Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Barkskins

Barkskins is a historical novel written by American author Annie Proulx and published on June 14, 2016, by Scribner.^[1]^[2] The narrative spans over three centuries, beginning in 1693 when two destitute Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France as indentured woodcutters—known as "barkskins"—bound to a seigneur for three years in exchange for land.^[1]^[2] It traces their descendants' exploits across North America, Europe, China, and New Zealand, driven by the pursuit of wealth through fur trading, logging, and land exploitation amid harsh wilderness conditions and interactions with indigenous peoples.^[1]^[3] The novel, exceeding 700 pages, interweaves the divergent family lines—Sel's lineage marked by endurance and integration with Mi'kmaq communities, and Duquet's by entrepreneurial expansion into vast timber empires—highlighting the progressive depletion of vast forests from Wobikujing (later known as New France) to the Pacific Northwest.^[1] Proulx draws on historical records of colonial expansion and resource extraction to depict cycles of greed, survival, and ecological transformation, without romanticizing the settlers' impacts on native ecosystems and populations.^[2] While commercially successful as a New York Times bestseller, Barkskins received divided critical responses for its ambitious scope, with some praising its vivid portrayal of historical forces and others critiquing its episodic structure and diminished focus on individual character depth.^[1] In 2020, the book was adapted into an eight-episode limited television series by National Geographic, created by Elwood Reid and set in 1693 New France, emphasizing frontier hardships, cultural clashes, and early colonial intrigue among settlers, Jesuits, and indigenous groups.^[4]^[5] The adaptation, starring actors such as David Thewlis and Marcia Gay Harden, condensed the novel's timeline but retained its core exploration of exploitation and survival, though it faced criticism for heavy-handed environmental messaging.^[6]^[5]

Publication and development

Writing and research process

Annie Proulx, recipient of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for The Shipping News, transitioned from shorter, regionally focused narratives to the expansive multi-generational scope of Barkskins, her first novel spanning over 300 years of North American history. This shift reflected her longstanding interest in landscapes and human impact on them, drawing from personal observations of environmental change, such as widespread tree die-off in the Rocky Mountains that prompted deeper inquiry into historical forest exploitation.^[7]^[8] Proulx commenced intensive research and composition around 2011, culminating in the novel's completion after approximately five years of writing, though the concept had germinated over decades through accumulated readings on history and ecology. The process involved meticulous immersion as a trained historian, including years of preparatory reading before drafting, followed by revisions that entailed cutting over 150 pages from initial drafts heavy with period details. Disruptions occurred due to three relocations, including sales of properties like her Wyoming ranch, Bird Cloud.^[8]^[9] Her research encompassed extensive archival materials, such as colonial documents from New France detailing 17th-century timber operations and the 1693 arrival of French woodsmen, alongside rare forestry books, diaries, and legal records on timber rights, including cases like the Frost dispute. Proulx consulted works like William Cronon's Changes in the Land (1983) for contrasts between Indigenous land stewardship—such as controlled burns—and European commodification, integrating data on global timber trade routes and deforestation patterns. She supplemented this with travels to sites like Michigan's Upper Peninsula, examinations of landscape paintings for historical accuracy, and visits to archives in New York, Australia, and New Zealand's ancient forests to study tree species and logging impacts. Indigenous histories informed depictions of Mi'kmaq interactions with woodlands, drawing from accounts of residential schools and activists like Nora Bernard.^[7]^[8]^[9] Proulx amassed a personal research library of landscape and history texts, supplemented by typed notes, travel journals, photographs, and clippings, as archived in her papers at the New York Public Library. This groundwork prioritized factual reconstruction over moralizing, aiming to illustrate exploitation's mechanics through period-specific details like tools, slang, and economic drivers, ensuring the fiction rested on verifiable historical patterns rather than conjecture.^[10]^[7]

Release details and commercial reception

Barkskins was released in hardcover by Scribner on June 14, 2016, spanning 736 pages with a list price of $28.^[11] The publisher promoted the novel by highlighting Annie Proulx's prior Pulitzer Prize-winning work, such as The Shipping News, alongside the book's multigenerational narrative arc extending from 1693 to 2013 and encompassing themes of forestry across North America, Europe, China, and New Zealand. Commercially, Barkskins attained New York Times bestseller status, reflecting strong initial market performance driven by Proulx's literary stature. Specific sales figures and print run details were not publicly disclosed by the publisher.

