From Canada's most accomplished adventurer and storyteller comes a
gripping journey into the vastness of Canada's landscape and history.
Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a
majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near
Lake Erie. Falcons migrate annually from southernmost Canada on the
Great Lakes to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe,
Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon's route north on an astonishing
3,400-kilometre journey from Lake Erie to the Arctic.
Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges and obstacles,
including storms on the Great Lakes, finding campsites in the urban
wilderness of Toronto and Montreal, avoiding busy commercial freighter
traffic, gale force winds, massive hydro electric dams, bushwhacking
without trails, dealing with hunger, multiple bear encounters, and
navigating white-water rapids on icy northern rivers far from any help.
In his signature style, Shoalts roams as much across space as he does
time, winding his way through a stunning diversity of landscapes ranging
from lush Carolinian forests to lonely windswept mountains, salty seas
to trackless swamps, pristine lakes to glittering mega-cities, as well
as the sites of long ago battles, shipwrecks, forgotten forts, and
abandoned trading posts. But more importantly, he reveals how
interconnected wild places are, from the loneliest depths of the
northern wilderness to busy urban parks, and the vital importance of
these connections.
Where the Falcon Flies invites readers on an extraordinary armchair
adventure that spans five ecoregions and centuries of fascinating
history, and is a masterwork by one of Canada's most successful and
audacious authors.
