By Pat Stinson
In her 2022 book, “My Escape to Loon Haven”, Bear Lake author Sylvia Duncan fulfills the longing of young people to escape to the outdoors, flee from an unbearable situation in their lives, or both.
The author knows something about teenagers. She taught at the Leelanau School, a college-preparatory boarding school in Glen Arbor, Michigan. For 14 years, she also taught 15- to 19-year-olds in a public school in Craig, Colorado, a mining and ranching town.
Those experiences and Duncan’s love of the natural world come together in her self-published paperback book. Her story is of a teenager who escapes a miserable life in the city and returns to a place she remembers fondly from her childhood. That place is her uncle’s cabin, now abandoned, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Readers hear the voice of Jenna, the story’s main character, and see through her 14-year-old eyes as she fights hunger and bullying, reacts to real and perceived threats, and learns the basic skills she needs to survive alone in the backwoods. Sometimes her voice is small and weary or fearful; other times it is loud and full of bravado. As her confidence grows, wisdom borne of experience slowly calms her.
In the cabin, Jenna finds books to read by Walden and Thoreau and befriends a bird she names “Sisu”, the Finnish word for personal courage and fortitude.
“She’s me, really, in a lot of ways,” Duncan said of Jenna, adding that she, herself, is “sort of a bird person” who read Thoreau at age 14.
In addition to bullying and food insecurity, the book touches on social issues affecting Jenna’s life, such as racism, prescription drug addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I guess I was trying to figure out what damage she would have when she came to the woods. I was thinking she fled to the last place she felt loved. Where would today’s kids flee to? Their grandparents’? I wish that all children had that place.”
She said author Gene Stratton-Porter, who wrote “Girl of the Limberlost”, was an inspiration to her. Stratton-Porter, she explained, was a naturopath before it was a “thing”.
“She inspired me to think of nature as a healing force. Someone else gave this summation: ‘Communing with nature holds the key to moral goodness.'”
“I think I modeled Jenna after her,” Duncan said of Stratton-Porter. “Self-reliance and the natural world can heal people. Science backs that up now. We’ve known that for a long time. (Being in nature) chemically changes us.”
She said another influence was Jean Craighead George’s “My Side of the Mountain”. In it, a young boy escapes his large farm family and lives inside a tree trunk. He learns to become completely self-sufficient.
The response to Duncan’s book has varied. “I’ve had a lot of different kinds of readers,” Duncan said. “People who have had more life experiences can appreciate the book more. Some teens can’t fathom (Jenna) doing this.”
By “this,” she means living on $60 for an extended period of time and going without a cell phone. “Other kids who’ve had some life troubles, they get it,” she added.
Duncan said she’s had a lot of requests for a sequel and plans to begin writing it this month. People tell her they like Jenna’s character, and “they’re all wishing the best for her.” In the next book, Jenna will be 26.
“I created a person that people like,” the author said. “That’s important to me.”
Duncan sent an email message to Freshwater Reporter after this interview to add: “My dream is for everyone to have just one place in their life where they can return in body and/or mind and find peace and comforting memories surrounding, grounding, and protecting them,” she wrote. “Even if that moment is fleeting.”
Find “My Escape to Loon Haven” at the Happy Owl Bookshop, 358 River St., in Manistee. To order copies for groups or request a presentation, email the author at: sylduncan@hotmail.com.
Pat Stinson is the co-editor of Freshwater Reporter. She fell in love with the movie “My Side of the Mountain” as a youngster and wanted to live in a treehouse, too.
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