Historical context

Colonial logging industry in New France

The colonial logging industry in New France emerged in the early 17th century as a vital economic activity, primarily driven by the need for timber in local construction, shipbuilding, and exports to metropolitan France. Established under the seigneurial system formalized in 1627, land grants reserved crown rights to oak and pine stands, requiring official permission for their harvest to prioritize naval supplies. Logging focused on high-quality white pine and oak for masts, beams, and planks, with operations centered in regions like the Outaouais and along the St. Lawrence River, where sawmills were introduced as early as the 1660s to process lumber efficiently. This industry complemented fur trade revenues, becoming the second-leading export commodity by the late 17th century, as beam-timbers, planks, staves, and shingles were shipped to French royal shipyards.^[12]^[13] Labor in the sector relied on indentured servants known as engagés, with approximately 5,200 arriving between the 1620s and 1760, often contracted for three-year terms to perform seasonal work including tree felling with axes and rudimentary saws. Under the seigneurial tenure, habitants—tenant farmers—provided corvée labor, typically a few days annually, which seigneurs could direct toward clearing woodlots or transporting logs, while also issuing licenses for personal woodcutting to support farmsteading. These practices facilitated targeted extraction rather than widespread clear-cutting, as the colony's sparse population, numbering around 3,000 in 1663 and growing to 70,000 by 1763, limited scale; operations emphasized straight-trunked mast pines suitable for naval spars over 100 feet tall. Such methods enabled infrastructure development, including forts and vessels built locally, like the early craft at Port-Royal in 1606.^[14]^[15]^[13] Exports of colonial timber, though secondary to European sources like the Baltic, addressed French naval shortages exacerbated by domestic forest depletion; by the 1740s, obtaining large masts domestically proved challenging, prompting reliance on New France supplies despite their higher costs and occasional quality issues from improper seasoning. Sawing sites at Malbaie and Baie Saint-Paul processed logs into exportable forms, contributing to trade prosperity by funding colonial expansion and integrating into Atlantic commerce, such as bartering staves for West Indian goods. This resource extraction underpinned wealth creation, as timber revenues supported settlement and ship repairs, fostering economic interdependence between the colony and France's maritime ambitions.^[12]^[16]^[17] Expansion was propelled by causal factors including metropolitan naval demands during conflicts like the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which strained timber reserves, alongside gradual population increases providing more laborers and technological shifts from hand-felling to water-powered sawmills that boosted output efficiency. These drivers cleared paths for agricultural settlement, as logged areas were converted to farmlands, enhancing food security and enabling surplus production for export. While quantitative records of harvested volumes remain sparse due to rudimentary colonial administration, the industry's role in sustaining French sea power and colonial viability is evident, with mast procurement sites explicitly funded by the Ministry of Marine to secure strategic resources.^[13]^[12]

Indigenous land use and European expansion

Prior to European arrival, indigenous peoples in northeastern North America, including regions later comprising New France, employed controlled burns and selective harvesting to maintain forest ecosystems suited to their needs. These practices, sustained over millennia, involved periodic low-intensity fires to clear underbrush, promote berry production, and favor certain game habitats, while selective removal targeted specific trees for tools, housing, and fuel without widespread deforestation.^[18] ^[19] Such methods preserved biodiversity and soil fertility, as evidenced by paleoecological records showing mosaic landscapes shaped by human fire regimes rather than uniform climax forests.^[20] Initial European-indigenous interactions in New France from the 16th century centered on the fur trade, fostering alliances where French traders integrated into indigenous networks for beaver pelts, exchanging goods like metal tools and firearms. These partnerships, often sealed through kinship ties and mutual economic benefit, minimized direct land competition until the mid-18th century.^[21] However, the 1763 Treaty of Paris, concluding the Seven Years' War, transferred French territories to Britain, prompting shifts from trade-focused relations to settlement pressures via land grants and military assertions, which escalated conflicts and indigenous displacement through subsequent treaties and wars like the American Revolutionary War era skirmishes.^[22] European logging practices diverged sharply, prioritizing export-driven extraction of mast pines for naval use, evolving toward more intensive clear-cutting in accessible areas post-1763 as British colonial policies encouraged timber concessions over indigenous selective approaches.^[23] The predominant driver of indigenous population declines during this expansion was epidemic diseases introduced by Europeans, with mortality rates exceeding 90% in affected groups due to lack of immunity to pathogens like smallpox and influenza. For instance, the Huron (Wendat) confederacy suffered catastrophic losses from smallpox outbreaks in the 1630s, reducing their population from around 20,000-30,000 to a few thousand before significant European settlement or logging intensification.^[24] Similarly, Mi'kmaq populations in Acadia declined sharply from estimated 35,000 pre-contact to under 2,000 by the mid-19th century, primarily from diseases compounded by warfare and food disruptions, rather than forestry alone.^[25] ^[26] While land grants facilitated settler encroachment and resource competition, demographic collapse from disease preceded and enabled much of the territorial reconfiguration, underscoring epidemiology over extraction as the causal core of displacement patterns.^[27]^[28]

