• Age: 14
• Grade: 9

In this sequel to the best-selling novel When Eagles Call, two Hawaiian labourers - Kimo Kanui and his friend Moku - end their contract with the Hudson's Bay Company in For Langley and trek north to join the great Cariboo gold rush of the early 1860s. Along with a black man from the Carolinas and a native Sto:lo woman won and freed in a card game, they face dangers and challenges along the trail as winter sets in.

Gun-toting Californians, drunken miners, hostile natives as well as characters from British Columbia's history - James Douglas, Judge Begbie, Ovid Allard and Cataline - stride through the novel. River of Gold takes the reader on a journey through B.C.'s tumultuous history as the Hudson's Bay rule over New Caledonia ends and the province of British Columbia begins. It's a story of war and peace, of greed, of friendship and hatred, and of a man and a woman of different cultures learning to love again.

It is a story of the Cariboo, that great leveller, where a person's mettle counted more than purse or pedigree, where strong men and women from all corners of the globe came together to forge a new and different society for British Columbians.

Susan Dobbie was born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland. After immigrating to Canada, she worked with her husband in the family business and raised three children. She received her B.A. from Simon Fraser University as a mature student and for ten years has worked as a volunteer docent at the Langley Centennial Museum, where she gained an in-depth understanding of the early Hawaiians living on the Northwest Coast. When Eagles Call is her first novel. She lives in Langley and at Harrison Lake, BC.

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River of Gold

A page-turning sequel to When Eagles Call in which Hawaiian-born Kimo and his friend Moku are enticed by the BC gold rush. Once their contracts with the Hudson’s Bay Company are up, they strike off on a dangerous and difficult trek up to the Cariboo. Along the way, they partner up with a black man they knew at Fort Langley and acquire a Native woman whom Kimo has set free when she was gambled away by her father-in-law in a card game. Dobbie brings to life the harshness of the landscape, climate, and lawlessness and hostilities of the hastily constructed mining towns.

Dobbie worked at Langley Centennial Museum, where she developed her interest in Pacific Northwest history. She has also written one book for children.

Caution: Contains references to alcohol and sex and some vio lence.