by Ivan Doig
Doig's first book, This House of Sky, was a particularly harsh account of life in Montana, one that left strong images of lives spun out in painful toil against a mean Nature—a Nature that finally overwhelmed all but a lucky few. His new work was set in motion by the diaries of J.G. Swan, an 1850 pioneer who went from Boston to the Pacific Northwest, where he traveled for 40 years. Doig spent a winter reading and making notes on Swan's remarkable writings, which are punctuated throughout with Indian lore and legend: "During the spring, when the flowers are in bloom and the humming birds are plenty, the boys take a stick smeared with slime from snails and place it among a cluster of flowers...if a humming bird applies his tongue to it he is glued fast They will then tie a piece of thread to its feet and holding the other end let the birds fly, their humming being considered quite an amusement." This kind of thing dismays Doig, but Swan brought alive a primitive, magical, wondrous land and people of a century ago. (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, $10.95)
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