The Volunteer, a nineteenth-century Yorkshire whaling ship, becomes the stage for a confrontation between brutal harpooner Henry Drax and ex-army surgeon Patrick Sumner, the ship's medic, during a violent, ill-fated voyage to the Arctic.

Hauling Water is an award-winning collection of little love stories - love for the land, love between a man and woman, love of children and family, love for all the beings that share the neighborhood (even the occasional annoying bear in the garbage), and eventually love for a life well lived. The freshness of maple sap plunking into pails, the chill of a strong wind at an ice fishing hole, the satisfaction of a Thanksgiving dinner tradition, dismayed...