Friday, December 04, 2015

Erik Munsterhjelm: A Dog Named Wolf

Anyone read the book? It's a book published in English in 1972 as A Tale of Wolves, Dogs and Trappers in the Canadian Wilds, and as A Dog Named Wolf in 1977. Erik Munsterhjelm was a Finnish writer, who emigrated to Canada in the 1920s and lived there for a dozen years hunting and prospecting gold. Later he came back to Finland and wrote a three-series book of memoirs set in Canada; later on he published four adventure books for young readers set in the same regions. Munsterhjelm returned to Canada in the late 1940s and lived there for the rest of his life. I'm writing on him, but can't get my hands on A Dog Named Wolf. What I'd really like to know is that if it's a fictional book or a memoir and if Munsterhjelm himself is in the lead. If it's a novel, it never came out in Finnish and I'll have to get my hands on it. (There are plenty copies on Abebooks, but I need the info quicker.)

Mind you, there's also a book by Munsterhjelm called The Wind and the Caribou, it's an English translation of one of his memoirs. I thought it was pretty wonderful, you should seek it out if you're interested in the so-called Northern genre.

8 comments:

Todd Mason said...

I would've just missed it as a Dell Laurel Leaf release in 1977, by which time I was reading novels aimed at adults or at least packaged for them. If it had come out thus in 1975, I would've snapped it up.

Todd Mason said...

WorldCat notes:
A dog named Wolf.

Author: Erik Munsterhjelm
Publisher: Toronto, Macmillan [©1972]
Edition/Format: Print book : Fiction : Juvenile audience : EnglishView all editions and formats
Database: WorldCat

Todd Mason said...

WorldCat also notes the Dell edition as released in 1978.

jurinummelin said...

Thanks for this, Todd! Munsterhjelm wrote four juvenile books published in Finnish (actually they came out in Swedish first, but in Finland), but I don't think any fit this one, so I believe I'll have to look it up. He has some reminiscences of his dogs in his hunting/prospecting memoirs, but none is a full-scale book.

Marlene Detierro said...

I love this book. The fact that the author can throw you into the life of a dog, and make it believable and interesting is amazing. It will make you look at your dog in a new way.

Marlene
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jurinummelin said...

Thanks for your comment, Marlene! Would you happen to remember whether the book was a novel, i.e. fiction, or a memoir?

Anonymous said...

Hi Juri, hopefully this answer isn't too late. I am the great granddaughter of Erik and I just happened upon this post while looking for places to buy his books. It is a fictional book.
Thank you for your interest!

jurinummelin said...

Thank you, anonymous! In the meantime, I got my hands on the book and saw myself it's fiction. It would be interesting to hear some info on your great grand-dad, as he plays a big part in a non-fiction book I wrote.