Narrative structure

Plot summary

Barkskins opens in 1693 with the arrival of two French indentured servants, René Sel and Charles Duquet, in the forested region of Wobik Dune in New France, where they serve as woodcutters—known as barkskins—for a feudal lord in exchange for land after three years of labor. Sel, hampered by nearsightedness and later the loss of an arm in an accident, forms a union with the Mi'kmaq woman Mari, producing a large family of mixed Indigenous and European descent that adapts to life in the wilderness amid encroaching European settlement. In contrast, Duquet rejects servitude, ventures into the forest, integrates temporarily with Indigenous groups, and establishes the foundations of a timber-trading enterprise that evolves into a multinational corporation.^[1]^[29] The narrative traces the divergent lineages of the Sel and Duquet families over three centuries, interweaving their experiences with the expansion and contraction of the logging industry across North America, Europe, China, New Zealand, and beyond. Sel's Métis descendants face displacement, intermarriage, and survival challenges as colonial powers shift from French to British control, while Duquet's heirs navigate the booms and busts of timber extraction, including relocations to New England and Michigan. Key events punctuate the saga, such as the devastating Great Miramichi Fire of 1825, which ravages family holdings and forces migrations, alongside wars, economic bankruptcies, and entrepreneurial reinventions tied to forestry ventures.^[11]^[30]^[31] By the 20th century, the story encompasses global trade disruptions, environmental shifts, and nascent conservation initiatives, as later generations confront the long-term repercussions of relentless resource exploitation on their ancestral pursuits. The chronicle culminates in reflections on altered landscapes and family legacies shaped by centuries of woodland transformation, without resolution to the underlying tensions of expansion and loss.^[1]^[32]

Characters and family lineages

The novel's multi-generational structure centers on the divergent lineages of two indentured French woodcutters who arrive in New France in 1693: René Sel and Charles Duquet.^[8] ^[29] René Sel's arc embodies stoic endurance amid relentless forest labor and personal loss; he weds a Mi'kmaq woman named Mari, forging a Métis branch marked by persistent cultural liminality and erosion of Indigenous ties across subsequent generations, including figures who labor in remote lumber camps into the mid-20th century.^[8] ^[33] ^[31] Charles Duquet's trajectory highlights cunning opportunism; fleeing servitude, he rebrands as Duke, amassing wealth through fur trading and timber ventures, with his progeny—such as entrepreneurial heirs steering multinational logging operations—propelling the line toward transcontinental dominance in resource extraction by the 19th and 20th centuries.^[34] ^[35] Proulx delineates these sagas via appended family trees that map interconnections, incorporating scores of ancillary figures—ranging from colonial-era settlers and 19th-century axmen to modern ecologists and industrialists—whose inherited dispositions sustain narrative momentum over three centuries without resolving into convergence until late intersections.^[1] ^[36]

Themes and interpretations

Resource extraction and economic development

In Barkskins, Annie Proulx portrays timber extraction as a foundational driver of colonial economic expansion in New France, where vast white pine forests supplied masts critical for French shipbuilding and naval dominance, alongside materials for housing and rudimentary industry.^[37] ^[12] The novel's narrative traces how logging operations generated substantial export revenues, ranking second only to the fur trade in outgoing shipments to France, thereby bolstering the colony's fiscal base and enabling further settlement.^[12] Proulx highlights profit motives and entrepreneurial risk-taking through the Duquet family, whose progenitor Charles Duquet transforms indentured woodcutting into a burgeoning timber enterprise by aggressively surveying remote woodlands and forging alliances with influential figures.^[37] ^[31] This scalable approach yields generational fortunes, as seen in the Dukes' evolution into Boston elites with expansive operations in Michigan and Illinois by the 19th century, exemplifying how individual ambition catalyzed industrial-scale logging.^[31] The text establishes causal connections between forest clearance and societal advancements, depicting deforested expanses as prerequisites for agricultural intensification, railroad infrastructure, and urban centers that accommodated surging populations.^[37] ^[31] Innovations such as specialized axe manufactories, pioneered by figures like Jinot Sel, underscore logging's role in technological progress tied to economic output, with cleared lands facilitating the shift from wilderness to productive economic hubs.^[31] Lavinia Duke's later corporate strategies further illustrate this, quantifying forest yields to maximize returns and sustain family-led ventures amid expanding markets.^[31]

