A Quarterly of Criticism and Review i^^^^^^^^fcEjfc $15

B o o kNorthern MysteriesMargaret AtwoodStrange Things: The Malevolent North inCanadian Literature. Clarendon $29.95David C. WoodmanStrangers Among Us. McGill-Queen's $29.95Reviewed by Sherrill GraceAs Margaret Atwood's title reminds us,after Robert Service—"There are strangethings done 'neath the midnight sun"—andthese strange things, such as going mad,cannibalism, murder, mysterious disappearances(and reappearances), continue tohaunt the Canadian imagination. Thebooks under review here are just two moreproofs that the Canadian North, howeverwe define it, holds an endless fascinationfor us. Whether we go there or not, weseem to have an insatiable capacity to read,write, paint, film, or just imagine it.Atwood's Strange Things is a collection offour lectures which she gave at Oxford in1991 as part of the Clarendon LectureSeries. In them she explores four of thepossible topoi of our northern mythology:the lost Franklin Expedition, what she calls"the Grey Owl Syndrome," cannibalism,and "women-in-the-North stories." Nowthis is all familiar territory for Atwood whohas given us examples of all four topoi herself.But here she sets out to trace whatother writers do with the Franklin story,the Grey Owl desire to "go native," theWindigo legend (and psychosis), and thefate of the woman who dares to enter anorthern space already designated as deadlyand female.My favorite chapter is the one on Franklin.Atwood follows our obsession with "thehand of Franklin reaching for the BeaufortSea," which Stan Rogers celebrated, througha wide range of texts as different as MacEwen'sverse play Terror and Erebus and Richler'sparodie narrative of nation Solomon GurskyWas Here. Not surprisingly, she missessome key texts from her catalogue ofFranklin-mania, but that's the subject ofWoodman's book. Stories about the Northalways seem to return to Franklin! TheGrey Owl chapter is less satisfying, perhapsbecause it is less spectacular—Franklin is ahard act to follow. Here Atwood considersKroetsch's Gone Indian, M.T Kelly's BreathDances Between Them, and once moreMacEwen, for whom Grey Owl (aka ArchieBelaney) was a "doomed hero."The Wendigo chapter, "Eyes of Blood,Heart of Ice," is altogether another matter.If Franklin is a rather tragic ghost and GreyOwl a rather confused one, there can be nomistaking the terrible power of theWendigo—or of going Wendigo. If wewanted one myth to sum up what Northmeans, this would be it. Stories of theWendigo are indigenous to eastern andnorthern parts of Canada, and the Wendigois all too real a presence to the Ojibway andNorthern Crée. Euro-Canadians, whobrought with them to the frozen wastestheir own prohibitions on cannibalism andwere just as susceptible as the natives (if notmore so) to starvation or the "last resort"111