Dreamer at the End of the Universe tells the epic story of four generations of a Celtic family battling the elements and the animals to scrape a living from a land with no fat and little lean. Ours was a wilderness farm in Central Ontario populated by animals, insects, and rocks. And I loved that place. The early generations killed the animals and fought the land. My generation has come to realize who owns this place. Humans have been tenants for a handful of years, while the true owners are the animals who have their own lives. As Charles Darwin wrote, “There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”
The farm rested in a cradle of rocks called the “Land Between.” This is a region where two iconic environments collided, the Canadian Shield and the St. Lawrence Lowlands, to create a vast area rich in plants, animals, and people—the best of both ecosystems.
Together with My Cousin & Me: And Other Animals plus Wolves: Ryders in the Whirlwind, this book comprises a trilogy, I call The Land. In the beginning, I had no conscious intention of writing a trilogy, but after a while, the people, the bears, the wolves, and the other animals in my stories took on a life of their own, thus demanding more description, time, and care. I was attentive to such pleading, such longing to be remembered, before the time when all this will be forgotten. This enchantment with the land, animals, and people is still fresh in my memory. This happiness is still felt in my heart. And had I the strength and the wisdom, I would write a fourth volume, but all good things end.
Postscript:
Gordon Harrison is an award-winning author of books on nature, science, and art. When he isn’t writing, or drinking Glenmorangie single malt scotch whiskey, he’s photographing the “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful” of Ontario. The author has placed 193 of his wildlife photos in this new book.
