num_pages: 717
description: In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen Ren Sel and Charles Duquet arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord a seigneur for three years in exchange for land they become wood-cuttersbarkskins. Ren suffers extraordinary hardship oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mikmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet crafty and ruthless runs away from the seigneur becomes a fur trader then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred yearstheir travels across North America to Europe China and New Zealand under stunningly brutal conditionsthe revenge of rivals accidents pestilence Indian attacks and cultural annihilation. Over and over again they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.
language: English
title: Barkskins
publisher: Scribner