Research: Alaska in the 1920s

 Reading through the novel I am finding things I can't visualise because I've not encountered them. I thought it was necessary to spend some time looking online at the time period the story is set. I've gathered some photographs and information which will help me have a greater sense of the time and place.
I gathered some photographs which will help me picture the changing landscape; Alaska in snow and in lush summer weather. As the landscape is important to the symbolism for the story and characters then it is important for me to have a good idea of how the landscape looks, what is found there and how these change during the changing seasons; as seasonal change is integral to the story and symbolism too.

I looked at clothing and dress from the time. A lot of furs would be worn in winter. This photo is of a worker on the railroad which is being built during the story.

Homes were handbuilt and made of wood from the trees in the surrounding area. In the story a cabin is built by two of the characters.

On a homestead you would have farming land and build on that land. During the spring and summer you would farm the feilds for income and food. 

In the summer months the landscape is lush and green. The books describes a lot of different flowers and plants. There is still snow up in the mountains. 

Marshlands are also mentioned. A boy, Garrett, sees Faina for the first time her killing a swan. There is also a lot of mentions of wildlife. Hunting and trapping were also a way of living and eating.

I feel like the winter months must be the loneliest and the hardest for life on an Alaskan homestead. At the beginning of the story the landscape reflects Mabel's emptiness and grief. The joy the child brings comes out of the wilderness in winter and leaves in spring and summer. I think the months in which events happen in the book relate to the fruitfulness and then barrenness of the landscape. Mabel walks over the frozen river at the beginning of the story in a moment of despair, once Faina becomes more civilized she comes back in the spring and summer months and seems more real; she tans and leaves heavier footprints in the earth. 

This has been a useful exercise in helping me imagine the world where this story takes place. You can see the links to the stories events in the landscape and wilderness. The book has a mix of fantastical and fairytale with real and severe situations which reflects the beauty and magic and harshness of the landscape.