Dead Reckoning

A collection of stories placed in Canada's west and north dealing, primarily, with the themes of disorientation and loss. The title is a navigation term which describes what is sometimes the method of last resort for a navigator to find his way relying only on the fundamentals of heading, speed and distance. Such is the plight of the characters in these stories who have unexpectedly drifted off course, literally or figuratively and occasionally both, and must call upon basic instincts to find their way back to familiar territory.

Every pilot knows the shock of waking from some private reverie part way through a cross-country flight to the unsettling realization that he no longer knows where he is. Even over the most familiar terrain, if he has not been diligent in his navigation, straying just a few miles off course can lead to complete disorientation. Nothing below him makes sense, standard landmarks: lakes, rivers, hills, towns, highways, no longer correspond to anything on the chart he is now frantically fingering on his lap. While he was not looking, the world beneath him shifted into the strange.
Such is the plight of the characters in this collection of stories: people who find, in one way or another, unexpectantly, their realities have shifted and they are 'flying by the seat of their pants.'

A fishing guide discovers the roles have been reversed on him when a customer leads him into a familiar world turned inside out; the mundane routine of a neighbourhood coffee shop takes on new dimensions of time and space; the long nights of a northern winter are the backdrop for redefining the meaning of 'alien' to a young airport worker; these stories and others seek to reveal how easily, and without warning, we can lose our way.