James Oliver Curwood was an American action-adventure author and conservationist who lived from June 12, 1878, until August 13, 1927. His stories frequently occurred in Yukon, Alaska, or the Hudson Bay region. In the early and middle 1920s, they frequently appeared in the top 10 best sellers in the US. Curwood was the most-paid author in the world (per word) at the time of his death. Curwood attended the University of Michigan after being born in Owosso, Michigan. He sold his first story in 1898 when he was a college student. He was employed by the Canadian government in 1907 to produce and publish travelogues. He spent several months each year in the Yukon, Alaska, and the Hudson Bay region in search of new inspiration. American novelist William Curwood wrote adventure novels set in the Great Northwest. Many of his stories had romance as a main or secondary story element and included animals as main characters (Kazan; Baree, Son of Kazan, The Grizzly King). His 1919 novel The River's End, which sold more than 100,000 copies, was one of his best-selling works. Throughout his career, a number of intellectual and popular journals published his short tales and other writing.