In 1953, W.O. Mitchell spent a year as teacher on the Eden Valley reserve 75 miles southwest of Calgary. This experience lies at the heart of The Vanishing Point (1973).
Carlyle Sinclair is a white teacher in a one-room school on the Paradise Valley reserve. For nine years he has worked hard with the Stoneys to help them cope with the impact of white civilization. Frustrated by white bureaucracy and native indifference, he has pinned his hopes on his star pupil Victoria, the first Stoney to matriculate and enter the nursing program in the city. When Victoria goes missing - alone on the city streets? holed up in the mountains? - Carlyle begins a frantic search that takes him into his own past.
As we follow Carlyle's outer and inner journeys, we encounter a fine range of Mitchell characters - the unforgettable Archie Nicotine, the dying patriarch Esau Rider, the Methodist Stoney preacher Ezra Powderface, Carlyle's prim Aunt Pearl, his fierce teacher Old Kacky, and the flamboyant faith-healer, the Reverend Heally Richards. And, like him, we come to appreciate both of his worlds.