Canada's Best Canoe Routes - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550463918 ISBN 13: 9781550463910

Publisher: Boston Mills Press, 2003

Synopsis

"As you finish the final chapters, a languor sets in, not unlike the feeling after a day of paddling and an evening of storytelling around the campfire."
- Explore magazine (review of previous edition)

Explore 37 of the best paddling routes found from the Atlantic to Pacific to Arctic. Some of Canada's finest canoeists relate first-hand accounts of their favorite canoe trips - lake and river, freshwater and saltwater, wild and urban, peaceful and harrowing. This unprecedented collection also features 24 profiles of such paddling luminaries as James Raffan, the legendary Mason family, Gary and Joanie McGuffin, Kevin Callan, Hap Wilson, Kirk Wipper, and others. In addition, three noted conservationists outline plans for protecting North America's wild waterways.

About this title

About the Author:

Alister Thomas has gunwale-bobbed on placid lakes, found himself upside-down (unintentionally) and backwards (intentionally) in frothing whitewater, and plied many of Canada's historic waterways. A Calgary-based journalist, he lives one block from the Bow River.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Excerpted from the
Preface

Paddling Voices

Canada's Best Canoe Routes attempts to ply intriguing waters. The first section contains accounts of great canoe trips -- lake and river, freshwater and saltwater, wilderness and urban, placid and harrowing -- from all ten provinces and three territories. The second section features profiles of paddlers -- many known only in their own region or province, some with national recognition, and a few who have transcended borders. The third section is a bold blueprint for riverine stewardship.

Trips -- From Coast to Coast to Coast

There are 37 trips featured in the first section of Canada's Best Canoe Routes. Here are a few descriptions.

In describing the out-of-the-way places in Algonquin Park, David Pelly writes: "That's why it remains the smaller, less-traveled lakes that draw me back. That's where I find peace. That's where I see old-growth white pine so large that it takes four of us to link hands around its girth. That's where I feel the bond to wild places that stirs deep within us all. For those who know it, the Park provides that primeval connection. It is a steady, reliable friend -- a place that is always there waiting for your next visit, a place that never disappoints. Ralph Bice, in his nineties, the last of the park's old-time guides and trappers, summed it up nicely: 'Anyone who knows Algonquin Park will be disappointed when they get to heaven.'"

Sheila Archer on Saskatchewan's Churchill River: "Then I am walking out of the boreal darkness late on a September night, the roar of the distant rapids blowing over the lake. The island I'm on is surrounded by brilliant northern lights, a sky so beautiful I cannot stand up ... Now it is the morning and there are eagles circling over the channels downstream. The early sun begins to heat the black slope of rock slanting down into the bay. I walk down from the tent and plunge into the river..."

After a visit by a silver-tipped barrenland grizzly on the Thelon, Max Finkelstein writes: "It was an apt finale for a magical trip -- and a reminder that we were merely visitors here. It was our presence that had interrupted the bear on his regular river patrol. The bear didn't invade our camp; rather, it was we who had intruded on his domain."

After a 24-hour solo trip in the tame wilds north of Peterborough, Gwyneth Hoyle writes: "I had been alive in every fiber of my body, all senses alert, even while I slept ... It had been an exhilarating and totally satisfying trip."

Relating a nighttime trip down the Ottawa River, Paul Mason explains that he and his paddling partner will be able to see the rapids "by the light of our white knuckles." A little later he says, "It was now 10:30 p.m. and we were becoming quite adept at sensing the different waves and currents, and reading the rapids by moonlight."

Paddler Profiles & Stewardship

In the middle section of this book are 25 profiles of people for whom paddling is profound. There are legends: Eric Morse and Omer Stringer. There are families: Hodgins, Peake and Mason. Some are from Atlantic Canada: Roger Pearson, Steve Cook, John B. Hughes and "Miramichi" Bill Palmer. Some are from the West: Brian Creer, Mark Lund, Ric Driediger and Bill Brigden. Some are from the North: Alex Hall, Ken Madsen and Neil Hartling. And some are from central Canada: Claudia Kerckhoff-van Wijk, George Luste, James Raffan, Wally Schaber, Mark Scriver, Kirk A.W. Wipper, Hap Wilson, Kevin Callan and Gary and Joanie McGuffin. Each has made outstanding contributions to the paddling community.

The anchor story of the book's third section is entitled "A National Waterway Management Plan -- The Blueprint for Preserving Canada's Wild Rivers," authored by Wally Schaber, founder of Black Feather Wilderness Adventures. He believes we are living through the last decade of wilderness travel. He also believes rivers are the life forces that link all wilderness in Canada with our fresh- and saltwater coastlines. Wally steps up and presents a complete waterway preservation system, which includes a river in each of the 15 ecozones and many of the ecoregions of Canada, as well as a river in each of the 15 major watersheds.

Ken Madsen knows all about flowing water. He was instrumental in helping save the Tatshenshini River in northern B.C. In the Stewardship section, Ken offers a step-by-step plan to launch your own conservation campaign. "Sometimes I feel like shouting, 'Screw it!' I have a list of secret streams buried in the wilderness where I can retreat from bulldozers; canyons where even the most zealous developer can't find me. But wild places are being hunted down like passenger pigeons were during the 1800s, and my conscience won't let me hide forever," he writes. "Strange things happen to those who 'get involved' in river conservation issues."

Waterway stewardship would not be complete without including the Canadian Heritage Rivers System (CHRS). "Canada's river heritage is threatened," says Max Finkelstein. "We are changing our rivers. Damming them, paving their banks, poisoning their waters, destroying the vital, yet fragile, ribbon of their shorelines, bulldozing the human heritage along their banks."

This is a glimpse of what you'll discover in Canada's Best Canoe Routes.

Alister Thomas
Calgary, Alberta

About this edition

• Publisher: Boston Mills Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1550463918
• ISBN 13: 9781550463910
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Thomas Alister