Beyond the Trees Read online

  PRAISE FOR ADAM SHOALTS

  “Explorer Adam Shoalts’s monumental 4,000-kilometre journey…calls to mind the likes of Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Joseph Tyrrell.”

  CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC

  “Adam Shoalts…[has] finished an incredible journey through Canada’s Arctic.”

  GLOBAL NEWS

  “Move over Jacques Cartier, Christopher Columbus, and Sir Francis Drake—Adam Shoalts is this century’s explorer.”

  HAMILTON SPECTATOR

  “Adam Shoalts is one heck of a paddler.”

  POSTMEDIA

  “Adam Shoalts is Canada’s Indiana Jones—portaging in the north, dodging scary rapids, plunging into darkness, and surviving to tell the tale.”

  THE TORONTO STAR

  PRAISE FOR ALONE AGAINST THE NORTH

  “Rare insight into the heart and mind of an explorer, and the insatiable hunger for the unknown that both inspires and drives one to the edge. Adam Shoalts, twenty-first-century explorer, calmly describes the things he has endured that would drive most people to despair, or even madness.”

  COL. CHRIS HADFIELD, astronaut,

  International Space Station commander

  “As gripping to read as it must’ve been exciting to live!”

  LES STROUD, Survivorman

  “Adam Shoalts’s remarkable solo foray…is the kind of incredible effort that fosters legends.”

  THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

  “Shoalts’s love of nature, cool professionalism, and almost archaically romantic spirit draw us into his adventures…Shoalts is a knowledgeable and observant guide.”

  QUILL AND QUIRE

  “Anyone who thinks exploration is dead should read this book.”

  JOHN GEIGER, author, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society

  “The more layers you peel away, the more you begin to see the quick mind and quiet intensity that helps propel Adam Shoalts.”

  BRIAN BANKS, Canadian Geographic

  “It is a story of brutal perseverance and stamina, which few adventurers could equal.”

  JOE PATSTONE, Life in Quebec Magazine

  “Shoalts is a fearless adventurer…

  Alone Against the North is a rip-roaring yarn.”

  THE GREAT CANADIAN BUCKET LIST

  “While the book is a nail-biting chronicle of polar-bear encounters, brutal swarms of black flies, and surprise tumbles down waterfalls, Shoalts also vividly describes an area of the country most of us will never witness.

  METRO (Toronto)

  PRAISE FOR A HISTORY OF CANADA IN TEN MAPS

  “It’s an epic journey…Shoalts has done an elegant job of…reminding us of the vast and brooding influence of geography on our history.”

  GLOBE AND MAIL

  “Shoalts analyzes early maps in order to paint a picture of the land that would become a nation, bringing its earliest stories, voices, and battles to life. Combining geography, cartography, history, and anthropology, Shoalts leaves no stone unturned.”

  CBC

  “A brilliant book.”

  CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC

  “[A] marvel…If you like maps, you’ll like this book; if you like both maps and crisply recounted Canadian history, you’ll love it. Shoalts…takes you inside [explorers’] heads as they face fear, doubt and despair in tandem with cold, starvation, and rebellious wanting-to-turn-back companions…Canadian history writ well.”

  WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

  “A masterful approach to mapping Canada.”

  TORONTO STAR

  “[O]ne fine book perfectly written for the armchair adventurer.”

  POSTMEDIA

  ALSO BY ADAM SHOALTS

  A History of Canada in Ten Maps

  Alone Against the North

  ALLEN LANE

  an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited Canada • USA • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  First published 2019

  Copyright © 2019 by Adam Shoalts

  All images are courtesy of Adam Shoalts unless otherwise stated

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Title: Beyond the trees : a journey alone across Canada’s Arctic / Adam Shoalts.

  Names: Shoalts, Adam, 1986- author.

  Description: Includes index.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190104716 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190104732 | ISBN 9780735236837 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735236844 (HTML)

  Subjects: LCSH: Shoalts, Adam, 1986-—Travel—Canada, Northern. | LCSH: Canada, Northern—Description and travel.

  Classification: LCC FC3205.5 .S56 2019 | DDC 917.1904/7—dc23

  Cover and interior design by Jennifer Griffiths

  Cover images: (landscape) Chuck Brill; (clouds) Matthew Smith / Unsplash

  v5.3.2

  a

  To Aleksia

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Adam Shoalts

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Preface

  1 PLANS

  2 LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN

  3 THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS

  4 UP THE MACKENZIE

  5 EASTWARD BOUND

  6 INTO THE SWAMP

  7 ACROSS AN INLAND SEA

  8 THE ICE LABYRINTH

  9 GHOSTS OF THE PAST

  10 CROSSING THE DIVIDE

  11 THROUGH THE DISMAL LAKES

  12 THE SERPENT’S COIL

  13 GIFTS FROM ABOVE

  14 LAKES BEYOND COUNT

  15 ON ROCKY SHORES

  16 OF WIND AND WAVES

  17 IN THE LAND OF THE MUSKOX

  18 CANYON COUNTRY

  19 DOWN THE THELON

  20 THE STORMS OF SEPTEMBER

  21 JOURNEY’S END

  Afterword

  Photo Insert

  Acknowledgments

  PREFACE

  Have ever you stood where the silences brood,

  And vast the horizons begin,

  At the dawn of the day to behold far away

  The goal you would strive for and win?

