Maxine Trottier’s family has been in Canada since the time of the filles du roi. Her ancestors were among the founding families of Detroit.
She has a keen interest in history, and has spent many years as part of a French and Indian War re-enactment group called Le Détachement. The group has portrayed Canadian militia and their women at such sites as Fortress Louisbourg, Fort Niagara and Fort Necessity. Maxine says that she feels “very comfortable in the eighteenth century.”
For this novel, she found herself fascinated by James Cook’s role in the Seven Years War in what is now Canada. Now living in Newfoundland, a place that Cook charted two and a half centuries before, she and her husband often sail the waters that Cook sailed, going in and out of small coves that he named.
In fact, Maxine has always been interested in the sea and its traditions. For two successive summers she spent three weeks crewing on a tall ship, HMS Tecumseh. Her duties were very similar to those William Jenkins would have experienced. She says she was “at least as apprehensive climbing up into the rigging,” the first time she tried it, “but I did do it.” She calls it a thrilling experience, and one she will never forget.
Maxine is the author of three Dear Canada titles: Alone in an Untamed Land (shortlisted for the Red Cedar, Red Maple and Silver Birch Awards), The Death of My Country (Honour Book, Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction) and Blood Upon Our Land. Her Circle of Silver trilogy includes a CLA Book of the Year Nominee. Under a Shooting Star was a Geoffrey Bilson Award Honour Book, and her picture book Claire’s Gift, set in Cape Breton, won the Mr. Christie’s Book Award. Another picture book, The Tiny Kite of Eddie Wing, was a CLA Book of the Year Award winner.
Maxine is also the author of Terry Fox, A Story of Hope, and dozens of other books.
* * *
Historical characters mentioned in this book: Governor General Vaudreuil; Captain Louis Vergor; Captain William Gordon of HMS Devonshire; Joshua Mauger, merchant; John and Elizabeth Bushell; James Cook, ship’s master; Mr. Richard Wise, ship’s purser; Second Lieutenant John Robson; Captain John Simcoe; Captain John Wheelock; William Thompson, bosun; Vice Admiral Saunders; Dr. James Jackson, surgeon; Admiral Durell; Joseph Jones, landsman; General James Wolfe; Dr. George John, surgeon on Prince of Orange; Bob Carty, a sailor on Pembroke; the Marquis de Montcalm; Intendant Bigot; Captain-Lieutenant Yorke; Mrs. Job; General Townsend, who replaced Wolfe; Mr. John Cleader, who replaced Cook aboard Pembroke.