ULTIMATE NORTH: Canoeing Mackenzie's Great River

by Robert Douglas Mead ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 14, 1976

The author and his college-age son lowered their canoes into the waters off Fort McMurray in the northeast comer of Alberta to retrace the 1789 journey of the merchant/explorer Alexander Mackenzie--1700 miles of rivers and lakes to the Arctic Ocean. Although Mead is an out-doorsman who can paddle a mean canoe, he is essentially more interested in people and their ways than in observing nature. There are the deserted trappers' cabins; river traffic diverted to road and rail; and around the bend, after a stretch of wilderness, the raw towns with the familiar montage of airport-motel-bars-porn-magazines-and-oil-drums. As for the plight of the Indians and Eskimos, either dispersed or gathered in settlements, the interests of those 20 thousand individuals ""do not weigh very heavily against the interests of the 22 million other Canadians. And that finally is the issue."" An energetic, personal, splayed-out chronicle, intermittently informative and generally engaging.

Pub Date: May 14, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION