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Wild Honey
HOBO LITERATURE THAT WONDERFULLY elusive sub-genre of travel writing is not a school one immediately associates with B.C. writers. We don't have a Jack London or a Jack Kerouac. Robert Service, however, knew more about life on the bum than either Jack did and his writings about it aren't to be sniffed at. And in later years AI Purdy and Pat Lane have also given us their roadside views of life.
But Canada's best hobo writer was Frederick Niven, born in 1878. For many years Niven lived at Willow Point, Kootenay Lake near Nelson. While justly praised for many of his novels, his account of riding the rods in British Columbia's Dry Belt has been mostly ignored by critics and readers since it was published as Wild Honey in 1927.
There may be more than one reason behind this. Though long a Canadian resident, Niven made critics uneasy about his literary position with his varied output. He wrote poetry, a good deal of non-fiction, and novels, some of the best of which were set in Scotland. To top this off, in the 1920's when Canadian literature was not leaving much of a trace anywhere, Niven, according to Christopher Morley, was "one of the most genuinely gifted novelists of our time."
Wild Honey was travel writing. "I came to Penny's Pit... because I was young and wanted to see the West, and did not want to see it only from a car window. I was not, in the accepted sense, an immigrant... I was just a wanderer, curiously looking at the world and encountering men I could never have met in my decorous home."
In this brief passage we find two reasons for the silence surrounding the book. It is autobiography (in England, where it has the title Queer Fellows, it was advertised as such), but for unknown reasons it was sold in the U.S. and Canada as fiction. It does not read like a novel so readers likely turned to more exciting fare. Secondly, the book hints at much that the Canadian reader of the 1920's preferred to ignore -bums, alcohol, Indian women and white men, the unemployable (quite different than bums), plus freedom of the road and of the mind.
The plot involves little more than the miles of railroad track between North Bend and Kamloops, and the roads south to Greenwood and Midway. Niven's characters are himself and two professional hobos he meets at Penny's Pit, a gravel pit near Savona. The men spend a few days together travelling, first to cash their cheques at North Bend, then to the border towns. Their story takes place about the same time that London was riding the rods east, and Service was wandering north and south along the West Coast.
The writing and Niven's intelligence cement the diverse elements of Wild Honey. Here he is at Penny's Pit: "I never lost sight of its beauty. That was the attraction. The dust and heat of the day, the cal louses on the hands, or the splinters in them, were merely by the way. ..the air and the scene more than atoned. Above the rasp of the shovels with which we worked astern of the big, rhythmically-coughing steamshovel, I would hear the murmur of the Thompson River lapsing past; and that murmur, somehow, was worth much weary labour to hear."
Of his friends, the 'queer fellows', Niven wrote: "There was Slim, an unknown quantity, seldom speaking; generally, when we were not at work, conning the advertisement pages in the few magazines" in the bunk car. His partner was Hank, "tough, very tough, and when occasion demanded it he had the most appalling flow of profanity; and violent fits of temper, he had, blazing and gone."
Neither man was of a type known to young Niven from Scotland. Both proved to be good companions, except when Hank, "deranged by drink", did his level best to kill Niven. Parallel to the characters is the multi-layered world of the Dry Belt. The businessmen, staid and true, who try to do the hobos out of their nickels and pennies, the Indians, miners, townspeople all are representatives of this Janus-faced world of southern British Columbia.
A curious prelude to this world and Niven's book is the author's earlier Maple-Leaf Songs (1917). Various episodes described in detail in Wild Honey are foreshadowed in these poems; verses, it must be pointed out, that will appeal to anyone who's loafed about British Columbia, knowing there's absolutely nowhere that needs to be reached today or tomorrow.
Finally, no matter how well it's put off, a day comes when time begins dogging one's tracks. "They turned and hiked away," Niven wrote of his friends, "It was a very bright day, hot and cloudless. They walked in a quivering heat-haze, and the worn portions of Hank's old blue serge suit reflected rays like a mirror."--by Charles Lillard
[Autumn / BCBW 1988]
But Canada's best hobo writer was Frederick Niven, born in 1878. For many years Niven lived at Willow Point, Kootenay Lake near Nelson. While justly praised for many of his novels, his account of riding the rods in British Columbia's Dry Belt has been mostly ignored by critics and readers since it was published as Wild Honey in 1927.
There may be more than one reason behind this. Though long a Canadian resident, Niven made critics uneasy about his literary position with his varied output. He wrote poetry, a good deal of non-fiction, and novels, some of the best of which were set in Scotland. To top this off, in the 1920's when Canadian literature was not leaving much of a trace anywhere, Niven, according to Christopher Morley, was "one of the most genuinely gifted novelists of our time."
Wild Honey was travel writing. "I came to Penny's Pit... because I was young and wanted to see the West, and did not want to see it only from a car window. I was not, in the accepted sense, an immigrant... I was just a wanderer, curiously looking at the world and encountering men I could never have met in my decorous home."
In this brief passage we find two reasons for the silence surrounding the book. It is autobiography (in England, where it has the title Queer Fellows, it was advertised as such), but for unknown reasons it was sold in the U.S. and Canada as fiction. It does not read like a novel so readers likely turned to more exciting fare. Secondly, the book hints at much that the Canadian reader of the 1920's preferred to ignore -bums, alcohol, Indian women and white men, the unemployable (quite different than bums), plus freedom of the road and of the mind.
The plot involves little more than the miles of railroad track between North Bend and Kamloops, and the roads south to Greenwood and Midway. Niven's characters are himself and two professional hobos he meets at Penny's Pit, a gravel pit near Savona. The men spend a few days together travelling, first to cash their cheques at North Bend, then to the border towns. Their story takes place about the same time that London was riding the rods east, and Service was wandering north and south along the West Coast.
The writing and Niven's intelligence cement the diverse elements of Wild Honey. Here he is at Penny's Pit: "I never lost sight of its beauty. That was the attraction. The dust and heat of the day, the cal louses on the hands, or the splinters in them, were merely by the way. ..the air and the scene more than atoned. Above the rasp of the shovels with which we worked astern of the big, rhythmically-coughing steamshovel, I would hear the murmur of the Thompson River lapsing past; and that murmur, somehow, was worth much weary labour to hear."
Of his friends, the 'queer fellows', Niven wrote: "There was Slim, an unknown quantity, seldom speaking; generally, when we were not at work, conning the advertisement pages in the few magazines" in the bunk car. His partner was Hank, "tough, very tough, and when occasion demanded it he had the most appalling flow of profanity; and violent fits of temper, he had, blazing and gone."
Neither man was of a type known to young Niven from Scotland. Both proved to be good companions, except when Hank, "deranged by drink", did his level best to kill Niven. Parallel to the characters is the multi-layered world of the Dry Belt. The businessmen, staid and true, who try to do the hobos out of their nickels and pennies, the Indians, miners, townspeople all are representatives of this Janus-faced world of southern British Columbia.
A curious prelude to this world and Niven's book is the author's earlier Maple-Leaf Songs (1917). Various episodes described in detail in Wild Honey are foreshadowed in these poems; verses, it must be pointed out, that will appeal to anyone who's loafed about British Columbia, knowing there's absolutely nowhere that needs to be reached today or tomorrow.
Finally, no matter how well it's put off, a day comes when time begins dogging one's tracks. "They turned and hiked away," Niven wrote of his friends, "It was a very bright day, hot and cloudless. They walked in a quivering heat-haze, and the worn portions of Hank's old blue serge suit reflected rays like a mirror."--by Charles Lillard
[Autumn / BCBW 1988]
Submitted on December 13, 2003 in By David.
