Drifting Home: A Family’s Voyage of Discovery Down the Wild Yukon River

This Canadian classic, by one of the country’s beloved authors, is a personal journey through time and space to the heart of family and the soul of the Canadian experience.

Drifting Home is an account of a journey by Pierre Berton and his family as they raft down the Yukon River from Lake Bennett, British Columbia, to Dawson in the Yukon Territory. It is a meditation on family and childhood and the small moments from which memories are drawn. It is also a tribute by a son to his father.

During the Klondike summer of 1898, Francis George Berton paddled the waters of this historic river. Berton was one of the pioneering adventurers who sought his fortune in the goldfields of the north. When the gold rush ended and the crowds left, he stayed on in Dawson City, Yukon, as government mining recorder, married and started a family. It was there, in Canada’s most famous ghost town, that Pierre Berton spent his vividly remembered childhood.

Through a unique blending of nostalgia, his deep love of the land and his unrivalled knowledge of the history and the area, Pierre Berton has created this magical tale.