Environmental consequences and sustainability

In Barkskins, Annie Proulx portrays the environmental ramifications of logging as a relentless progression of habitat destruction, soil erosion, and biodiversity loss across centuries, with characters witnessing the transformation of dense North American woodlands into scarred landscapes dominated by stumps and invasive species.^[34] ^[38] The narrative emphasizes species declines, such as the extirpation of passenger pigeons and beavers through overhunting tied to timber operations, framing these as precursors to broader ecological imbalance.^[39] This depiction aligns with 17th- to 19th-century clearance patterns in regions like New France, where European settlers felled white pine and hemlock stands for shipbuilding and fuel, contributing to localized watershed alterations and increased flooding risks by the mid-1800s.^[40] Yet, empirical records reveal cyclical recovery dynamics absent from the novel's perpetual decline motif: North American forests, particularly in the eastern U.S., underwent significant regeneration following peak exploitation, with net growth surpassing harvest volumes by 37% as early as 1986 due to natural reseeding and replanting.^[41] U.S. forest land area stabilized after 1910, encompassing 765 million acres or 34% of total land by 2017, reflecting adaptive silvicultural practices like selective cutting and fire suppression that fostered second-growth stands of species such as oak and maple.^[42] ^[43] Reforestation since the early 20th century, including a century-long eastern U.S. effort, has even exerted a measurable cooling effect on regional temperatures by sequestering carbon and moderating microclimates, countering narratives of irreversible despoliation.^[44] Proulx's foreshadowing of contemporary climate vulnerabilities—such as amplified storm surges from cleared coastal buffers—echoes real historical vulnerabilities but overlooks evidence of resilience in forest ecosystems, where disturbance legacies like 19th-century logging scars have integrated into mature, multi-aged stands by the late 20th century.^[39] ^[45] Sustainability in North American forestry has thus hinged on recognizing these regenerative capacities, with post-1920 policies prioritizing even-aged management to sustain timber yields without net cover loss, challenging alarmist views of unending ecological tragedy.^[46]^[42]

Cultural interactions and displacement

In Barkskins, cultural interactions between European settlers and Indigenous Mi'kmaq peoples begin with pragmatic alliances but evolve into profound displacements driven by incompatible worldviews and practical disparities. René Sel, an indentured French woodcutter arriving in New France in 1693, marries Mari, a Mi'kmaq woman, producing Métis descendants who inherit hybrid identities blending Indigenous kinship networks with European individualism.^[47] These offspring, such as later figures like Felix and Jeanne Mius, embody cultural fusion yet endure marginalization, as differing property conceptions—Mi'kmaq reverence for forests as sacred, interdependent entities versus European commodification for private gain—fuel ongoing frictions that hinder seamless integration.^[48] ^[47] Initial exchanges reflect fluid borders, with Charles Duquet's early fur trade ventures enabling reciprocal benefits like tool swaps and temporary territorial accommodations, preceding the rigid assertions of dominance by expanding settler logging operations.^[47] ^[48] Technology gaps exacerbate clashes: European iron axes and later mechanized saws outpace Mi'kmaq stone tools, accelerating land clearance that severs traditional migratory routes and resource access, while gunpowder weaponry shifts interpersonal power balances from negotiation to coercion in isolated encounters.^[48] Displacement intensifies through settler encroachments that forcibly evict Mi'kmaq families from woodlands, restricting their access to sustenance and timber for shelter, as depicted in the Sel lineage's progressive confinement.^[48] ^[47] Epidemics compound this, with smallpox, measles, and cholera ravaging populations lacking prior exposure, decimating Mi'kmaq communities and enabling unchecked European advances without reliance on deliberate extermination.^[48] ^[34] Assimilation efforts further erode distinct identities, as seen in Sel descendants' subjection to residential schools from the late 19th century onward, which enforce language suppression and cultural disconnection over four decades, fostering internalized shifts like Mi'kmaq men adopting European devaluation of women's traditional roles.^[47] ^[48] Miscegenation, while creating resilient hybrid lines, often dilutes Indigenous practices amid these pressures, highlighting causal barriers—demographic collapse from disease, institutional mandates, and adaptive necessities—over orchestrated oppression as primary drivers of cultural attenuation.^[47]

Critical reception

Literary achievements and praises

Critics praised Annie Proulx's Barkskins (2016) for its sophisticated narrative strategy, which oscillates between family lineages and historical epochs while blending technical details of forestry with broader ecological themes.^[30] Reviewers highlighted the novel's concisely effective prose in evoking landscapes, such as 18th-century Maine's conifer-jagged skylines and logging trails obscured by blowdowns, creating vivid, intimate historical scenes of resource extraction.^[30] The Guardian commended Proulx's visceral integration of research, delivering sombre tones that immerse readers in awe-inspiring forest depictions and the slow generational pacing of colonial depredations.^[38] The book's epic scope, tracing two immigrants' descendants across three centuries from New France to New Zealand and Michigan, earned recognition for its ambitious multi-lineage structure akin to the grand entertainments of Dickens and Tolstoy.^[1] This breadth allowed Proulx to explore power shifts, indigenous impacts, and environmental decline with a calibrated empathy, drawing comparisons to Amitav Ghosh's *Ibis* trilogy for its integrity and scale.^[38] Such achievements underscored the novel's literary merit, positioning it as a crowning work in Proulx's career through its unflinching historical fidelity and thematic urgency.^[1] Barkskins received a longlist nomination for the 2017 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, affirming its status among contemporary literary fiction for narrative innovation and ecological insight.^[49] This recognition, alongside critical acclaim for Proulx's terse yet evocative style, highlighted the novel's contribution to historical fiction's capacity to illuminate long-term human impacts on the natural world.^[30]^[38]

