This is an unforgettable story that will trap you from the very first page. The whole story is a race against time and against the odds as the protagonist pits his wits against the elements, against dangerous animals that abound and against his own emotions. So suspenseful it has been compared to Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. Fans of Bear Grylls, the great survivalist will love it.
Johnny worries when his grandfather doesn't return home from checking his trap line. The elderly Indian has packed ample supplies on his snowmobile, but has stayed out far too long in the plummeting temperatures of the Alaskan winter. He has caught his leg in his own trap, several feet from his supplies, and is unable to free himself.
John E. Smelcer was born in 1963, and is of Ahtna Athabaskan Indian descent. Currently the Executive Director of the Ahtna Tribe's Heritage Foundation, he has held visiting professorships at universities around the world. He earned a doctorate in comparative literature in 1993 and a masters degree in literature and humanities in 1991. He is faculty at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
His work appears in numerous international anthologies by the likes of Random House, Dover, and American Indian Press. In 1994 he edited Durable Breath: Contemporary Native American Poetry (Salmon Run & American Indian Press). His poems have appeared in such periodicals as The Atlantic Monthly, and he is poetry editor at Rosebud, among the nation's most prestigious quarterlies of poetry and fiction.
