Jan of the Big Snows

In the desolate, frost-bitten expanse of the Hudson Bay territory, Fred Cummings installs his bride, Nancy, within a claustrophobic trading post—a solitary beacon of civilization amidst the boreal wilderness. To the seventeen rugged inhabitants, Nancy transcends mere mortality, becoming a secular icon of grace, particularly to Jan Allaire, a youth whose soul is as unblemished as the virgin snow. This fragile equilibrium is shattered by the arrival of Blanding, a sophisticated yet predatory fur trader from New York, whose lecherous designs on Nancy ignite a fierce, communal protective instinct governed by the unwritten laws of the frontier. When tragedy strikes and Fred perishes in the icy maw of the North, Jan conceals the finality of the loss to shield Nancy’s spirit, maintaining a pious deception that the husband is merely convalescing. Yet, after repelling Blanding’s violent advances with atavistic fury, the veil of deception is torn away. Nancy, disillusioned and grieving, departs for the southern warmth of the United States, leaving Jan to endure the perpetual winter of his own longing, a sentinel waiting for a return that may never materialize.