Phantom Lake North of 54

Phantom Lake explores the stories, legends, and tall tales that make up Flin Flon_a real imaginary place perched on rocky outcrops and lakes of the Canadian Shield. Lakes and stories together draw Birk Sproxton into their spell. He travels by trains, planes, Bombardiers and automobiles across the West to understand Flin Flon and so understand himself. The northern stories, like Shield Lakes seen from the air, become ink-blots to test the writer_s mettle.In a series of trips_real and imagined_to the Manitoba-Saskatchewan mining district north of 54° latitude, the narrator seeks to find himself between the waters of the elusive Phantom Lake and the monster rocks of Flin Flon, famous for its strange name, legendary riches, and underground marijuana operations.In his quest, Sproxton encounters fictional characters in The Sunless City and The Lobstick Trail, two novels that imagine the town into existence. Sproxton tells of the first gold rush, the draining of Flin Flon Lake, the emergence of the open pit, smelter smoke and slag pour, headframes and tailings ponds. Stories of work and play_including prospectors Tom Creighton, David Collins, Kate Rice, explorers Alexander Henry, David Thompson and J.B. Tyrrell, and the man who became a gunslinger_are set North of 54 among a network of spectacular lakes reaching from Amisk (Beaver) to Athapapuskow to Wekusko (Herb). At the center of this fictional and historical mosaic lies the elusive Phantom Lake.Born on the edge of a lake in Flin Flon, Manitoba, Birk Sproxton currently lives in the heart of the Alberta greenbelt, where he teaches Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at Red Deer College. Editor of the best-selling Great Stories from the Prairies, he is the author of Headframe, The Hockey Fan Came Riding, and the award-winning novel, The Red-Headed Woman with the Black Black Heart.Sproxton, Birk is the author of 'Phantom Lake North of 54', published 0017 under ISBN 9780888644428 and ISBN 0888644426.