Here Is Where We Disembark

With her remarkable debut collection, Yukon poet Clea Roberts proffers a perceptive and ecological reading of the Canadian North’s past and present. Roberts deftly draws out the moments that comprise a cycle of seasons, paying as much attention to the natural—the winter moon’s second-hand lightthat pools in the tracks of tree squirrels and the loose threads of migrating birds—as she does to the manufactured—half-melted ice lanterns and theperipheral percussion of J-brakes on the highway. She also casts her gaze back to the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897–1898, raising the voices of those marked by a frenetic race for fortune: a seductive, edgy wolf, a disillusioned photographer, and a pragmatic prostitute, among others. Here Is Where We Disembark is a beautifully crafted book that ignites the senses, and its presence lingers, like woodsmoke, long after the final page has been turned.