Criticisms of scope and historical fidelity

Critics have faulted Barkskins for its expansive scope, which spans over three centuries from 1693 to the early 21st century and traces the descendants of two indentured French laborers through numerous branches, resulting in an overcrowded narrative that dilutes dramatic tension.^[50] The novel introduces dozens of characters across generations and continents, often resolving their arcs abruptly through death or obscurity, which fragments the plot and hinders sustained engagement over its 736 pages.^[29] Literary reviewer Adam Mars-Jones described Proulx's tendency to pursue every narrative fork as leading to uncontrolled ramification, neutralizing ongoing drama and reducing many figures to fleeting presences.^[50] Character development suffers from this proliferation, with many individuals rendered underdeveloped or indistinguishable, burdened by expository dialogue that feels mechanical rather than naturalistic.^[51] Reviewers noted that the rapid turnover leaves little room for psychological depth or reader inference, as characters frequently serve as vessels for historical vignettes rather than fully realized persons; for instance, some appear solely to illustrate mortality in logging accidents or epidemics.^[29] The pacing exacerbates these issues, slowing to a laborious crawl amid business dealings and generational summaries, which one critic likened to slogging through interminable sequences that prioritize breadth over momentum.^[50] ^[51] Regarding historical fidelity, detractors have questioned the novel's portrayal of New France society and Indigenous interactions, particularly in its sentimental depiction of Mi’kmaq customs and resilience, which risks idealizing rather than grappling with the complexities of cultural adaptation and conflict.^[50] While Proulx draws on records of seigneurial land grants and timber concessions, the narrative's compression of centuries leads to unconvincing societal shifts and short shrift to later periods, such as 20th-century forestry practices, potentially misrepresenting the gradual evolution of colonial economies.^[51] Critics argue this selective emphasis on exploitation overlooks nuances in Indigenous agency and European settler dynamics, though Proulx consulted archival sources for details like Mi’kmaq spiritual practices and French indenture contracts.^[50] The environmental themes, centered on deforestation's irreversible toll, have drawn accusations of preachiness that subordinates storytelling to advocacy, transforming the epic into a "dreary sermon" on ecological loss.^[29] ^[51] This didactic tone manifests in narrator intrusions and repetitive laments over vanished "monstrous pine finery," which some reviewers contend overrides human narratives and employs overwrought prose to moralize against resource extraction, potentially at the expense of balanced historical accounting.^[51] While the book highlights empirical data on timber volumes—such as the felling of billions of board feet in 19th-century North America—it has been critiqued for emphasizing permanent despoliation while underplaying forest regeneration cycles observed in selective logging records from the period.^[50]

Adaptations and media extensions

Television series production and content

The television adaptation of Barkskins was developed by Elwood Reid, who served as creator, showrunner, and executive producer, with production handled by Scott Rudin Productions and Fox 21 Television Studios.^[52]^[53] The eight-episode limited series premiered on National Geographic on May 25, 2020, centering on events in the fictional settlement of Wobik Dune in New France during 1693.^[54]^[4] Principal cast members included Marcia Gay Harden as Mathilde, David Thewlis as Claude Trépagny, Christian Cooke as René Sel, and James Bloor as Charles Duquet, portraying French settlers and indigenous characters amid colonial tensions.^[55]^[56] Filming occurred primarily in Quebec, Canada, including locations in Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, where production constructed a period village set that was later offered for sale.^[57] The series emphasized historical authenticity through detailed recreation of 17th-century colonial environments, including wooden fortifications, rudimentary dwellings, and attire reflecting French settler and indigenous influences.^[58] In content, the adaptation diverged from the novel's multigenerational scope by concentrating on the initial settlers' struggles in Wobik Dune, transforming the narrative into a mystery-thriller format driven by murders, accusations of witchcraft, and interpersonal betrayals among the colonists.^[53] Reid drew loosely from the book's early chapters but prioritized a contained ensemble story of survival and intrigue over the source material's expansive family lineages spanning centuries.^[5] This shift highlighted immediate conflicts with local Mi'kmaq people and rival European factions, framing the plot around a central killing that unravels the community's fragile order.^[59]

Cancellation and legacy

The Barkskins television series concluded after its single eight-episode season, with National Geographic electing not to renew it for a second installment, a decision signaled by the auction of production props and sets in December 2020.^[60]^[61] Creator and executive producer Elwood Reid expressed optimism for continuation in June 2020, envisioning multiple additional seasons to expand on the source material's multi-generational scope, but these plans remained unfulfilled amid the network's silence on renewal.^[62] Insufficient viewership during its May to July 2020 premiere window contributed to the lack of renewal, exacerbated by the series' niche focus on 17th-century colonial New France and a narrative structure critics described as initially confusing and slow to engage broader audiences.^[56] The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted promotional efforts and viewing patterns, limiting exposure on a cable network like National Geographic, which prioritizes specialized content over mass-market appeal—contrasting with the novel's wider literary acclaim as a Pulitzer finalist.^[59] The series' legacy remains modest, primarily serving as a visual exploration of resource-driven colonial expansion and Indigenous-European tensions, though its amplification of the novel's fictionalized elements in a dramatized format drew critiques for prioritizing thematic breadth over precise historical accuracy.^[59] Fan communities expressed disappointment over the abrupt end, citing strong acting and atmospheric production, but the adaptation failed to spawn significant cultural discourse or further media extensions beyond sporadic online discussions.^[63]

