Most of Curwood's stories were adventure tales set in the Canadian North, where the author spent much of his time. During the 1920s his books were among the most popular in North America, and many were made into movies. The River's End was the first book to sell more than 100,000 copies in its first edition. The Country Beyond begins: Not far from the rugged and storm-whipped north shore of Lake Superior, and south of the Kaministiqua, yet not as far south as the Rainy River waterway, there lay a paradise lost in the heart of a wilderness world-and in that paradise a little corner of hell. That was what the girl had called it once upon a time, when sobbing out the shame and the agony of it to herself. That was before Peter had come to leaven the drab of her life. But the hell was still there.