  ROBERT SERVICE, “The Land of Beyond”

  The rock was ancient, old as time, the oldest rock on the planet. Not a patch of soil could be seen among the vast heaps of boulders that lay scattered far inland from the lake’s frigid shore. Only that desolate grey rock, cold, primordial, unwelcoming to the traveller. Its unyielding surface, blasted with the frosts of a hundred million winters and covered in slow-growing lichens, would not permit a tent to be staked down—and with the arctic gales no tent could last long unanchored. Despairingly, I swung my paddle again into the icy water, the fierce wind driving me into the landward side. I had to find somewhere to make camp; the gusts were growing too strong to continue.

  Ahead on the north shore, the one I’d been tracing out in my canoe, there seemed to be a small bit of grass between the ancient boulders. It was perhaps not what most people would consider an attractive campsite, but to me, just now, it looked inviting. I headed for it. Shoals jutted into the water, forcing me to paddle into the wind to get around them. It was fall now; the winds were fierce and steady and frost was in the air. Winter would soon be on its way. When at last I came to the grass amid the rocks, the first such place I’d seen
for many inhospitable kilometres, I made camp and staked down my tent, securing it with extra guy lines.

  Then I carried up my canoe—worn, battered, almost paper thin from months of grinding against the rocks and ice floes—and overturned it beside the tent. Just a little longer, I thought, looking at my old friend, if you can last just a little longer without puncturing, we can finish our journey. The wind’s howling grew louder, whipping up whitecaps that smashed into the barren shore. I was thankful to have found this lonely spot among the rocks when I did.

  Across the lake’s turbulent water rose a range of gracefully sloped mountains, their lower flanks a brilliant red and orange, the fall colours having transformed the slender leaves of the arctic willow and of dwarf birch, bearberries, cloudberries, and other tundra plants. A flock of snow geese passed high overhead. They seemed to only accentuate the emptiness of the landscape. In the past month I’d seen one other human being: a bush pilot who’d briefly resupplied me on a deep, cold lake, one of tens of thousands of such lakes that lay scattered across the central Arctic—so many that no one has ever counted them all.

  I’d heard of canoeing parties being windbound on these vast stormy lakes for weeks at a stretch. It was not an encouraging thought. Ahead of me, to the east, lay powerful rapids; unlucky travellers had been known to drown in them. And if I were to complete my journey I’d have to navigate them late in the season, when the weather was bad.

  That night the wind blew ceaselessly, shaking my little tent as I lay huddled inside. I pinned my hopes of escape on the morning calm. But the dawn brought no respite; the skies were grey and dismal, the gales as unrelenting as ever. All day I waited anxiously for a break in the wind that would enable me to launch my canoe and leave the point I’d camped on. None came. The frigid gusts seemed only to grow stronger, howling eerily across the lifeless tundra.

  A second night passed with me still stranded in the same spot. Growing more anxious, I watched as yet another day slipped away without any break in the wind and waves, which made paddling impossible and me trapped on that rock-strewn point. And each day lost, I knew, was a day closer to winter’s onset.

  × 1 ×

  PLANS

  My passion was paddling wild rivers and lakes, and wandering silently through quiet forests, indulging my curiosity about plants, trees, and the mystery and enchantment of the natural world. Adventures I’d had and would continue to do so, because it came with the terrain of wandering alone through wild places. But I didn’t anticipate making any particularly long journeys in the Arctic.

  Then, in the spring of 2010, I happened to visit a local nature club in the Short Hills—a region of wooded, rolling hills, tumbling streams, and waterfalls south of Lake Ontario—which put in motion a chain of events that led to my becoming windbound alone on an arctic lake. No doubt that’s a common occurrence stemming from nature club meetings, and a prudent reason to avoid them. As far as nature clubs went, this one had a youngish membership, the average age being barely more than mid-seventies.

  It was there at the nature club’s meeting hall, after my presentation on canoe tripping had wrapped up, that I first heard the word “sesquicentennial” used in a sentence. I’d been chatting with a white-haired man, a retired professor of chemistry.

  “Well, you know,” he said, “2017 is going to be Canada’s sesquicentennial.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding. In fact I hadn’t known this.

  He kept looking at me, apparently awaiting a further response.

  I wasn’t sure what “sesquicentennial” even meant.

  “The 150th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation,” he elaborated.

  “That’s right,” I replied.

  “It’s sure to be a big deal. Huge celebrations,” he said with emphasis. “I remember the Centennial celebrations back in 1967. We went to Expo 67 in Montreal for that. ’Course, that would’ve been well before your time.”

  The connection between my canoe trips and a 150th anniversary, which was still seven years away, wasn’t immediately obvious to me.

  “It’ll be a very big occasion,” the old man resumed. “Have you given any thought to doing something special for it?”

