Curwood described the northern wilderness areas as “God’s country.” This phrase ended up in numerous articles as well as in the titles of several novels including God’s Country and the Woman (Double-day, Page and Co., 1915), Back to God’s Country (Grosset and Dunlap, 1920), and God’s Country—Trail to Happiness (Cosmopolitan Book Corp., 1921). The latter was composed of four essays that summarized the author’s pantheistic views and feelings about nature. Curwood defined God’s country as “green forests and waters splattered with golden sun.”
“I have built with my own hands, this cabin which shelters me. My palms are still blistered by the helve of the ax. I am the architect of the fireplace of stone and mud in which a small fire burns for cheer, though it is late spring, with summer in the breath of the forests. I have made the chair in which I sit and the table on which I write, and the builder of a marble palace could take no greater pleasure in his achievement than have I. ”
Curwood wrote about the vast wilderness of the Peace River country, the great reaches of the Athabasca and Mackenzie River districts, the solitary arctic plains, and the uninhabited forests. The Canadian government recognized the rising popularity of his stories, and hired him to explore the prairie provinces of the West and further up into the North. Curwood gathered material for articles and stories, and these, in turn, were intended to induce settlers into that country. He was the only American ever to be employed by the Canadian government as an exploratory and descriptive writer.