''Sick Heart River'' (1941) is a novel by Scottish author

John Buchan John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir (; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, British Army officer, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. As a ...

set in Canada. It was published posthumously. The book was published in the United States under the title ''Mountain Meadow''.

Plot summary

Sir Edward Leithen is diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and given a year to live. While he is deciding how to spend his remaining days, an American associate, John S. Blenkiron, requests help to find his niece's husband, Francis Galliard, who has disappeared from his very successful financial career in New York and fled to Canada. Leithen follows Galliard to Quebec. During this he finds a mountain meadow he had seen on a trip thirty years earlier and which has stayed in his memory since. Leithen finds Galliard and nurses him back to health. He then decides to stay with some Indians and help them.

Background

Buchan wrote this while

Governor General of Canada The governor general of Canada () is the federal representative of the . The monarch of Canada is also sovereign and head of state of 14 other Commonwealth realms and resides in the United Kingdom. The monarch, on the Advice (constitutional la ...

and

Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh The chancellor is the titular head of the University of Edinburgh. Their duties include conferring academic degree, degrees, promoting the university's image throughout the world, and furthering its interests, both within Scotland and beyond. The ...

. It was published posthumously following his death as a result of a fall and stroke. It is one of Buchan's most spiritual novels, exploring the themes of death and redemption. The fictional Sick Heart River is in the real region of the Nahanni River in Canada's

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

. The area was only just being mapped when Buchan, as Governor-General Lord Tweedsmuir, passed nearby during his voyage down the

Mackenzie River The Mackenzie River (French: ; Slavey language, Slavey: ' èh tʃʰò literally ''big river''; Inuvialuktun: ' uːkpɑk literally ''great river'') is a river in the Canadian Canadian boreal forest, boreal forest and tundra. It forms, ...

in the summer of 1937. Buchan always wanted to visit the Nahanni but never made it before his death in February 1940.

Reviews

* Ritchie, Harry (1981), ''Buchan and Linklater'', which includes a review of ''Sick Heart River'', in Murray, Glen (ed.), ''

Cencrastus ''Cencrastus'' was a magazine devoted to Scottish and international literature, arts and affairs, founded after the Referendum of 1979 by students, mainly of Scottish literature, at Edinburgh University, and with support from Cairns Craig, then a ...

'' No. 7, Winter 1981-82, p.46,

References

External links

* * * at Oxonian {{John Buchan 1941 British novels Novels by John Buchan Novels set in the Northwest Territories Scottish novels Novels published posthumously Hodder & Stoughton books