Scales of Eden

Courage and the loss of innocence in the dawn of a new age

For Wayne Campbell, growing up in the 1950s, Deep River is an earthly paradise. The Town Beside the Ottawa is an instant community, built in less than a year to house the scientists, engineers and others who work at Canada’s first nuclear research facility at nearby Chalk River.

Wayne and his friends from the far reaches of Canada and the world discover an exciting life that combines disciplined scholarship and sports with adventure in the wild green forests of the upper Ottawa Valley. This virtual academy is made possible by the mentoring of the highly educated young men and women who are shaping the newly anointed engine of limitless power, atomic energy.

But not all of their mentors are motivated by altruism. Within this Eden of promise and unbounded possibility the boys are being stalked by a predator masked as one of their own. When Wayne and his friend Ferg muster the courage to expose this serpent in paradise, they find their troubles are just beginning.