RM_Ballantyne_Red_Rooney

To see the transcribed text with images use the FB2 version. The interest in this story lies in the fact that there aren't many books in which Eskimos figure as leading characters. We may suppose that Ballantyne had some acquaintance with Eskimos during his days with the Hudson Bay Company. At any rate he did always research his subject matter quite thoroughly. In this story Red Rooney, or Reginald Rooney, is the sole survivor of some nautical disaster, and is making his way across the pack-ice towards the shore of Western Greenland. He is absolutely at the end of his life due to exhaustion and lack of food, when he is found by a friendly Eskimo hunter, who wraps him up in a polar-bear skin, and dashes home to fetch his dog-sleigh and his two teenage sons. Meanwhile Rooney is being sniffed by another polar bear, when the Eskimo arrives, and gets him back to his home, where a good meal is provided. That is just the beginning of the story. The book is quite a long one, and is very much involved with another, unfriendly, tribe, and with missionaries, and with the preaching of the Christian way of life. It is a good, well-written tale, and we commend it, either to be read, or for you to make an audiobook to listen to. First published 1886.