Rhonda Swayda

The Burwash Trilogy is a fictionalized account of Major Lachlan T. Burwash's life exploring the Canadian north, from Yukon to Newfoundland. 

The first book in the trilogy, Dog Sickness, is based on the official report to the Ministry of the Interior documenting the Burwash Expedition over the winter of 1925-26 in the western Arctic.

The Major has been tasked with exploring the area, surveying the land and it's resources, and most critically: he intends to be the first person to reach the magnetic North Pole, high above the Arctic Circle.

Along the journey, Burwash encounters the people of the land adapting to new influences, and he challenges the newcomers; independent traders, agents of the Hudson Bay Company, RCMP constables, missionaries and a bishop.  The old explorer builds a survival team to get him to his destination and finds out that the barrenlands are teeming with life- stoic and savage, good and less than Godly.