Under the Northern Lights

Under the Northern Lights by Alan Sullivan. A collection of eleven stories about the Canadian north, emphasized the grim atmosphere in which man “survives only by the stoutness of his heart and the strength of his body. In these stories Sullivan advances to major ideas; first, that technological advance destroys the balance within nature; second, that Indians and Eskimos are not inferior to, but different from, other races. A constant theme in Sullivan’s writing of Northern Canada, that of survival, is stressed repeatedly. European ignorance of the native way of life is ridiculed in “Trade” and “The Reward of Swasind.” Most of the conflicts are resolved by physical battles, as in “The Circuit of the Wild Swans,” where the leader battles another male for a female of the species.”