Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner
322 pages, Milkweed Editions

            Books about places like Alaska tend to range from fawning to gushing. Indeed, the 49th state is so vast and mythical that writers seem unable to resist capturing page after page laden with overwrought adjectives.
It’s understandable, given that a single raft trip down the Copper River imbues a person with Alaska’s stunning landscape and Far North mystique. (Now I’ve fallen into that trap). And yet such books are a bit like a steady diet of chocolate-filled croissants and triple espressos. Seth Kantner’s semi-autobiographical novel, Ordinary Wolves, is notable for delivering both the grandeur and the grueling aspects of Alaska without leaving the reader recovering from the literary equivalent of a caffeine-sugar crash.
Ordinary Wolves tells the story of a white boy named Cutuk Hawcly who lives in a dirt igloo in northeastern Alaska with his father, brother and sister. Cutuk’s father, Abe, moved the family here from the Lower 48 and supports them by subsistence hunting, making furniture and selling the occasional painting. His mother has long-since fled.
            Cutuk is a white boy who longs to be an Eskimo – and tends to measures his self-worth in this regard. Early in the book, for example, Abe leaves Cutuk to guard a moose carcass while he hauls a dog-sled load of fresh meat home. Wolves are drawn to the fresh kill after dark. Ten-year-old Cutuk wants to shoot one to prove himself to natives living in the nearest Inuplaq village. In the end, he cannot – and part of Cutuk feels ashamed because he knows that Enuk, an Eskimo he admires, could easily have pulled the trigger.
            Kantner’s authoritative voice, informed by the fact that he was raised in an igloo in the Alaska wilderness before the proliferation of satellite telephones and GPS, disputes any Walt Disney notions about the Far North. Readers will feel cold and solitary thanks to the strength of Kantner’s prose:
“I felt as cumbersome and alone as a moon traveler, peering out the fur tunnel of my caribou hood, beaver hat, and wolf ruff …  The walls of blackness grew and leaned close over my head and joined. An icy east breeze thinned the smoke. The night cold was a monster now, merciless, pinching my face with pliers, sneaking fingers under my parka. It didn’t seem possible to keep my cheeks thawed, and they froze over and over again.”
Along the way, readers will feel awestruck, again because of Kantner’s skill:
“Above, aurora wavered, green smoke ghosting in the dark, quick pale brush strokes, the bottoms tinted pink, twinging up in the black.”
More than just a wilderness tale, Ordinary Wolves also brings tragedy, conflict, and human failing to the page. There are a few minor slow spots. Still, it’s a fine read, worthy of anyone who wants substance about Alaska instead of superlatives.
                                                                                                     -- Luke Keisling