Afterword
Although Eugene, Dora and Boston Jim are fictional, many of the people they encounter are historical, including Governor Douglas, Judge Begbie and his clerk Arthur Bushby, Isaac Oppenheimer the provisionist in Yale, Francis Barnard the postman cum stagecoach operator, Cataline the packer, Wellington Moses the barber in Barkerville, Miss Burdett-Coutts and Edmund Hope Verney of the Ladies Immigration Committee, and of course, Karl Marx. The brideship Tynemouth is also historical. The events I describe on-board, however, are fictional. The camels Eugene encounters were brought over as pack animals in 1862. They proved ill-tempered and ill-suited to the terrain and were soon let loose to puzzle travellers until 1905 when the last of them died. Eugene’s waltz with a dead man was inspired by the historical account of a wake at 150 Mile House.
Work on the Cariboo Wagon Road began in 1861. Only two years later the majority of the work was done. Eighteen feet wide and four hundred miles long, the road cut through canyons, cliffs, and mountains and was indeed an engineering marvel. Much of today’s Highway 97 follows the route of the original wagon road and towns such as 100 Mile House are named for the roadhouses that once stood there. Barkerville is now a national park with over one hundred and twenty-five restored buildings and is well worth a visit.
Although I used many books in researching this novel, I am particularly indebted to Branwen Patenaude’s Trails to Gold: Roadhouses of the Cariboo, Volumes I and II; Barkerville by Richard Thomas Wright, and Wagon Road North by Art Downs. I am also indebted to the classic anthropological work The Gift: the Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies by Marcel Mauss, as this provided that first spark of inspiration. Lastly, I am indebted to my husband Benno for all his patience and support.
CLAIRE MULLIGAN was raised in Kelowna, British Columbia, but calls Vancouver home. Before completing her studies in English and Anthropology at the University of British Columbia, Claire backpacked through Europe, Southeast Asia and Central America. To fund her writing habit, Claire has worked in ski resorts and fishing lodges and has been a waiter, chambermaid, freelance editor and ESL tutor. Her short stories have garnered awards and appeared in many literary publications. She now lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and three children. The Reckoning of Boston Jim is her first novel.
Copyright © 2007 by Claire Mulligan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, audio recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher or a photocopying licence from Access Copyright, Toronto, Canada.
Originally published by Brindle & Glass Publishing Co. Ltd. in 2007 in softcover
ISBN 978-1-897142-21-9
This electronic edition was released in 2011
ePub ISBN 978-1-926972-26-8
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
Cover image courtesy of British Columbia Archives, B-06646 by A.E. Stanfield, 1899
Map from “Wagon Road North.” Used by permission of Heritage House Publishers Co. Ltd.
Author photo by Claudia Molina
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Brindle & Glass acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, Canada Council for the Arts, and the province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
www.brindleandglass.com
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