References

[1]
Barkskins | Book by Annie Proulx - Simon & Schuster
Barkskins is a stunning, bracing, full-tilt ride through 300 years of US and Canadian history, told through two families whose fortunes are shaped, for better ...
[2]
Barkskins: A Novel: Proulx, Annie: 9780743288798 - Amazon.com
A multi-generational saga spanning 300 years follows two French immigrants and their descendants as they exploit North America's forests, leading to ecological ...
[3]
Barkskins by Annie Proulx - Goodreads
Rating 3.8 (20,266) Jun 14, 2016 · Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins. René suffers extraordinary ...
[4]
Barkskins (TV Series 2020– ) - IMDb
Rating 7.3/10 (2,751) Based on the novel by Pulitzer-winner Annie Proulx, BARKSKINS follows a disparate group of outcasts who must navigate brutal hardships.
[5]
'Barkskins': TV Review - The Hollywood Reporter
May 22, 2020 · Adapted from Annie Proulx's ecologically minded novel, which follows the descendants of Sel and Duquet for 300 years, the 10-part limited series ...
[6]
Barkskins: Season 1 | Rotten Tomatoes
Rating 55% (11) Environmental piety bores like woodworm through Barkskins, a tediously flat-footed and clumsily heavy-handed adaptation of Annie Proulx's polemical novel.
[7]
How the Writer Researches: Annie Proulx - Literary Hub
Jul 7, 2016 · The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist eyes a photograph of the cottage she once occupied in Newfoundland, the setting of her 1993 novel, The Shipping News.Missing: process | Show results with:process
[8]
This Week in Fiction: Annie Proulx Discusses Her Novel “Barkskins”
Mar 14, 2016 · Cressida Leyshon talks to Annie Proulx about the writer's new novel, “Barkskins,” which combines environmental themes with American history.<|separator|>
[9]
Annie Proulx: 'I've had a life. I see how slippery things can be'
Jun 5, 2016 · For Proulx writing is all about “the making of the object. I look on it as a craftsman would making a table.” Her research is meticulous.
[10]
Annie Proulx's Visibility through Violence | The New York Public ...
Jan 10, 2019 · A Library Fellow discovers the staggering volume of research undertaken by Proulx for her novels.<|separator|>
[11]
Barkskins: A Novel: Proulx, Annie: 9780743288781 - Amazon.com
Proulx's inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid—in their greed, lust, vengefulness, or their simple compassion and hope—that we follow ...
[12]
Industry in New France - Chronicles of America
Beam-timbers, planks, staves, and shingles were made in large quantities both for use in the colony and for export to France, where the timbers and planks were ...Missing: extraction | Show results with:extraction
[13]
[PDF] The Department of the Marine And the Search for Masts on Île Saint ...
Dec 11, 2012 · In a contract of 1750 supplying Baltic masts to the French navy at Brest, masts of 28 palmes diameter at the butt (32 English inches) were ...Missing: volumes | Show results with:volumes
[14]
Indentured Servants in New France
It is estimated that roughly 5,200 indentured servants came to Canada under the French regime, mostly in the 17th century. Of this number, only about 900 ...Missing: seigneurial logging
[15]
Seigneurial System | The Canadian Encyclopedia
The seigneurial system was an institutional form of land distribution established in New France in 1627 and officially abolished in 1854. In New France ...Missing: indentured workers logging
[16]
France and the American Market in Naval Timber and Masts, 1776 ...
Feb 3, 2011 · Masts imported from French colonies in North America proved unsatisfactory in both cost and quality.
[17]
France and the American Market in Naval Timber and Masts, 1776 ...
As early as 1740, the French blamed depletion of the forests for the difficulty of obtaining northern masts of over twenty- four palms; by 1770, all masts of ...Missing: logging volumes
[18]
[PDF] Native American Land-Use Practices and Ecological Impacts
Rather, it had been shaped by thousands of years of indigenous burning, pruning, sowing, selective harvesting, and tilling (Anderson and Nabhan 1991; Simms ...
[19]
Indigenous Fire Practices Shape our Land - National Park Service
Mar 18, 2024 · Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians used fire to clear areas for crops and travel, to manage the land for specific species of both plants ...Missing: selective | Show results with:selective
[20]
On Controlling Fire, New Lessons from a Deep Indigenous Past
Jul 24, 2025 · For centuries, the Native people of North America used controlled burns to manage the continent's forests. In an e360 interview, ecologist ...Missing: practices | Show results with:practices
[21]
Fur Trade | Virtual Museum of New France
These alliances ensured that the French became deeply enmeshed in Aboriginal economies, societies, and politics, while simultaneously drawing Aboriginal peoples ...Missing: displacement | Show results with:displacement
[22]
Treaty of Paris, 1763 - Office of the Historian
