It was November. A cold, grey overcast and menacing November when the ice floes had already started to form at the Fort Providence crossing where the Mackenzie River unplugged itself from Great Slave Lake on its way down north to the Beaufort Sea. In Ottawa, more than 2,000 miles away to the east, the leaves were still turning on the maple trees. It was not yet Armistice Day but north of 60, 60 degrees of latitude, that marked the geographical boundary between north and south, the land was quickly acquiring a winter blanket of hard, ungiving frost. A shroud of isolation and contempt when the north turned its back on the outside and concentrated it energies on preparing itself for the dark purgatory ahead. Winter in the north was more than a season, it was a way of life when northerners saw themselves as a people apart, a people who had been tested and proved themselves; a people who knew how things worked in sub-zero temperatures when nature was in its foulest mood and gave no quarter. A northern winter was a time for a clear mind and a calculated order of priorities.

Excerpted from White Bird Black Bird © Copyright 2012 by Val Wake. Reprinted with permission by BookSurge Publishing. All rights reserved.