In the spring of 1912, Anishinaabe guide Billy Magee received a letter
from future conservationist Ernest Oberholtzer asking Magee to accompany
him on a journey. Soon after the two set off on a five-month canoe
expedition following the old way north, a largely unmapped territory
that would test both their endurance and their friendship.
Tracing the route of the Oberholtzer-Magee expedition, The Old Way North
transports readers through the history of this challenging wilderness
and introduces them to the mapmakers, fur traders and trappers,
missionaries, and Native peoples who relied on this corridor for trade
and travel. Through Oberholtzer's journals along with historical
records, personal interviews with Dene and Inuit, and present-day
canoeing accounts, wilderness and conservation writer David Pelly
reconstructs the many tales hidden in this land.