Secret Tales of the Arctic Trails: Stories of Crime and Adventure in Canada’s Far North

＂There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold;The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold.＂

Robert W. Service, ＂The Cremation of Sam McGee.＂

The High Arctic has long been a land of romance, a magnet drawing adventurers. From the 60th Parallel to the North Pole across the tundra and the Barren Lands, the Far North has beckoned the brave, the foolhardy, and the curious. The mystery of the Land of the Midnight Sun has fascinated poets and writers, painters and sculptors, no less than scientists and explorers. In this anthology, a spectrum of Canadian writers explore in their imaginations crime and malfeasance and thrilling danger under the flickering Northern Lights. Come mushing down these secret trails with John Ballem, John Buchan, Rose De Shaw, Carol Newhouse, Marjorie Pickthall, James Powell, Peter Sellers, Robert W. Service, and Eric Wright, as they probe the wilderness of human evil in this entertaining melange of short stories old and new. From the paleolithic to high-tech oil drilling, the enduring saga of crime and punishment is told by these talented story-spinners in these tales of detection, mystery, and adventure.

Dr. David Skene-Melvin is the dean of anthologizers of Canadian criminous short fiction and has previously edited Crime in a Cold Climate: An Anthology of Classic Canadian Crime (Simon & Pierre/Dundurn, 1994); Investigating Women: Female Detectives by Canadian Writers An Eclectic Sampler (Simon & Pierre/Dundurn, 1995); and Bloody York: Tales of Mayhem, Murder and Mystery in Toronto past, present and future, (Simon & Pierre/Dundurn, 1996). He is also the compiler of Canadian Crime Fiction 1817-1996: An Annotated Comprehensive Bibliography and Bibliographical Dictionary of Canadian Crime Writers, (The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 1996), covering both English and French-language adventure, crime, detective, espionage, mystery, suspense, and thriller fiction, including tales of intrigue, violence, and investigation in both adult and juvenile novels and plays.