Canoeing North Into the Unknown is an important book about canoeing Canada’s most remote and fabled rivers, the rivers that flow north to the Arctic. Bruce W. Hodgins and Gwyneth Hoyle have amassed an unparalleled amount of information on who canoed these rivers and when. The rivers have long been highways for the aboriginal peoples, and the journals of those who followed in their wake, from early fur-traders, missionaries and surveyors to 20th-century recreational canoeists, provide a rich heritage of history and adventure. The account of each river system includes a geographical description, its historical significance, and chronological records of those who have canoed its waters. As well, there are maps, photos, indexes and bibliography. This book will be indispensable to all who love canoe travel, the North, Canadian heritage and adventure.

Bruce W. Hodgins is professor emeritus of history, Trent University, and recipient of the Canadian Historical Association’s Clio Award for the North, 2000.

Ute Lischke teaches German and film studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is co-editor of Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and Their Representations (WLUP, 2005).

David T. McNab teaches Native Studies at the School of Arts and Letters in the Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto, and is a public historian who has worked for more than a quarter century on Aboriginal land and treaty rights issues in Canada. He is co-editor of Walking a Tightrope: Aboriginal People and Their Representations (WLUP, 2005) and editor of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: Studies in Canadian Ethnohistory (WLUP, 1998) for Nin.Da.Waab.Jig. He is also author of Circles of Time: Aboriginal Land Rights and Resistance in Ontario (WLUP, 1999).

Bruce W. Hodgins' profile page

While working as a college librarian at Trent University, Gwyneth Hoyle became inspired by the adventures of those who explored and mapped this great country. Her canoe trip down the Thelon River started a fascination with the North, prompting her to research and write many articles as well as two books: Canoeing North Into the Unknown: A Record of River Travel, 1874 to 1974 (Natural Heritage, 1993, 1997) and Flowers in the Snow: The Life of Isobel Wylie Hutchison (University of Nebraska Press, 2001).

Gwyneth Hoyle's profile page

Canoeing in the northern wilderness of Canada can be a profoundly satisfying experience, resulting in an emotional bond with this primordial landscape. It offers physical exposure to the elements, hard work, a visual symphony of vistas, and the inner solace that only solitude can give. Canoeing North Into the Unknown provides a unique record of the history of canoe travel along the northern waterways of Canada.

George Luste

The canoe is as much a symbol of Canada as the maple leaf or the beaver. Canoeing North Into the Unknown provides an exciting and comprehensive analysis of the importance of the canoe in the modern-day discovery of Canada's north.

Kanawa Magazine

Canoeing North Into the Unknown is the kind of book that has a space already waiting on the bookshelf of every wilderness canoeist. To many of us, our past is our future – and our future is here.

Michael Peake