Sick Heart River by John Buchan

A distinguished, ailing public figure, told he has little time to live, withdraws from his comfortable world and travels into the remote Canadian north to seek a missing young man; amid the harsh beauty and danger of the wilderness he confronts mortality, performs quiet acts of service and self-sacrifice for a beleaguered community, and in the process finds moral renewal, peace and a reconciled sense of purpose before the end.

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