Canada’s worst nightmare has happened. The country has been invaded from the south and is now occupied by the enemy.

That’s the fascinating premise of Salt Spring island author Peter Freeman’s latest novel Fleeing the 51^st State and it reminds me of what might have happened if Germany had been successful in crossing the English Channel and invading England in 1941. A frightening scenario.

Freeman’s overview states: 

The first hundred days fractured the landscape . . . Executive Orders, sharp and swift, redefined borders, military service, and foreign aid. Pardons, controversial and sweeping, echoed through the halls of power, leaving a lingering unease in their wake. Deportation efforts surged, reshaping the nation’s demographics, casting long shadows of uncertainty across communities….
The air was thick with change, the ground shifting beneath familiar institutions, as a new era dawned with heightened peril and an uncertain future.

Does this all sound familiar?

The book begins with protagonist Gregory Peckingham biking to the Oak Bay Marina in Victoria, where he works. He is recalling the invasion: “It happened so fast that it was over in a couple of weeks.” At that time, “He was also riding his bike in the cool pre-dawn air when he heard the steadily increasing engine noise of aircraft approaching from the south…. What’s going on? He thought. Is there an air show this weekend?”

But with soldiers also everywhere on land with guns, he soon realized this was something far worse. As Mike, his boss, said when he arrived at the marina that morning, “Greg, I think . . . I think we’re hooped.”

Greg is then approached by a man who has a daring way to escape the occupation, but the man (Marcus) wants Greg’s help to carry out his plan. He needs Greg’s skills as an expert sailor. The plan involves Greg taking Marcus and his family and two friends on his sailing vessel the Blue Moon, a thirty-eight-foot sailboat andusing Greg’s skills to teach them all how to sail and escape Canada.

But the reader is not told the specifics of the whole plan until almost the end of the book. They have no idea where they will eventually go. That will be Greg’s decision. 

The plan starts innocently enough with Greg and Marcus’ sixteen-year-old son, Nicholas, sailing around Vancouver Island trading goods to establish themselves as “traders” at various ports along the way. Many others are also now doing this to make a living. This would avert suspicion when the family come aboard and finally leave the area completely to flee what has become known as “the 51^st State.”

I found this first part of the book very slow-going and more like a long and involved lesson on how to sail, but once the story picks up it becomes apparent that some of this is necessary to understand how Nicholas needs to become as proficient as his teacher so that he can help Greg teach the others.

When the group of eight—Greg, Nicholas, Marcus, his wife Laura, daughter Lily, sister-in-law Miranda, and the friends, Tom and Margaret Girard—are finally all aboard and ready to escape, they soon realize there is an enemy following them. Their perilous journey is suddenly full of excitement and hardly seems conducive to success. Armed men on another boat tracking them, the need to use secret codes when they suspect danger looming, and treacherous stormy seas to contend with, not to mention a nearby cyclone: they’re all part of the peril.

Freeman’s descriptive passages of the cyclone are particularly well done:

While the boat settled into its new position, a heavy swell was coming from the north and mixing with the northwest swell. Joining these two wave trains were the shorter, sharper wind waves built from the northeast. It was a confused sea.

That “confused sea” is soon the cause of much pain and tragedy for every member of the group.

Freeman’s characters are also all colourfully described. I enjoyed his description of them, bringing them all alive on the journey as they learned how to live in such cramped quarters for weeks on end—not an easy feat.

Eventually we discover where Greg’s destination for the Blue Moon is going to be and again Freeman uses his vast knowledge of that part of the world, just as he did in his earlier book The Worm Lady’s Daughter. But the reader is still left to wonder whether they will find freedom there. Or more tragedy?

The author’s last section, Revoir, is perhaps one of the strongest passages of the entire book. It was an appropriate ending to an excitement-packed novel.

Although, I initially had thought that the plan might have included the downfall of the occupation in Canada and had in fact hoped it would happen, that was not the premise of this book, which had already been explained in its title. It was simply a tale of how an escape from oppression for a few determined people might happen. But we are at least offered hope that resistance is growing. 

Interesting maps are peppered throughout the book such as the sea routes from Oak Bay to Canoe Cove; Canoe Cove to Patricia Bay; Cowichan Bay to Ladysmith; Ladysmith to Nanaimo; Port Hardy to Deserters Island; the Continental Shelf; the Doldrums to the Tropic of Capricorn; the track of Cyclone Adele and the route of Blue Moon nearby. These maps allow readers to follow the fraught escape route.

At this time in history, Freeman’s book Fleeing the 51^st State is well worth reading and ardent sailors will especially enjoy it.