Ambiguity between the truth and fiction of the Nahanni is the background for Tungsten John (New Star $19) by John Harris of Prince George. It mixes Harris' archival research into Nahanni exploration in the 1930s with his accounts of four Nahanni hiking/bicycling trips made by Harris, his partner Vivien Lougheed and a changing cast of companions in the late 1990s.

The area they explored-centred on the abandoned mining town of Tungsten-is littered with the remains of mining roads, cabins and derelict minesites. As in his previous books, Small Rain and Other Art, Harris becomes a central character. His narration (with all its self-deprecating humour, its mock and genuine earnestness, and its full consciousness of the conventionality of storytelling) becomes the focus of the book. The jacket categorizes Tungsten John: "Travel - Adventure - Outdoors";. I would also add "Fiction - History - Literary Criticism";. And maybe, for good measure: "Satire";.

It makes for a tricky book. The narrative of the modern-day hiking trips reads like fiction and slips effortlessly into the fantastic and the legendary, just like the history of the Nahanni explorers merges into the fabulous. The Nahanni River itself, the goal of these epic hikes, is never glimpsed, the same way truth eludes all written histories, however tenaciously pursued. 0-921586-70-1

[George Sipos / BCBW 2000]