Journey (novel)

Journey

First edition cover
Author	James Michener
Language	English
Genre	Historical novel
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1989
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	224pp.
ISBN	0-394-57826-0

Journey, a novel by James Michener published in 1989, was expanded from a section originally cut from his large novel Alaska (1988). The book depicts five men, one of whom being an English Lord (Lord Luton), who journey from Great Britain through Canada to Dawson, Yukon in 1897-99 to participate in the Klondike gold rush. According to the novel's afterword, the section was cut from the original book because Alaska already contained a chapter on the Alaskan side of the gold rush. It was decided that chapter (which eventually became Journey) could stand on its own as a short novel.

Directed by Lord Luton, the group purposefully embarks on a more difficult than normal route available to pioneers of the era, purely to ensure that they remain the entire route on British soil, avoiding American territory which Luton has a patriotic aversion against. Along the way they encounter the Athabasca Landing, the Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River, Fort Norman (a remote Hudson's Bay Company outpost), exploding ice floes in springtime, starvation, scurvy, swarming Arctic mosquitoes and members of the native Hän group.

Journey Prize

In 1989, Michener donated the royalty earnings from the Canadian edition of Journey, published in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, to endow the Journey Prize, an annual Canadian literary award worth Cdn$10,000 that is awarded for the year's best short story published by an emerging Canadian writer.

Research

Michener notes during his 'Reflections' chapter of the book that the writings of J.G. MacGregor in Klondike Rush Through Edmonton 1897-1898 proved invaluable in describing conditions of the time, including susceptibility to scurvy.