Novel in 1994
and a Globe & Mail Editor’s Top 100 Books Pick!
Book Description
The story follows Mercy Brown, a reluctant psychic and freelance journalist who embarks on a writing assignment-turned-adventure up the Alaska Highway upon discovering her late aunt’s mysterious diaries filled with Canadian dance history and a painful past. Harbour is proud to bring this book back into print!
Reviews
Alaska Highway Two-Step
by Caroline Woodward
Betty Webb - Mystery Scene Magazine
Caroline Woodward’s Alaska Highway Two-Step begs the question: Is this a mystery or not? My answer would be: no and yes. No, because no one gets murdered, and the only deaths in the book occur in the past and in the protagonist’s dreamlike prophecies. But in a way, the answer is also yes, because those prophecies hint at a terrible life-taking event which may or may not happen. Mercy Brown is a freelance travel writer (and possible psychic) whose sidekick is Sadie, her diabetic dog. When Mercy is given the job of writing a history of the Alaska Highway, she, Sadie, and 32 journals written by her deceased Aunt Ginger hit the road. Along her 1,500-mile journey, she has several adventures, but most of the action actually occurs in Aunt Ginger’s journals. A ballet dancer and world traveler who died of a stroke on a trip to Sri Lanka, Aunt Ginger never let a wild time pass her by. In comparison, Mercy’s life has been one of gardening, in particular growing rhododendrons. But during her long road trip, she is haunted by a journal-caused vision in which an entire community is destroyed by a river of mud. Mercy’s reading is varied enough that the vision reminds her of a tragedy in Wales. In 1966, when a mining-weakened hillside gave way, the mud roared down into the small village of Aberfan, killing 144 people, 116 of them school children. Mercy wonders if she is being warned that the same thing is about to happen in Alaska. This is an exquisitely written novel, full of lush descriptions of flowers and even potatoes. But it also moves so slowly that an impatient reader might begin to wonder if it will ever cut to the chase. Well, it does—and it doesn’t. Mercy’s visions are accurate, and yet, Alaska Highway Two-Step is not a book for excitement junkies, nor for readers who want a straight-ahead plot with a strong arc of action. However, for the patient reader, there is plenty of gold in this rhododendron-rich story of old tragedies, old heartbreaks, and new hopes.
Alaska Highway Two-Step (by Caroline Woodward). Northern Review Reviewed by Aline Goncalves
A tale of interwoven journeys of self-discovery. This summarizes what
Caroline Woodward does in Alaska Highway Two-Step, a novel with
several narrative lines that transition between present and past, dream
and reality.
The story begins with a first-person account told through the eyes
of Mercy Brown, a freelance journalist whose most common jobs involve
writing small pieces for insignificant publications. Mercy’s destiny is
changed when she receives an invitation to write a series of articles
about the Alaska Highway, an assignment that requires Mercy and her loyal
elderly dog, Sadie, to be en route to Alaska and the Yukon.
Here, one might expect to read about the adventures of a single
woman and a dog travelling to a distant land in an old Volkswagen van,
but Woodward chooses a mixed path. Instead of a straightforward travel
novel, the author alternates journeys between a physical and a
psychological landscape. One of these journeys happens in the past and
is based on the diaries of Mercy’s deceased aunt, Ginger Brown.
Ginger’s diaries portray the wanderings of a young classical dancer
who travelled across several provinces and the territories as part of a
female dance group, between the late 1920s and early 1940s.
Ginger is a woman full of energy and new ideas, insecure but
courageous, and her personal journey is a parallel to Mercy’s own
emotional state: Mercy and Ginger are on the move, in search for
something that is not always entirely clear to them; they both struggle to
find what makes them unique, their own way to express themselves to
the world.