  “Er, no, I haven’t.”

  He shook his head, evidently dismayed at the lamentable failure of my education. “Back in ’67 I remember there were people who canoed across Canada. Maybe you should think of doing something similar in 2017? There’s bound to be lots of funding opportunities and groups interested in that kind of thing.”

  “Well, anything’s possible,” I said.

  Still, 2017 seemed a long way off, and I thought it unlikely that something as obscure as a sesquicentennial would attract much notice beyond the ordinary July 1 fireworks. I soon put it out of my mind and returned to paddling wild rivers, observing plants and animals, wandering the woods, and, for a while, pursuing a passion I’d developed for the study of rare mosses found on certain rocks, especially the species ptychomitrium incurvum.

  But a few years later, the old professor’s supposition proved correct. As 2017 neared, “Canada 150” seemed to crop up more and more in conversations and news stories.

  A great many plans were underway. There would be public infrastructure projects. Free access to national parks. A ship travelling around Canada with a hundred and fifty passengers chosen from across the country. Trees planted in every province and territory. Tulips bedded in Ottawa’s public gardens (300,000 of them, a unique species) that resembled the country’s flag. An actual flag (a massive one) raised to the top of a pole (fourteen storeys high). Eventually, the federal government would fund nearly six thousand of these Canada 150 initiatives.

  Meanwhile, over three years had passed since my encounter with the old professor at the nature club. I recalled what he’d said about the Centennial canoe trip. Maybe, I thought to myself, another cross-Canada canoe journey might, in some small way, inspire people to care more about the fate of the country’s ever-diminishing wild places. I decided to look up what exactly had been done in 1967. It was fortuitous perhaps, that I did so at a time when I was under one of those spells of wanderlust and adventure that had a habit of stealing over me whenever I was shut up inside for too long.

  It turned out that ten teams of canoeists had paddled from central Alberta to Montreal. Dubbed “The Centennial Voyageur Canoe Pageant,” the journey involved ten people per team; six at a time would paddle on alternating days while the other four rested. The route included stops in cities and towns along the way, where parties and fanfare greeted the paddlers’ arrival. By starting east of the Rockies and ending in Montreal, the hardest portages and upstream travel were avoided. When it was all over it took 104 days to complete and covered 5,283 kilometres, ending in celebration at Expo 67.

  Now that’s a remarkable journey, I thought to myself as I sat in my cluttered study on the ground floor of a rundown Victorian house I rented. And to recreate it fifty years later would be quite a thing. But nowadays, given that Canada’s a lot less wild than it was in 1967, I figured somebody could probably retrace that canoe route and stop in at a Tim Hortons every third day. What could I do in 2017 that hadn’t already been done?

  I stared at the map of Canada on the wall above my desk (a dangerous thing—staring at maps, that is). What if, I wondered, I shifted the canoe route north? Roughly, say, two thousand kilometres north, beyond the trees to the tundra?

  Unlike the 1967 route, a canoe journey that far north wouldn’t have a line of cities or towns to break up the journey and allow for resupply, not to mention hot showers and human encouragement. Instead of travelling through farmland and cottage country, it’d mean travelling across arctic terrain. The elements would be much harsher, with sub-zero temperatures, snow, bitterly cold winds, shifting ice floes, and probably no Tim Hortons. If something went wrong, help would be far away and a long time coming. To further complicate matters, there was no easy or obvious water route across the mainland Canadian Arctic. Four major watersheds woul
d have to be crossed, meaning a lot of overland and arduous upstream travel would be required.

  I suppose it was a mad idea. On the other hand, it was exactly the kind of undertaking that appealed to me, or at least appealed to me in my more adventurous moods. After all, as I often remarked to myself, you only live once.

  But such a project could never come to fruition without considerable funding. And it was one thing to daydream of an expedition from the comfort of my desk chair, with maps spread out before me and a steaming cup of tea at hand, and quite another to translate it into reality. It seemed unlikely that I’d ever be able to afford such an undertaking. Reluctantly, I set it aside as one of the many hypothetical projects I’d like to one day attempt if I had the funds. In the meantime, I went back to my rare moss. That, at least, didn’t require any money.

  Some months later, in November 2013, I found myself in Ottawa having a conversation with some of the staff at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, a non-profit organization devoted to modern exploration and geographic education. I’d led a few expeditions for the Society focused on mapping northern rivers, and was now hearing the first inklings of possibly doing something special for the “150th” in 2017, perhaps involving the Arctic, or maybe a great journey. Naturally I was enthused, but in my excitement I think I conflated their two ideas into a single project.

  “You’re thinking of a journey across Canada’s mainland Arctic by canoe?” I blurted out.

  There was a moment of hesitation and confusion in the room, as that wasn’t exactly what anyone had in mind.

  “Is that possible?” asked one of Canadian Geographic’s editors.

  “Well,” I said, slouching back in my chair, “possibly it is. Hard to say. It’d be difficult. Most of the rivers drain north to the coast rather than east–west or west–east. Anyway, it’d be enormously expensive. Air charter, resupplies, et cetera.”