Notes from the Century Before is a document unlike any I have ever read, and it has left me with a feeling of the vast country to our north that we know so little about. The title is apt, for northern British Columbia must be very much like our own frontier a century ago, except for the paralyzing cold, and, of course, except for Alaska. Edward Hoagland explains that he went to this still wild and dangerous place to get first-hand accounts, before it was too late, from the few surviving old-timers who had explored the north country. He wanted it fresh and clear and not watered down or built into legends, and he found it and has recorded it for our pleasure.

The major part of the book is in the form of a daily journal which records conversations with the people Hoagland met and talked to...