Campbell's Kingdom

Hammond Innes did his best writing, I think, in the 1950s and 1960s. Campbell's Kingdom is a quintessential product of that era. It has all the Innes hallmarks, exotic locations, protagonists ripped from their secure world into nature's harsh and unrelenting environment, a commentary on man's perspective and relationship to his wider cosmos, and recurring patterns of urgency and tension. It is with the latter aspect that Innes excels perhaps more than usually in Campbell's Kingdom. I think this may have been the first time that I had to stop reading, because the tension was so keen. Not just once, but several times.

There was a bit of a surprise in this novel as well. Before reading it, I hardly imagined the Canadian wilderness as much show more of a landscape for an adventure novel. Canada has always seemed, well, sort of boring. But Innes brought it to life, along with its inhabitants and their lusts, greed, and mostly suppressed violence, which is just waiting to bust through.

The novel, meanwhile, is another in the series of books that Innes would devote to contrasting the wilderness to its exploitation. This time, it was oil drilling and mining under his microscope. The people who do this work come out looking pretty good, however, even as they spoil the forests, mountains, and meadows around them. Later on, Innes would take a much harsher tone towards this destruction. show less

Bruce Wetheral, an English insurance clerk, receives two pieces of life-changing news in a single day. One is medical: he has stomach cancer and not much long to live. One is familial: his grandfather has made him the sole heir of a patch of land in the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia. With nothing to lose, Wetheral decides to go to Canada and try his hand at striking oil on the land that everyone believed was dry.

I bought this mainly because British novelists writing about Canada always crack me up, especially in books from the 1950s. This was OK, and it was obvious Innes had done his research of the geography, the land, and the oil drilling. However, it had some stereotyping about a guy who was half Indigenous, and the ending was show more unbelievable. I wouldn’t suggest it for anyone looking to try Innes’ work for the first time. show less

A competent adventure story set in the Canadian Rockies. Bruce Wetheral migrates to Canada in the hope of vindicating his dead grandfather by finding oil in the Rockies.

Bruce Campbell Weatherall unexpectedly inherits his estranged grandfather's oil exploration company and land in Alberta, Canada, in the Rocky Mountains. His grandfather Stuart Campbell was a recluse living in a log cabin there, stubbornly maintaining that there was oil in the mountains, in spite of his company's bankruptcy. His grandson travels to Canada to see for himself, and to try to prove his grandfather's claim.
A good page-turning thriller, typical Hammond Innes fare, good for escape reading.

Campbell's kingdom by Innes Hammond
About the oil fields in Canada with background of all the intricate details.
His grandfather had formed a company in Canada and he's now the holder of all of the company as his grandfather has died.
Early 1900's He had never given up on finding oil...hydroelectric production and plans...
Bruce travels to Canada and meets many of his grandfathers associates. The lawyers are trying to pressure Bruce to sign the deed over to them...
Lots of mysteries await him as he starts to solve what is going on..the survey reports were false and he has the real ones...could it be there is oil under the land?
Building of the dam and the sale of the land is a plan that is up for controversy.
Loved hearing of the land and the show more pure nature still there as the men climb up to the land.
When he first arrived in Canada he knew he only had a few short months of his life left but something happens to complicate it all.
I received this book from National Library Service for my BARD (Braille Audio Reading Device). show less