Turn of the Century

To those who crave the cosmopolitanism of cities, life in the remote Alberta foothills with their harsh, endless winters may seem a punishing seclusion. But distance from urban preoccupations can attune human sensitivities to natural and emotional landscapes. In Anik See’s Cabin Fever, an expansive wilderness lends itself to prolonged contemplation. See’s sparse language infuses a simple story — told across four years and through devastating personal and world events — with haunting moments of discovery and abandon.

To escape an unnamed western Canadian city’s frenzy on the last day of the previous millennium, the narrator, Clea Barnes, snowshoes to a nearby forest. She camps in a small clearing where there is “nothing to count down to. There was barely a breeze, hardly a noise.” On New Year’s Day, she hitchhikes to the rural cabin her parents built on 200 acres of “uncluttered” land in the 1960s. There she discovers relics of her late parents untouched by...