Black Rock: A Tale of the Selkirks

# Catalog Note

Black Rock: A Tale of the Selkirks by Ralph Connor (with introduction by Prof. George Adam Smith) recounts life in a lumber camp in the Canadian Selkirks during the winter of 1882. The narrator, a former medical student and artist, arrives at Leslie Graeme's Camp No. 2 for what becomes an extended stay. The narrative opens on Christmas Eve, where tensions among the diverse camp workforce—including Irish laborers Blaney and Keefe, Scottish foreman Sandy McNaughton, French-Canadian Baptiste, and taciturn Nelson—are temporarily settled by the arrival of the visiting minister Mr. Craig. A Christmas supper of turkey and pie brings the men together in an unusual moment of communal gratitude. The work frames itself as a moral tale of frontier manhood and spiritual redemption amid hardship in the mining and lumber camps of Western Canada.