Book description
In his third young adult title, John Wilson takes on the rich territory
of the 1845 Franklin expedition. Cabin boy David Young travels aboard
the ill-fated vessel the HMS
Erebus
from London, England, en route to Canada's frozen and uncharted north,
and his adventures comes to a modern-day Dave Young in Humboldt,
Saskatchewan, in a series of dreams. "the facts of the Franklin
voyage are made visceral and real for a new generation of armchair
historians/explorers." John Wilson was born in 1951 in Edinburgh,
Scotland. He did his early growing up on the Island of Skye and in
Paisley, near Glasgow. From 1969 to 1974, he attended the University of
St. Andrews where he took an Honours B. Sc.. in Geology and never played
golf once. He took a position with the Geological Survey of Rhodesia
(Zimbabwe). In his two years there, he mapped rocks, dodged land mines
and watched the country sink ever deeper into civil war. Shortly before
he was due to be called into the army, John retreated back to Britain on
his way to the safety of Canada. He settled on Calgary where geology was
booming and the only danger was freezing to death in January. In 1979,
he moved to Edmonton to take up a post with the Alberta Geological
Survey. In 1988 he sold a feature article to the Globe and Mail. This
fueled a smouldering mid-life crisis and he took up freelance writing
full-time. With some success, John mined the experiences of his travels
for articles, journalism and photo essays. He even began to express
himself poetically and, with a young family, began writing children's
stories. He moved to Nanaimo and then Lantzville on Vancouver Island.
John has been widely published by a number of Canadian presses, with his
accolades including a shortlisting for the Governor General’s Award.