The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War between Great Britain and France, as well as their respective allies.Missing: interactions competition
[23]
29 Native America after 1763 - Oxford Academic
Jul 18, 2024 · Their long-standing envy of the French fur trade led the British to quickly regarrison even the smallest outpost, expel the French traders, and ...
[24]
A Historical Perspective of Healthcare Disparity and Infectious ...
Jan 24, 2022 · It is estimated that 95 percent of the indigenous populations in the Americas were killed by infectious diseases during the years following ...
[25]
The Decline of Nova Scotia Micmac Population, A.D. 1600-1850
It finds the major causes of this decline to be: diseases contracted from Europeans, a genocide campaign conducted by the. British, and starvation. The paper ...<|separator|>
[26]
How Colonization of the Americas Killed 90 Percent of Their ...
Feb 13, 2019 · In less than 100 years that Indigenous America's population was reduced to 5 or 6 million people; a population decline that exceeded 90 percent, ...
[27]
European colonizers killed so many indigenous Americans that the ...
Feb 9, 2019 · The diseases brought to North America by Columbus and other colonizers killed 90% of indigenous populations, sparking a global cooling.
[28]
'Little Ice Age' caused by death of 55-million Indigenous people after ...
Feb 6, 2019 · The elimination of nearly 55 million, or 90 per cent, of Indigenous people in the Americas during European colonization led to global climate change and the “ ...
[29]
Barkskins review – a grisly tale of chopping down people and trees
Jun 19, 2016 · Proulx's sprawling ecological saga is rich in incident but lacks the human touch.
[30]
'Barkskins,' by Annie Proulx - The New York Times
Jun 17, 2016 · BARKSKINS By Annie Proulx 717 pp. Scribner. $32. Whatever else she's writing about, the novelist and story writer Annie Proulx is always ...
[31]
Decimate, Accumulate, Collapse | Los Angeles Review of Books
Jul 4, 2016 · Annie Proulx's latest novel is an epic masterpiece, spanning 300 years of history as two families make their way in the New World.Missing: timeline | Show results with:timeline
[32]
Barkskins by Annie Proulx: An epic (and ongoing) story of extraction
Oct 1, 2016 · Barkskins tells the intertwined and intergenerational stories of the natives and immigrants of the North American territory once known as New France.Missing: research | Show results with:research
[33]
Barkskins by Annie Proulx | Word by Word
Jul 25, 2016 · One of the characters Rene Sel, marries a native Indian woman, the other Charles Duquet, marries the daughter of a Dutch shipping magnate ...
[34]
Review: Annie Proulx's 'Barkskins' Is an Epic Tale of Logging and ...
Jun 16, 2016 · Her new novel, “Barkskins,” is a clamorous epic of environmental despoliation. It plays out across 717 pages and more than 300 years.Missing: research | Show results with:research
[35]
Barkskins by Annie Proulx: Summary and Reviews - BookBrowse.com
Rating 4.9 (10) Jun 14, 2016 · Barkskins is a potently imagined chronicle of mankind's dealings with the North American forests. Starred Review.Missing: details | Show results with:details
[36]
Book Reflections – Barkskins by Annie Proulx | strivetoengage
Jul 12, 2018 · In 2013 the book closes with 3 descendants of René Sel (who are also descendants of Charles Duquet!) working to study and replant forests.Missing: Mariap | Show results with:Mariap<|separator|>
[37]
Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way - Public Books
Sep 6, 2016 · Annie Proulx's epic novel Barkskins is a sweeping history of our ruinous human appetite for profit and “progress.”<|separator|>
[38]
Barkskins by Annie Proulx review – an environmental epic
Jun 10, 2016 · This ambitious saga about the destruction of the world's forests follows two colonial dynasties across continents and centuries.
[39]
Annie Proulx's Bloody New Novel 'Barkskins' Is About More Than ...
Jun 10, 2016 · Barkskins follows two loggers' stories over three centuries. Proulx says the forest is the hero of her book, but it's also "one facet of ...Missing: extraction economic development
[40]
North American Forests in the Age of Man
By 1920, more than two-thirds of American forests had been leveled at least once, including the vast majority of eastern forests. Timber companies simply ...
[41]
[PDF] American Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery
By 1986 the volume of forest growth was 350 percent greater than it had been in 1920; and forest growth exceeded harvest by 37 percent (see figure 15).<|separator|>
[42]
[PDF] U.S. Forest Resource Facts and Historical Trends
Forest area has been relatively stable since 1910, al- though the population has more than tripled since then. Forest area and population trends in the United ...
[43]
USFS Facts & Hist Trends
Forest area has been relatively stable since 1907. In 2017, 765 million acres or 34 percent of the total land area of the United States was in forest land.Missing: reforestation | Show results with:reforestation
