Have you ever wondered what it would be like to survive a battle in the depths of winter in sub arctic wilderness? Far North by Will Hobbs gives its readers an authentic and thrilling view of the struggle between man and the elements. Hobbs has written many other books including Jackson’s Gold, Down the Yukon, Wild Man Island, Jackie’s Wild Seattle, and Leaving Protection. Will Hobbs was born in Pennsylvania in 1947 and is known for writing adventure thrillers for young people.
Gabe (the main character) is from Texas and is on his way to Canada to visit his father. Along with Raymond, his Native American roommate from boarding school they take a plane ride that crashes in the desolate mountains of Canada, killing there pilot Clint and leaving them to fend for themselves to survive with Johnny Raven, Raymond’s Great-Uncle. The book is set in present day, although the way that they describe the making of fires, snowshoes and camp grounds, the lack of civilization and the bitterness of the cold I sometimes felt that the setting was in pioneer times. Will Hobbs makes me feel like I am in the book because of his description of every move that the characters made. When the river first began to freeze and they were going down the river and almost lost












Johnny Raven in the water, I could feel the fear that the boys felt about losing Johnny because they knew it would be hard to survive without him. Johnny was such a wealth of knowledge about the area and how to do many things like kill and track moose for food, make snow shoes and he understood about the weather and things like the Chinook. Johnny also told them in his last words “Take care of the land, take care of yourself, take care of each other.” These words helped the boys gain strength to continue to survive.

I really liked the book and would recommend it because of the way that the characters interacted with each other to help save each others lives. Even though they found themselves in dangerous situations they still found humor in there situation. When the bear was attacking Gabe and Raymond, Gabe had to confront the bear and actually spoke to the bear. After the bear left, Raymond said to Gabe “Floss his teeth?” …”You did everything right.” “I was all jelly! What did you say?” …Did you say something in Slavey? “I called him friend” I guess because I figured he would understand Slavey.” I busted out laughing. That sort of makes sense.” (p. 244) I also appreciated the way that the boys realized the terrible situation that they were in but still decided to have a “Go for broke.” attitude.
If you are a young person who likes action adventure books that have humor throughout, you will like Far North by Will Hobbs. Many times I would get so caught up in the thrilling wilderness adventures that I would have a hard time putting the book down.