Where Stories Are Alive: Traveling into Wolverine’s Territory in Eowyn Ivey’s "To The Bright Edge of the World"

In 1885 Lieutenant Colonel Forrester explores the newly acquired territory of Alaska for the US government. His passion to see an unknown world clashes with the mission Forrester has received from his military superiors. How will he meet the dual challenge—as well as the moral dilemma—of navigating an older world that resists comprehension—a world he learns to respect—and mapping the terrain for potential military invasion? My analysis will thus attempt to foreground the manifold paradoxes of travel/narratives. Loosely based on Lieutenant Henry Tureman Allen’s historic exploration of the Tanana and Copper rivers, Ivey’s novel departs significantly from historical accuracy in order to bring the colonizing agenda of the government-sponsored exploration party into conversation with the individual perspectives and sensibilities of its members, exposed as they are to a world where old stories are alive and where nonhumans or not-quite humans are all agential beings. Employing anthropologist Viveiros de Castro’s theorization of Amerindian perspectivism, I want to argue that To the Bright Edge of the World decolonizes the genre of travel narratives as well as the experience of travelling between worlds.