Book description
"Pike's Portage plays a very special role in the landscape of
Canada's Far North and its human history. It is both an ancient
gateway and the funnel for early travel from the boreal forest of the
Mackenzie River watershed to the vast open spaces of the subarctic
taiga, better known as the "Barren Lands" of Canada.
"This book is a rich and wonderful comopendium of stories about
this area and the early white explorers, the Dene guides, the
adventurers, the trappers, the misguided wanderers (like John Hornby)
as well as the modern-day canoeists who passed this way. For the
reader, it provides an absorbing escape into the past and the endless
solitude of the northern wilderness." -- George Luste,
wilderness canoeist, physics professor (University of Toronto), and
founder-organizer of the annual Wilderness Canoeing Symposium.
"So why do people come to this place, this Pike's Portage in
particular? The call of landscape is potent and these word portraits
collected here offer up some of those who have answered. Both subject
and writer reveal the complexities of human perception. Some are
called by the profound power of inherited cultural meaning, while a
huge dose of imagination draws others from far away. These worlds
seldom truly meet, even in a place as busy as this, but whether it is
homeland or wilderness, human histories are recorded in footprints,
place names, and memory, and here we stand with a magnificent view,
marvelling at it all." -- Susan Irving, Curatorial Assistant,
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, Yellowknife, NWT
Morten Asfeldt has travelled extensively in the Yukon, Northwest
Territories, and Nunavut on personal canoe, hiking and dogsled
adventures, s a commercial canoe and raft guide, and with students as
part of his teaching at the University of Alberta's Augustana Campus
in Camrose, Alberta. Morten has published in academic journals and
magazines, and has contributed a chapter to Nature First
(Toronto: Natural Heritage Books-Dundurn Press, 2007). In addition,
Mortn's photographs from the North appea in a number of books,
magazines, brochures, and websites. Morten lives in Camrose with his
wife, Krystal, and their two children, Jasper and Kaisa.
Bob Henderson has taught outdoor education at McMaster for
twenty-eight years, often sharing stories on the trail involving
characters and events related in this book. Bob is the author of
Every Trail has a Story: Heritage Travel in Canada (Toronto:
Natural Heritage Books-Dundurn Press, 2005) and co-editor with Nils
Vikander of Nature First: Outdoor Life in Friluftsliv Way
(Toronto: Natural Heritage Books-Dundurn Press 2007). Bob lives in
Uxbridge, Ontario.
