Winner of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario's 2016 Young Authors
Award
Winner of the 2017 Louise de Kiriline Award for Nonfiction
Adam Shoalts was no stranger to the wilderness. He had hacked his way
through jungles, stared down bears and climbed mountains. But, one spot
on the map called out to him irresistibly. Cutting through the
forbidding landscape of the Hudson Bay Lowlands is a river no hunter, no
explorer, has left any record of paddling. It was this river that
Shoalts was obsessively determined to explore.
What Shoalts discovered as he paddled downriver appeared in no satellite
imagery or map: a series of waterfalls that could easily have killed
him. Just as astonishing was the media reaction when he got back to
civilization. He was crowned "Canada's Indiana Jones" and was feted by
the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and congratulated by the
governor general. Shoalts had proved that the world is bigger than we
think.
Gripping and often poetic, Alone Against the North is a classic
adventure story of single-minded obsession, physical hardship, and the
restless sense of wonder that every explorer has in common. Shoalts's
story makes it clear that the world can become known only by setting out
into the unfamiliar, where every step is different from the one before
and something you may never have imagined lies around the next curve in
the river.
