Dangerous River, by R.M. Patterson (1954) Raymond Patterson was one of the first to pad- dle the now-famous Nahanni River almost purely for the adventure of it (with some added inspiration in the hope of gold). He left his Peace River home- stead in the summer of 1927, poling, paddling and portaging his Chestnut Prospector all the way to the South Nahanni and the wilderness heart of Virginia Falls. Dangerous River is his spirited account of the journey and his subsequent return and winter stay the following year. In Nahanni veteran Wally Schaber’s words, it’s “A great pioneer journey up the Nahanni, and such an enjoy- able read 75 years later as one floats down the river supported
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by everything from a satellite phone to a star-roof tent shelter.” Patterson shows us how canoeing was done before the modern ameni- ties, but more importantly, how the spirit of the adventure has hardly changed at all. Boston Mills, 1999.
Top 10 Great Reads The best of adventure, memoir and biography
2. The Lonely Land, by Sigurd Olson (1961) Olson, Eric Morse and friends chase the ghosts of the voyageurs down Saskatchewan’s Churchill River. Bill Mason listed eight of Olson’s works as “recommended reading” in Path of the Paddle. The lyrical Olson is champion of wilderness and a master at conjuring up wistful images of the North and the longing to be on trip. University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
3. Summer North of Sixty, by James Raffan (1990) As three couples jour- ney across the Northwest Territories, Raffan reflects deeply on their sensitive interaction with the environment and the group’s changing interpersonal relationships. One of our review- ers said this book “changed the course of a very good friend’s life, and took her outdoors for the first time.” Out of print. Used copies are available.
4. True North, by Elliott Merrick (1933) Merrick and his wife, Kay, went with the Labrador trappers up the Grand (now Churchill) River to their winter trapping grounds. To the Labradorians, Elliott Merrick was a "green-horn,” and no woman had ever travelled with them before. Merrick writes of their adventures with humility and honesty. Out of print and difficult to find.
5. Paddle to the Amazon, by Don Starkell, edited by Charles Wilkins (1987) Starkell and his sons Dana and Jeff embarked on a 23-month, 20,000-kilometre trip
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www.canoeroots.ca
from Winnipeg to the mouth of the Amazon River in 1980. Jeff quit in frustration. Don and Dana continued and got shot at, robbed, arrested, jailed and very nearly executed along the way. A classic canoeing (mis)adventure. McClelland and Stewart, 1994.
6. Sleeping Island, by P.G. Downes (1943) Downes picks up his packsack and heads north with no clear destination or plan, simply because he likes the land, the people and he is happy there. His non-linear wanderings in the unspoiled Barrens, his contact with the Chipewyans, and his understanding of their life and culture are the heart and soul of this book. Out of print.
7. Freshwater Saga, by Eric W. Morse (1987) A sensitive memoir of a life of canoe tripping, mainly with the informal Ottawa group, dubbed the Voyageurs, which included Pierre Trudeau. Includes a west–east crossing of the N.W.T. and trips that inspired Sigurd Olson’s The Lonely Land and Morse’s Fur Trade Routes of Canada. University of Toronto Press, 1987.
8. Lure of the Labrador Wild, by Dillon Wallace (1905) Leonidas Hubbard, George Elson, and Wallace entered the wilds of Labrador in 1903. They promptly got lost and endured a series of misadventures leading to starvation and Hubbard’s death. Wally Schaber compares it to Paddle to the Amazon: “Another great story of an unprepared romantic.” Out of print. Free electronic edition at
www.gutenberg.net.
9. Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure, by James West Davidson and John Rugge (1988) Hubbard’s widow, Mina, and Dillon Wallace both returned to Labrador in 1905 on separate expe- ditions that competed bitterly to fulfil Hubbard’s failed ambitions. Davidson and Rugge retraced their steps and reconstructed the story of all three expeditions. A canoe tale that has it all: history, adversity and mystery. And an ending that’s worth the read. McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1997.
10. The Survival of the Bark Canoe, by John McPhee (1975) An American book, but a great Canadian subject. Gifted New Yorker staff writer and prolific author John McPhee goes to northern New England to report on the quixotic craftsman Henri Vaillancourt, who’s defying modernity to keep a tradition alive. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982.
Editor’s Pick—Best Children’s Book Paddle-to-the-Sea, by Holling Clancy Holling (1941) Every child should have this read to them— it captures the imagination and the soul of child- hood dreams. A boy’s hand-carved canoe is set free and floats from Nipigon country through the Great Lakes and down the St. Lawrence. It is adventure, geography, history and ecology all in one. Bill Mason made this story famous with his award-winning 1966 film version. Paddle-to-the-Sea is really a story about dreams and the expanding bound- aries of a child’s universe. To read it as an adult takes one back to when the world was new and amazing and full of promise. It just happens to use a canoe and travel through the Canadian landscape to get there. Reading it once is not enough. Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
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