Canoe Country: The Making of Canada [Paperback]

One of our favourite chroniclers of all things Canadian presents a rollicking, personal, photo-filled history of the relationship between a country and its canoes.


From the earliest explorers on the Columbia River in BC or the Mattawa in Ontario to a doomed expedition of voyageurs up the Nile to rescue Khartoum; from the author's family roots deep in the Algonquin wilderness to modern families who have canoed across the country (kids and dogs included):Canoe Countryis Roy MacGregor's celebration of the essential and enduring love affair Canadians have with our first and still favourite means of getting around. Famous paddlers have been so enchanted with the canoe that one swore God made Canada as the perfect country in which to paddle it. Drawing on MacGregor's own decades spent whenever possible with a paddle in his hand, this is a story of high adventure on white water and the sweetest peace in nature's quietest corners, from the author best able (and most eager) to tell it.Praise forNorthern Lightand Roy MacGregor:
One of Canada's top authors. . . . MacGregor has woven a convincing story. Toronto Star
Part history, part true-crime investigation and part memoir,Northern Lightis both scrupulously even-handed and deeply personal. . . . [MacGregor] has crafted a beautifully realized picture of a time and place. Winnipeg Free Press
It's hard to even imagine anyone today who is writing more lyrically about Canada than Roy MacGregor. Toronto StarROY MacGREGOR is the acclaimed and bestselling author ofNorthern Light: The Enduring Mystery of Tom Thomson and the Woman Who Loved Him; Home Team: Fathers, Sons and Hockey(shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award);A Life in the Bush(winner of the U.S. Rutstrum Award for Best Wilderness Book and the CAA Award for Biography);Canadians: A Portrait of a Country and Its People;Wayne Gretzky's Ghost: And Other TalÄ