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Four Books from the Megiscane

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I am an avid reader and bringing books on canoe trips, even when I am trying to keep weight down, is essential. I've tried bringing a kindle or ipad, but then the battery runs down, or a nasty stick jumps out at me and flips the boat. So I bring actual paper print books. I limited myself to four books and reread all of them during the three weeks I was out.

Franklin, Oops, Mud and Cupcake by our very own Michael Pitt (Paddling Pitt) is a wonderful read on a canoe trip. This is a collection of trips that weren't long enough each for a full book. So what we have here are more polished trip reports of the Coppermine, the Seal, the Anderson and the Snowdrift Rivers. I am pretty sure these were derived from the in-person talks he and Kathleen gave. I like his books because they are full of botany, Michael being a retired botany professor. But don't let that chase you off. There's plenty about birds, the arctic mammals, relics of the people who lived there long ago and challenging rapids and, don't forget, almost getting eaten by a polar bear.

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Where the Falcon Flies by Adam Shoalts is a great book for a canoe trip because it is very long, therefore giving many nights of bedtime reading. Adam was inspired to make this trip by the falcons who winter near his home in Ontario and then have a flyway up into the Torngat Mountains in the most northern part of Quebec and Labrador where they build their nests and raise their young. He decided if the falcons could do it, he could do it too. He literally started out his front door and paddled through the Great Lakes and onward. He sprinkled his account with historical and ecological information. It was particularly interested to me because, like me, he often camped in marginal places and had to wade rapids, etc., etc. This was not a day in the park. He never whines about the rotten conditions. He describes them and then comes right back with something good. He pushes himself to Iron Man days on little food. Adam Shoalts "is one of Canada's greatest modern explorers," says CBC.

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Against Straight Lines by Robert Perkins who decided to travel by canoe over the aforementioned Torngat Mountains. He wades and tracks the canoe up, portages the five k or so to the other side and then paddles down. Little by little, Robert reveals his back story and it's a mighty interesting one so I am not going to spoil it for you. He is an artist and his descriptions of the land he travels through reflect that. His art is also published, but I think the black and white printing must leave out a lot. He had precious little experience in Canadian wilderness and never before alone. One reviewer said he has "struggled with great success to write with the severity of Hendry David Thoreau and the moral passion of John Muir."

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The Cloud Forest by Peter Matthiessen. I picked this one up quickly as I was running out of preparation time for my trip. I like cloud forests and was taken by another book of his The Snow Leopard. It was the least interesting of the four books. It is not about cloud forests, but instead is a trip report of the author touring around South America, seeing places that in the 1960s, few white men had seen. It seemed to me a superficial accounting. A fly-in to a missionary school in the jungle for less than a day hardly gives one any idea of what the life is like there, or in the surrounding area.

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Thanks for the list, always good to have books to read.

I didn't realize that Robert Perkins had canoed in Labrador (1979) and written a book about his travels. His film "Into the Great Solitude" (1987) is a favorite of mine. I revisit the film every few years for a renewal of spirit.
 
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