In compelling essays, Northern Byways brings you along on a richly illustrated journey of discovery, a “windshield survey of the lay of the land itself across the norths of North America, across the thinly populated expanses that most of us Americans and Canadians proclaim to love.”
Follow the Dutch/American author and her Canadian/American traveling companion across the United States to British Columbia, and back through Canada. For five weeks, the pair sticks to the most northerly byways of both countries, camping in their 2008 Toyota Tacoma, as the trip becomes their destination. Along the way, they discuss the landscapes and towns they are driving through, aided by on-the-fly internet research. Who or what is this named after? How did it get like this? Would we come back here? What are those small widgets by the side of the road? What do people live on around here? Whose dreams created this outcome? What does “Reservation,” mean, anyway? Are fenced in bison wildlife? Where is this town going? How long has this river been damned?
The essays in are built around personal observations, richly studded with history, science, and information about what is happening in the backyards of our countries today. You will come away amused, informed, and perhaps with questions about where we are going with the vast riches we have inherited from our forebears.
Making its way across the continent and back, suffused with commentary on the way we live and work, this slim volume of essays and photographsis travel writing at its most expansive — a treasure for the armchair traveler and aficionado of Canadian/American landscapes and roads alike.
Start your read with an online selection: Trawling the Inside Passage.
Northern Byways is available at the AgathaO Photo Etsy Shop online, from the author if you live in the Hilltowns, at the AgathaO tent at a show or festival and author events (see calendar!), and at Amazon.
Enjoy!
PS I am happy to do readings/author events at your organization or group, just give me a holler by email. Include preferred dates and times. You can check out my event schedule on the Events page.
