A decade ago, I was camping on the shores of Atlin Lake, tucked in the north-western corner of British Columbia, just outside the sleepy, eponymous town that was founded after gold was discovered in Pine Creek in 1898. This remote area of glacier-blanketed mountains and vast wilderness is the site of the last great gold rush in Canadian history. Today, it is home to just 400 inhabitants.
Early one morning, we set off to explore the park. As we trekked through the woods along a trail dotted with makeshift shrines—courtesy, we speculated, of the local Tlingit First Nations—a husky appeared, blocking our path. Rather than running off, he accompanied us. Ever vigilant of the grizzlies that prowled the area, we were grateful for his company. Making our way along a creek, we spotted the remnants of cabins that once housed gold miners and now were mouldering away, as the wilderness reclaimed its own. Once we were safely back at our campsite, our guardian disappeared into...
Diana Kuprel is the online editor of the LRC. Raised in a northern sawmill town in British Columbia and in Vancouver, she is now based in Toronto. She is the translator of Zofia Nalkowska’s short story collection, Medallions and Ryszard Kapuscinski’s selected poetry, I Wrote Stone.
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