{"product_id":"2940013653184","title":"THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN","description":"THE VALLEY OF SILENT MEN\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore the railroad's thin lines of steel bit their way up through the\u003cbr\u003ewilderness, Athabasca Landing was the picturesque threshold over which\u003cbr\u003eone must step who would enter into the mystery and adventure of the\u003cbr\u003egreat white North. It is still _Iskwatam_--the \"door\" which opens to the\u003cbr\u003elower reaches of the Athabasca, the Slave, and the Mackenzie. It is\u003cbr\u003esomewhat difficult to find on the map, yet it is there, because its\u003cbr\u003ehistory is written in more than a hundred and forty years of romance\u003cbr\u003eand tragedy and adventure in the lives of men, and is not easily\u003cbr\u003eforgotten. Over the old trail it was about a hundred and fifty miles\u003cbr\u003enorth of Edmonton. The railroad has brought it nearer to that base of\u003cbr\u003ecivilization, but beyond it the wilderness still howls as it has howled\u003cbr\u003efor a thousand years, and the waters of a continent flow north and into\u003cbr\u003ethe Arctic Ocean. It is possible that the beautiful dream of the\u003cbr\u003ereal-estate dealers may come true, for the most avid of all the\u003cbr\u003esportsmen of the earth, the money-hunters, have come up on the bumpy\u003cbr\u003erailroad that sometimes lights its sleeping cars with lanterns, and\u003cbr\u003ewith them have come typewriters, and stenographers, and the art of\u003cbr\u003eprinting advertisements, and the Golden Rule of those who sell handfuls\u003cbr\u003eof earth to hopeful purchasers thousands of miles away--\"Do others as\u003cbr\u003ethey would do you.\" And with it, too, has come the legitimate business\u003cbr\u003eof barter and trade, with eyes on all that treasure of the North which\u003cbr\u003elies between the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca and the edge of the\u003cbr\u003epolar sea. But still more beautiful than the dream of fortunes quickly\u003cbr\u003emade is the deep-forest superstition that the spirits of the wilderness\u003cbr\u003edead move onward as steam and steel advance, and if this is so, the\u003cbr\u003eghosts of a thousand Pierres and Jacquelines have risen uneasily from\u003cbr\u003etheir graves at Athabasca Landing, hunting a new quiet farther north.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor it was Pierre and Jacqueline, Henri and Marie, Jacques and his\u003cbr\u003eJeanne, whose brown hands for a hundred and forty years opened and\u003cbr\u003eclosed this door. And those hands still master a savage world for two\u003cbr\u003ethousand miles north of that threshold of Athabasca Landing. South of\u003cbr\u003eit a wheezy engine drags up the freight that came not so many months\u003cbr\u003eago by boat.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121130586352,"sku":"2940013653184","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013653184_p0.jpg?v=1763583514","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013653184","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}