[44]
A Century of Reforestation Reduced Anthropogenic Warming in the ...
Feb 13, 2024 · A century of eastern US reforestation has had a cooling effect that helps to explain a lack of regional warming in the 20th century, which ...
[45]
[PDF] Age structure and disturbance legacy of North American forests - BG
We discuss the significance of the disturbance legacy from the past, as represented by current forest age structure in different regions of the US and Canada, ...
[46]
Deforestation and Forest Loss - Our World in Data
The same is true of the United States; back in 1630, 46% of the area of today's USA was covered by forest. ... But forest cover increases through reforestation.The world has lost one-third of... · Forests and Deforestation · Drivers
[47]
[PDF] History, Colonialism, and Capital in Annie Proulx's Barkskins
ABSTRACT: After first situating Annie Proulx's Barkskins (2016) within the context of the Capitalocene, this essay turns to the novel's historical narrative ...
[48]
Cultural Clash and Ecological Collapse: Indigenous Resistance and ...
Aug 8, 2025 · PDF | This research paper explores the cultural conflict and ecological decline: Opposition of indigenous people to colonizers. In Barkskins ...
[49]
Barkskins: Longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017NOW A MAJOR TELEVISION SERIESFrom Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News ...Missing: nominations shortlists
[50]
Adam Mars-Jones · Chop and Burn: Annie Proulx
Jul 28, 2016 · The 'barkskins' of Annie Proulx's huge and hugely unsatisfying novel should by rights be trees – things that have bark for skin – but she ...
[51]
Clunky, didactic novel 'Barkskins' laments disappearing forest
Jun 10, 2016 · Early in "Barkskins," her three-century saga about two North American families involved in deforesting the world, Annie Proulx describes a ...Missing: Miramichi | Show results with:Miramichi
[52]
National Geographic Orders 'Barkskins' Scripted Series Based On ...
Dec 3, 2018 · Reid created the series and will serve as showrunner. He will executive produce along with Rudin, Eli Bush and Garrett Basch. The series is ...Missing: details | Show results with:details
[53]
BARKSKINS: Creator Elwood Reid on adapting Annie Proulx's ...
May 24, 2020 · Executive producer Elwood Reid, who adapted BARKSKINS for television and wrote all eight of the episodes, begins in 1670s New France, the ...
[54]
National Geographic announces limited series "Barkskins ... - Disney
Aug 4, 2020 · From Scott Rudin Productions and Fox 21 Television Studios and Created by Elwood Reid, This Epic Eight-Part Series Is Based on Annie ...
[55]
Barkskins TV Review - Common Sense Media
Rating 3.0 · Review by Melissa CamachoNov 8, 2024 · This absorbing TV adaptation offers a well-produced historical fiction about colonists seeking freedom and opportunity in the wild frontier.<|control11|><|separator|>
[56]
'Barkskins' Nat Geo Review: Stream It Or Skip It? - Decider
May 26, 2020 · Christian Cooke, Marcia Gay Harden and David Thewlis headline an excellent cast in this adaptation of Annie Proulx's sprawling novel.Missing: production | Show results with:production<|separator|>
[57]
"Barkskins" New France (TV Episode 2020) - IMDb
Rating 7.5/10 (206) Elwood Reid · All cast & crew · Production, box office & more at IMDbPro. User ... Release date · May 25, 2020 (United States) · Filming locations · Saint-Gabriel ...
[58]
Nat Geo Keeps It Real With Scripted Series Barkskins - Cynopsis
May 22, 2020 · Based on the novel by Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx, Nat Geo's Barkskins follows a disparate group of outcasts and dreamers battling to escape their pasts.
[59]
Barkskins: Dud on Arrival
Sep 7, 2020 · The central plot revolves around political intrigue between French and British characters using murder and deceit—all the while roping in the ...<|control11|><|separator|>
[60]
Barkskins season 2 cancelled - Reddit
Dec 22, 2020 · Unfortunately, I'd say these auctions likely mean the show has been cancelled (although it's a not a guarantee). I can't say I'm terribly ...if someone is looking for Jamestown vibes this is the series. - RedditBarkskins: Season Two? Series Creator Hopes to Continue National ...More results from www.reddit.com
[61]
Barkskins takes its final bow: National Geographic Channel cancels ...
Yes, unfortunately, National Geographic Channel made a hard decision to cancel Barkskins with no chance for renewal for Season 2. But still, we have some good ...<|separator|>
[62]
Barkskins: Season Two? Series Creator Hopes to Continue National ...
Jun 24, 2020 · The TV show hasn't been cancelled or renewed for a second season yet but the show's creator, executive producer Elwood Reid, is hoping for a few ...
[63]
Barkskins (2020), an American period drama series based on the ...
Apr 9, 2025 · Barkskins (2020), an American period drama series based on the novel of the same name. Set in New France in 1693.Missing: adaptation | Show results with:adaptation