Paperback: 240 pages

Publisher: Eye Books; 2nd Revised edition edition (14 Feb. 2014)

ISBN-13: 978-1903070826

Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2.3 cm

The Good Life Gets Better

Dorian Amos

£9.99

The sequel to the bestselling book about leaving the UK for a new life in the Yukon, Dorian and his growing family get gold fever, start to stake land and prospect for gold. Follow them along the learning curve about where to look for gold and how to live in this harsh climate. It shows that with good humour and resilience life can only get better.

Extracts

After our explorations of the small but hurrying mountain rivers during the last few months we have forgotten the sheer size and power of the Yukon River. At its narrowest point it is probably 100 yards wide. Swirling, hissing, silty water, the colour of milky coffee hides various depths of two to twenty feet, and treed islands choke the river course, making it difficult to find the main channel. We have to watch the water constantly for signs of hidden sandbars and ‘dead men’ (uprooted trees stuck in the sandbars, lurking just below the surface waiting to snap the propeller or ram a hole in the bow.

An April wind is blowing from the Alaskan mountains, swaying the frozen spruce, dislodging the last clumps of stubborn winter snow from their drooping, north-facing boughs. It’s a warm wind and it fills the valley with life and movement. It awakens the squirrels to build nurseries, causes cow moose to drive off their yearling calves so they can concentrate on their unborn, restless and heavy in their wombs. It lifts courting raven to soar and tumble in the thin mountain air, and it brings the grizzly out after a long winter sleep. We’ve been awaiting its arrival like the dramatic entrance of the lead actor in a classic play.

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Extracts

After our explorations of the small but hurrying mountain rivers during the last few months we have forgotten the sheer size and power of the Yukon River. At its narrowest point it is probably 100 yards wide. Swirling, hissing, silty water, the colour of milky coffee hides various depths of two to twenty feet, and treed islands choke the river course, making it difficult to find the main channel. We have to watch the water constantly for signs of hidden sandbars and ‘dead men’ (uprooted trees stuck in the sandbars, lurking just below the surface waiting to snap the propeller or ram a hole in the bow.

An April wind is blowing from the Alaskan mountains, swaying the frozen spruce, dislodging the last clumps of stubborn winter snow from their drooping, north-facing boughs. It’s a warm wind and it fills the valley with life and movement. It awakens the squirrels to build nurseries, causes cow moose to drive off their yearling calves so they can concentrate on their unborn, restless and heavy in their wombs. It lifts courting raven to soar and tumble in the thin mountain air, and it brings the grizzly out after a long winter sleep. We’ve been awaiting its arrival like the dramatic entrance of the lead actor in a classic play.

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ABOUT

Dorian Amos

Dorian was born in Cambridge in 1967. He left home at sixteen and worked as a gamekeeper all over the UK. In 1987 he met his wife Bridget on Exmoor, and they married in 1992. By that time he had completed a three-year course in wildlife conservation at agricultural college and had also – during long lectures – discovered a talent for drawing cartoons.

In 1995 he set up a cartooning business called Amosart, in Polperro, Cornwall. Although the business was successful, life still felt too easy. In 1998, Bridget and Dorian left Cornwall for the Canadian wilderness in search of adventure. They now live in a cabin in the forest outside Dawson City, Yukon Territory.

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