The character of Ginger also offers the reader an opportunity for
reflection. Open to artistic experimentation and with an independent
nature, Ginger scrambles to adapt in a society that values tradition
and stability over creativity and freedom. Though the story is a work of
fiction, it offers a glimpse about the challenges of being a female artist—
particularly a dancer with creative aspirations—in the first half of the
twentieth century. In fact, there are two moments in Ginger’s diaries
that are significant to demonstrate this situation: the death of Ginger’s
fellow dancer, an unmarried, young girl who, out of despair and shame,
commits suicide after becoming pregnant; and Ginger’s own experience
in a military camp in Watson Lake during the final phases of the Alaska
Highway’s construction. Invited to perform in front of a masculine
crowd, Ginger quickly becomes an object of harassment and ridicule, as
the audience demands a more explicit sort of dance. A woman using her
body for original artistic expression rather than pure sensuality was
neither expected nor desired in a performance.
Mercy’s nightmarish dreams form the other narrative layer of
the novel, probably the most eccentric one. Mercy is a reluctant ally of
Norman Szabo, Whitehorse-based detective and head of the Canadian
Bureau of Premonitions, a department whose objective is to map
possible connections between dreams and disasters in real life. Each one of
Mercy’s dreams forms a separate chapter and describes catastrophic
situations, ranging from drownings and floods to people and animals
dying in tragic ways. Mercy reacts to these images with terror and at the
same time a sense of obligation: as a top-ten clairvoyant on Norman’s
list, it is her duty to report to him anything out of the ordinary that her
semi-conscious mind produces, even if it appears to be a random
collection of terrifying episodes.
In the end, Mercy’s dreams do have a connection to the last mystery
of the book, a family situation that threatens to become a big tragedy on
lands between the Yukon and British Columbia. Even then, the mystery
surrounding the last chapters is less important than the emotional
journeys of Mercy and Norman and their attempts to reconnect with the
past.
Caroline Woodward does a good job in exploring some less known
but compelling real-life events and characters as inspiration in her novel.
The Canadian Bureau of Premonitions, for example, was inspired by the
British Premonitions Bureau, a real entity—now extinct—established
after a catastrophe in a Welsh coal mine, an episode that became known
as the “Aberfan disaster.” In the same manner, references to Nitassinan,
a traditional Innu territory located between Quebec and Labrador, are
frequent throughout the story. The “Nitassinan work,” a fictitious case,
is never fully explained by the author in this novel, but refers to the
militarization of the region in the 1990s, a true situation that sparked
conflicts between the Indigenous population and the government.
Similarly, several actual dancers are mentioned in the narrative, giving it
an interesting mix of real artists in a fictionalized context.
In terms of its connection to the North, Alaska Highway Two-Step
has its role, but not as a historical piece or a book focused on the North
as a theme. Though we see constant references to places such as
Haines Junction, Whitehorse, Watson Lake, Kluane Park, Haines, and
Fairbanks, and snippets of some historical events, these places are
more important as background scenery, never taking too much space or
assuming the main role in the story. In a similar fashion, the Alaska
Highway has clear significance, but not as the central focus. Instead,
Woodward uses it as a common ground for the emotional journeys that
her characters undertake.
When Mercy hits the road, the focus is on the feeling of travelling to
distant places, the excitement of preparing for a long trip, the sense of
fear, freedom, isolation, and the connection to the vast, untouched
wilderness. While some readers may feel disappointed with the fact that
not much of the history of the Alaska Highway is explored, or that real
stories about it don’t come into focus, Woodward gives us a good
description of the sense of wonder that travellers often feel while
travelling in the North.
Originally published in 1993, some parts of the novel may seem a bit
outdated: it is hard to imagine packing films for cameras or tape
recorders in today’s day and time. However, Alaska Highway Two-Step
is an entertaining read with a quick language, a mystery novel that tends
to focus more on personal discoveries rather than the mystery itself. It is
recommended for all readers with a general interest in the North.
Aline Goncalves, Yukon College, Whitehorse
History Offers Timeless Perspectives
Celebrating fact, fiction and the re-release of Alaska Highway Two-Step-
by Vanessa Ratjen, April 5, 2017
What's Up Yukon
Stories are invaluable teachers, says B.C. author Caroline Woodward, they have the ability to “give us whole worlds.” Old stories, too, are relevant artefacts that help us gain perspective on how much, or how little, progress we have made.
