Canoe Country: The Making of Canada

by Roy MacGregor

Overview

One of our favourite chroniclers of all things Canadian presents a rollicking, personal, photo-filled history of the relationship between a country and its canoes.


From the earliest explorers on the Columbia River in BC or the Mattawa in Ontario to a doomed expedition of voyageurs up the Nile to rescue Khartoum; from the author's family roots deep in the Algonquin wilderness to modern families who have canoed across the country (kids and dogs included): Canoe Country is Roy MacGregor's celebration of the essential and enduring love affair Canadians have with our first and still favourite means of getting around. Famous paddlers have been so enchanted with the canoe that one swore God made Canada as the perfect country in which to paddle it. Drawing on MacGregor's own decades spent whenever possible with a paddle in his hand, this is a story of high adventure on white water and the sweetest peace in nature's quietest corners, from the author best able (and most eager) to tell it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307361424
Publisher:	Random House of Canada, Limited
Publication date:	05/10/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	223,298
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

ROY MacGREGOR is the acclaimed and bestselling author of Northern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him; Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey (shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award); A Life in the Bush (winner of the U.S. Rutstrum Award for Best Wilderness Book and the CAA Award for Biography); Canadians: A Portrait of a Country and Its People; Wayne Gretzky's Ghost: And Other Tales from a Lifetime in Hockey; as well as two novels, Canoe Lake and The Last Season, and the popular Screech Owls mystery series for young readers. A longtime columnist at The Globe and Mail, MacGregor's journalism has garnered four National Magazine Awards and eight National Newspaper Award nominations. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and was described in the citation as one of Canada's "most gifted storytellers." The author lives in Kanata, ON.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 The Old Ranger's Chestnut 17

Chapter 2 Songs along the Dumoine 35

Chapter 3 The Two Icons 70

Chapter 4 The Nile Expedition 99

Chapter 5 The Mission 131

Chapter 6 "A Place of Power" 157

Chapter 7 The Man Who Measured Canada 188

Chapter 8 The Craft 209

Chapter 9 Lost on James Bay 227

Conclusion 251

Acknowledgements 263

Text and image permissions 267

Endnotes 269

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Northern Light and Roy MacGregor:
"One of Canada's top authors. . . . MacGregor has woven a convincing story." Toronto Star
"Part history, part true-crime investigation and part memoir, Northern Light is both scrupulously even-handed and deeply personal. . . . [MacGregor] has crafted a beautifully realized picture of a time and place." Winnipeg Free Press
"It's hard to even imagine anyone today who is writing more lyrically about Canada than Roy MacGregor." Toronto Star

From the Publisher