Barkskins

Transported from the Paris slums, two young Frenchmen arrive in the wilds of seventeenth-century New France to work as woodcutters, as "barkskins". In a novel that spans continents and centuries, Proulx tells the stories of Sel and Duquet's descendants - healers and businesswomen, Native Americans and missionaries - and of the part they play in the creation of America and the destruction of the world's forests.