Fictional stories, the writer continues, are able to relate emotive experiences in a way that nonfiction books can’t. That is their strength, she explains, “[Fictional] stories allow us access to hopes and dreams, and working conditions and feeling sorry for horses in the cold — all the things that dry history books gloss over. See the whole review here
"...one of those rare books – a satisfying mystery that has no criminal content whatsoever... even the most hidebound mystery reader is likely to be delighted by this well-written and intriguing tale."
The Toronto Star
"…a worthy successor to her short fiction collection… Woodward interweaves several intriguing narrative threads into this intense first-person tale of (Mercy’s) actual and mental journeys to discover family, past and present, that will give her life wholeness… enhancing this narrative is the delightfully witty voice of Mercy Brown."
Canadian Literature
Interviews
Journalist and author Sean Arthur Joyce interviewed Caroline for his chameleonfire1 blog on February 22, 2017.
Caroline Woodward re-releases Alaska Highway Two-Step
It’s not often these days a novel gets a second chance at life. Author Caroline Woodward’s first novel, Alaska Highway Two-Step, will get just that, with a new edition being released this month by Harbour Publishing.
Woodward’s novel tells the story of a freelance journalist, a young woman living in the Kootenays, who accepts an assignment to write a series of articles about life along the Alaska Highway. To those of us who know Caroline it’s clear her main character, Mercy Brown, is based at least partly on her own personality. But with a twist: Brown has the uncanny gift of precognition, the ability to foresee real life events in dreams. The novel weaves three narrative strands into the plot: Brown’s road trip north, her disturbing premonitions, and excerpts from journals she inherited from a deceased aunt – a ballet dancer and choreographer in the early decades of the 20th century. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of the lives of two different generations of professional women. Expect to be surprised: this story focuses more on grain and texture than on following the plot points of a typical mystery novel. Caroline agreed to be interviewed about the new edition of her novel.
Is the new edition substantially different than the original novel? Did you decide to do any rewriting or major editing? If so, why?
It is relatively unchanged except for a few deft nips and tucks in the main character’s sea and road journey. A good part of the road trip takes place on the Alaska Highway, which is celebrating its 75thanniversary in 2017. The most significant change I made was to rename the ill-fated Queen of the North ferry. In my book it is now the Queen of Hartley Bay, to honour the First Nations villagers who got into their large and small fishing boats and did a Dunkirk flotilla style of rescue of all but two of the passengers and crew when it sank in the middle of the night. They deserved to have a B.C. ferry named in their honour and one of the great things about writing fiction is that I get to make it so.
I don’t recall the book being promoted as a mystery when it originally came out in 1993. What genre description best fits the book for you?
It is indeed a mystery novel for adults and was nominated by the Crime Writers of Canada for the Arthur Ellis (Canada’s last hangman) Best First Mystery Novel Award. Margaret Cannon, who still writes a weekly mystery reviews column for the Globe & Mail and does regular broadcasts for CBC Radio, picked it for the Globe & Mail Editor’s Pick of Top 100 Books in 1993. I was also invited to the 1994 Bouchercon International Mystery Convention in Seattle in 1994 to be part of a panel and to give a reading. It’s just not a typical blood and gore formula murder mystery.
How much of the novel is based on your own experience? We know you are a northern BC gal and have family ties to the Peace River region so how did that inform the writing of the novel?
Absolutely none of this novel is based on my own experience except for the idyllic cottage at Five Mile on Kootenay Lake and my dear, departed dog, Sadie Brown whose ashes are now in an urn beneath my writing desk. Certainly my upbringing in the north Peace region, going to school and living in a dormitory for ‘bush kids’ in Fort St. John and later, as an adult, working with First Nations teens informs this novel. The havoc wreaked on the remote village of Fort Ware when Williston Lake, created by the first dam on the Peace River in the 1960s, flooded much of their village and other eyewitness accounts of the drowning of wild animals and nesting birds, and the suicides of trappers and others who lived in the flooded valley are real events and I have included some of them. I invented the Canadian Bureau of Premonitions, as I explain in the Foreword, and made my main character a reluctant psychic. I incorporated the practice of lucid, or more like focused, dreaming, before a crucial hunting trip and other life challenges, including dying, as practiced by people regarded as prophets among the Dane-Zaa people in the Peace and studied by anthropologist Dr. Robin Ridington, author of at least three major books on this subject, his life’s work.
