The Incredible Journey

The journey for which this novel is named occurs in northwest Ontario. The area is a gorgeous wilderness dotted with abandoned mines, undiscovered trails, and a few farms and towns that are located far away from one another. The main industries in the area are pulp and paper, and prospectors work the mines. Indians, hunters, and pioneers also roam the territory—but the area is truly the domain of wild animals.

Winter, and its generous snow, takes up almost half of the calendar year in the region, keeping temperatures well below zero throughout what is traditionally thought of as spring. Then there is:

a sudden short burst of summer where everything grows with wild abandon; and as suddenly it is the fall again. To many who live there, fall is the burnished crown of the year, with the crisp sunny days and exhilarating air of the Northland; with clear blue skies, and drifting leaves, and, as far as the eye can see, the endless panorama of glorious rich flaming color in the turning trees (2).

The narrator tells us these things in order to introduce us to “the country over which the three travelers passed, and it was in the fall that they traveled, in the days of Indian summer” (2-3). This gives the sense that something is coming to a close and danger is on the horizon.

The narrator then introduces John Longridge, a man who occasionally lives on the outskirts of one of the small towns in the area—in “an old stone house that [has] been in his family for several generations” (3). He is a professional writer in his forties. He is unmarried and has written several historical biographies. Most of his time is spent traveling and researching for his work, but the stone house is one of his regular outposts, which he uses to complete his writing. During these periods, a middle-aged couple who lives in a cottage half a mile away—the Oakes—see to his domestic needs.

It is the night before the incredible journey begins. Longridge is about to depart on a hunting trip. A svelte, wheat-colored Siamese cat, named Tao, sits on Longridge’s knee. An aged white English bull terrier, Bodger, is curled at Longridge’s feet. Another dog, whose alert eyes and manner contrast with the other two animals, lays by the door. He is a red-gold Labrador retriever named Luath. When Longridge opens a cupboard in order to look at the hunting guns that are stored within, and retrieves a handsome, engraved double-barreled gun, Luath stirs with anticipation. The dog is let down when Longridge replaces the gun.

Mrs. Oakes calls. Although the connection is unstable, she and Longridge discuss his planned departure the next morning. He tells her that he will be departing at 7am the following morning. They try to discuss the animals, with Mrs. Oakes telling him that she will be bringing bone marrow as a treat for Bodger, but the line goes dead. Longridge turns and sees that Bodger has taken his place upon the armchair, and good-naturedly calls him a very bad dog. Bodger makes a facial expression that is a “parody of sorrow,” and Longridge laughs (8).

The three animals and man then undertake a routine that they do nightly. Longridge retires to the porch to smoke his pipe while the three animals trot into the forest for a jaunt that takes at least half an hour.

Longridge considered boarding Tao, Luath, and Bodger during his time away, but Mrs. Oakes has insisted that she would take care of the three animals, whom she loves very much. After Longridge is finished packing, he writes a note to Mrs. Oakes. The note says:

Dear Mrs. Oakes [...] Please order some more coffee and replace the canned food I’ve taken. I will be taking the dogs (and Tao too, of course!)...Here he came to the end of the small square of paper, and taking another piece he continued:...out for a run before I leave, and will give them something to eat, so don’t let our greedy white friend tell you he is starving! Don’t worry yourselves too much over them—I know they will be fine (10).

Longridge muses about Mrs. Oakes’s special affection for Bodger, as well as Tao’s ability to open all the doors in the house. He then feels a tinge of guilt at leaving the animals. The animals have come under his care through his friend and colleague James Hunter, an English professor at a university located 250 miles away. The animals belong to James and his family: his wife, his nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth, and eleven-year-old son Peter. Longridge is so close to the family that he is the children’s godfather. When James Hunter received word that a guest lectureship would mean a nine-month stay in England for his family, Longridge stepped in to care for the animals lest they be boarded. Longridge felt empathy for the children and their grief at being separated from their beloved pets: his own lonely childhood had been graced by a cocker spaniel and he therefore intimately understands the comfort that pets can bring.

Elizabeth is the guardian of the cat, with whom she shares a loving bond. Bodger had come into the family on Peter’s first birthday as a puppy, and is rightfully his dog—in fact, Peter “could not remember a day of his life when Bodger had not been part of it” (12). Luath belongs, “in every sense of the word, heart and soul to [Peter and Elizabeth’s] father, who had trained him since puppyhood for hunting” (12).

After a few days, the animals settled in with Longridge, but it also became very obvious that Bodger missed the children terribly. Bodger began wandering off on some afternoons, and Longridge soon discovered that the dog was journeying to the playground of a nearby school. Bodger avoided the main road because of his poor vision, but he found a route through the fields and would time his arrival to coincide with recess. He was very popular with the children.

While Bodger enjoys a warm rapport with Longridge, Luath “never [stops] pining for his own home and master; although he [eats] well and his coat [is] glossy with health, he never [maintains] anything but a dignified, unyielding distance” (14). It seems to Longridge that Luath is eternally alert and yearning for something beyond his current lodging.

Longridge falls asleep, and the moon shines into the window. Its beams wake Tao, who jumps onto the windowsill to look upon it. Tao then jumps onto the desk and knocks the paperweight that was securing Longridge’s letter to Mrs. Oakes. The second page of the letter drifts across the room and into the fireplace. It burns until only the signature remains legible. Luath also stirs from his sleep and waits in vain to hear the whistle of his master. Bodger lies curled in Longridge’s bed, sleeping peacefully.