The Artwork of Ruth Hulbert
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"To the Bright Edge of the World" Map

8/10/2016

13 Comments

 
Picture
This is the map I drew for my friend and former coworker Eowyn Ivey’s second novel, To the Bright Edge of the World.  It appears as a two-page spread in the American edition, and (much to my delight) is also printed on the front and back endpapers of the UK hardcover.  I’ll admit I’ve bought books before for the sake of a good endpaper-map, so I get a real kick out of imagining a map I drew now lurking just undercover in bookstores everywhere, enticing casual browsers to read Eowyn’s story. 
 
The fictional Lieut. Col. Allen Forrester’s 1885 expedition up the Wolverine River was inspired by the historical Lieut. Henry Allen’s 1885 expedition up the Copper River, so my map for the novel is a slightly altered version of the historical Allen map.  Since readers will see the map before starting the story, the title is carefully worded to avoid giving away whether Forrester or any other members of the expedition actually survive to draw it themselves. 
 
I mimicked the look and even the handwriting of the Allen map, but this Forrester map is a work of fiction – if the made-up place names don’t tip you off, then you should at least be suspicious that true north is marked by a trickster raven.  Some place names (Unalaklik, Sushitna, Tetling) are true to spellings of the time, while others (like Perkins Island) are Eowyn’s inventions.  (As long as we were playing loose with place-names, I took the liberty of renaming Kayak Island for Georg Steller, my favorite figure from the history of Alaskan exploration.)  Like the historical Allen map, the Forrester map fills in from the 1884 USGS map of Alaska wherever the expedition didn’t survey in person.  Unlike the Allen expedition, the Forrester group didn’t go up the Koyukuk River, so that area remains blank in this version.  A couple details that are less fictional than they may appear: “Unexplored” comes straight from the 1884 USGS map, and “Mammoth bones” from a note further upriver on the Allen map (“Ice banks—Mammoth remains”). 
 
My first version of the map had the Wolverine River and Trail River much more closely resembling the Copper and Chitina Rivers, but when I re-read the text I found that the travel times in the story required more space between the upper canyon and the start of the Trail River.  After consulting more with Eowyn, I re-drew that whole area, and pulled the river further west while I was at it.  The Wolverine River also appears in her first book, The Snow Child, where it’s a stand-in for the Matanuska River.  I’m awfully attached to the notion that The Snow Child takes place in the woods and mountains of home, so in putting the Wolverine on a map, I put it as close to home as I could manage, given that this story pins the river’s mouth way over on the other side of Prince William Sound. 

The title of the 1885 Allen map
Detail from the 1884 USGS map of Alaska, in which the "Atna or Copper River" looks like a diagram based on verbal reports, and the Matanuska-Susitna region involves a lot of wild guesswork. This was the best map available to the explorers of 1885.
Detail from the 1885 Allen map. The expedition made a huge leap forward in outside knowledge of Alaska, but the place where I was born only one century later is still terra incognita.
Detail from my map, showing the Wolverine River.
13 Comments
Nancy Doane
6/26/2017 01:31:46 am

It is late at night, or early morning to be precise, and I am engrossed in To the Bright Edge of the World. My curiosity got the best of me, not knowing whether the wolverine weather was fact or fiction. I Googled "map Wolverine River Alaska" and came across your map and explanation. What a treat! I was reading an electronic version of the book, but now I need to go buy a hardcopy. Thank you!

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Jay Weiner
8/14/2017 09:08:06 pm

I too found you via google while immersed in Bright Edge. I'm listening to the audio version and thus would never have seen your map had I not been fortunate enough to land here. Beautiful work for a fantastic book. Thank you!

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Lars Ellison
12/27/2017 04:16:12 pm

Hi,
Also guilty of some Google Earth sleuthing. Those trickster ravens... I did not catch that clue about "true" north.

Thanks!

Reply
Sid
1/8/2018 09:04:31 pm

I loved the book! And it was a real great thing to always go back to your wonderful map as the explorers made their way on their journey. A beautiful map, and I love the trickster Raven!

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Jo M Houser
6/17/2018 04:12:16 pm

Guilty here....totally ensconsed in the book. As karma would have it, I took this book with me on a whale watching trip from Port Townsend yesterday

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Jay Adams
6/28/2018 09:09:31 pm

I loved The Snow Child and am currently midway through The Bright Edge of the World. I had to see if the place names were real and was thrilled to find this page. Your friend Eowyn is a great author and you are a great artist!

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Erin
7/15/2018 02:41:23 pm

A beautiful map and I appreciate the explanation! I kept thinking the delta made it seem like the Wolverine River was the same as the Copper River but the river itswlf wasn’t right. I used to live in Cordova and worked for the Native Village of Eyak, and many years later am listening to the book with my 94 year old grandma on audible. I’ll have to share the map with her as well! Thanks for sharing the map and explanation behind it!

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Danielle
8/6/2018 09:29:40 pm

Just finished the novel. I loved it! Found your beautiful map when googling “map of wolverine river.”

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Greg link
10/6/2018 07:34:37 pm

I just finished reading To the Bright Edge of the World. I loved it. Your map is beautiful. I loved reading more about it on this site. Thanks for sharing!

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Cynthia
10/21/2018 06:58:08 pm

I began reading To the Bright Edge of the World and was perplexed about the mixture of fiction and historical occurrences. Finding your explanation of the map et alia was most interesting . Mystery solved!

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Alicia
2/3/2020 07:57:54 pm

Just starting The Bright Edge of the World and was curious about the Wolverine River. While I know wolverines are very much a part of the Alaskan wilderness I couldn’t recall ever hearing of the Wolverine River. A quick search landed me here and I too am delighted with your map and the explanation you provided.

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Kaleb Stone link
1/2/2021 09:50:07 am

Thanks ffor this

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Gregory Zak
5/22/2022 02:56:30 pm

I’m currently reading the book, saw the map and tried to make sense of it on Gooogle Maps, and found this page by searching for Perkins Island Alaska. Looks like this island is called Hinchinbrook Island in real life. Anyway, thanks for the map and explanation - always love a good map, like in Tolkein’s works!

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    About the Artist

    Ruth Hulbert was born and raised in Palmer, Alaska.  She graduated in 2008 with a BA in biology and painting from Western Washington University.  Ruth completed a certificate in natural science illustration through the University of Washington in Seattle in 2013. 

    Buy prints of her art at:
    Fine Art America
    Pixels.com

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