Why did you include the subplot of the aunt who was a dancer?
When I had a precious full month with a studio at Banff while writing the first version of Alaska Highway Two-Step back in 1992, I discovered a book by American dancer Ruth St. Denis, a contemporary of Isadora Duncan and I wondered who might an unknown Canadian choreographer and dancer be when audiences for classical ballets were shocked by modern dancers in bare feet and others bringing monkeys and elephants onto the stage, rather like forerunners to Cirque de Soleil. That’s how Ginger Brown came to life and so I had great fun writing her ‘diaries’ and eventually I had to send her up to entertain the troops building the Alaska Highway. Ditto for dreaming up a way to stop the environmental and financial boondoggle that is the Site C Dam, which we with Peace River roots have had to fight against four separate times over the last 50 years.
If there’s a novelist whose work you most admire, who would it be? (Can be more than one of course!) And why? Are there ways you find yourself absorbing that (or those) novelist’s techniques?
I admire, and read, so many novelists that I honestly cannot pick just one so a random off-the-top list would include Louise Erdrich, Michael Ondaatje, Anne DeGrace, Bodil Bredsdorff, Patrick DeWitt and Anthony Doerr. But Paulette Jiles came to mind immediately, author of novels like Enemy Women, The Colour of Lightning, Lighthouse Island and the most recent gem, News of the World, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction in 2016. Paulette’s advice to me early in my career, which I freely pass on to students and writer friends wherever I go, was: Write how you talk. Do not write like a Victorian governess unless you are one. I interpreted this further to mean: listen well to how other people talk. Absorb their rhythms and hesitations, their choice of vocabulary, the words they say and their silences.
What method did you develop to achieve this realism of voice in your stories?
Nearly ten years before I met Paulette at David Thompson University Centre in Nelson where I earned a diploma in Creative Writing, I earned my B.A. and Teacher’s Certificate at UBC. For several fourth year courses, I began tape-recording pioneers in the Peace River country: a Red Cross Outpost Hospital nurse, river freighter, immigrant farmers, radio operator in Watson Lake, school teachers, war brides on homesteads and small town radio founders. These tapes are now held in the Royal BC Museum in Victoria and in the North Peace Museum in Fort St. John but they resonated with me when I did the recordings, older people sharing some of the most profound moments of their lives with me and I heard some of those voices when I wrote poetry and again when I heard Paulette’s sage advice. So don’t imitate other writers. Read them to love their stories, their voices, but learn to write in your own authentic voice. It also helps me to have worked in theatre and to have written for radio and stage pieces as that’s all about voice, about someone on a stage or a disembodied voice from the radio or from within a book, a voice calling out to you all by yourself, late at night saying, get comfy, I have a really good story I have to tell you.
Alaska Highway Two-Step is available through all the usual outlets.
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Book Club Guide for Alaska Highway Two-Step by Caroline Woodward
- During what time period(s) is the book set? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the particular time frames as experienced by the characters in this novel?
- Who are the key characters? Do you empathize with them? Are they or their circumstances familiar to you? Do their voices ring true to a particular time or place?
- How would you describe the writing style(s) used by the author? The story is told from multiple viewpoints. How does this influence your perceptions of the plot? Does it help you enjoy solving the mystery more, or not?
- If this book was a movie, who would you cast as Mercy, Ginger, Norman and Emil?
- Where does the action take place? How do the settings influence the characters? What was your initial response to the psychic element of the story? Did your perceptions change by the end of the novel? How so?
- Have you read other books by this author? Is this novel similar, or not, to other books by the author or by other writers? Did it challenge you to think differently about any specific things?
- Would you recommend this book and if so, which readers do you think would enjoy it? Did you read reviews of the book before choosing it? After reading it, did you research any topics raised by the novel?
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