Shoalts - Beyond the Trees

PRAISE FOR ADAM SHOALTS

Explorer Adam Shoaltss monumental 4,000-kilometre journeycalls to mind the likes of Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Joseph Tyrrell.

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC

Adam Shoalts[has] finished an incredible journey through Canadas Arctic.

GLOBAL NEWS

Move over Jacques Cartier, Christopher Columbus, and Sir Francis DrakeAdam Shoalts is this centurys explorer.

HAMILTON SPECTATOR

Adam Shoalts is one heck of a paddler.

POSTMEDIA

Adam Shoalts is Canadas Indiana Jonesportaging in the north, dodging scary rapids, plunging into darkness, and surviving to tell the tale.

THE TORONTO STAR

PRAISE FOR ALONE AGAINST THE NORTH

Rare insight into the heart and mind of an explorer, and the insatiable hunger for the unknown that both inspires and drives one to the edge. Adam Shoalts, twenty-first-century explorer, calmly describes the things he has endured that would drive most people to despair, or even madness.

COL. CHRIS HADFIELD , astronaut,

International Space Station commander

As gripping to read as it mustve been exciting to live!

LES STROUD, Survivorman

Adam Shoaltss remarkable solo forayis the kind of incredible effort that fosters legends.

THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

Shoaltss love of nature, cool professionalism, and almost archaically romantic spirit draw us into his adventuresShoalts is a knowledgeable and observant guide.

QUILL AND QUIRE

Anyone who thinks exploration is dead should read this book.

JOHN GEIGER , author, CEO of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society

The more layers you peel away, the more you begin to see the quick mind and quiet intensity that helps propel Adam Shoalts.

BRIAN BANKS, Canadian Geographic

It is a story of brutal perseverance and stamina, which few adventurers could equal.

JOE PATSTONE, Life in Quebec Magazine

Shoalts is a fearless adventurer

Alone Against the North is a rip-roaring yarn.

THE GREAT CANADIAN BUCKET LIST

While the book is a nail-biting chronicle of polar-bear encounters, brutal swarms of black flies, and surprise tumbles down waterfalls, Shoalts also vividly describes an area of the country most of us will never witness.

METRO (Toronto)

PRAISE FOR A HISTORY OF CANADA IN TEN MAPS

Its an epic journeyShoalts has done an elegant job ofreminding us of the vast and brooding influence of geography on our history.

GLOBE AND MAIL

Shoalts analyzes early maps in order to paint a picture of the land that would become a nation, bringing its earliest stories, voices, and battles to life. Combining geography, cartography, history, and anthropology, Shoalts leaves no stone unturned.

CBC

A brilliant book.

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC

[A] marvelIf you like maps, youll like this book; if you like both maps and crisply recounted Canadian history, youll love it. Shoaltstakes you inside [explorers] heads as they face fear, doubt and despair in tandem with cold, starvation, and rebellious wanting-to-turn-back companionsCanadian history writ well.

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS

A masterful approach to mapping Canada.

TORONTO STAR

[O]ne fine book perfectly written for the armchair adventurer.

POSTMEDIA

ALSO BY ADAM SHOALTS

A History of Canada in Ten Maps

Alone Against the North

ALLEN LANE

an imprint of Penguin Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited Canada USA UK Ireland Australia New Zealand India South Africa China

First published 2019

Copyright 2019 by Adam Shoalts

All images are courtesy of Adam Shoalts unless otherwise stated

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Title: Beyond the trees : a journey alone across Canadas Arctic / Adam Shoalts.

Names: Shoalts, Adam, 1986- author.

Description: Includes index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190104716 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190104732 | ISBN 9780735236837 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735236844 (HTML)

Subjects: LCSH: Shoalts, Adam, 1986-TravelCanada, Northern. | LCSH: Canada, NorthernDescription and travel.

Classification: LCC FC3205.5 .S56 2019 | DDC 917.1904/7dc23

Cover and interior design by Jennifer Griffiths

Cover images: (landscape) Chuck Brill; (clouds) Matthew Smith / Unsplash

v5.3.2

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To Aleksia

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Have ever you stood where the silences brood,

And vast the horizons begin,

At the dawn of the day to behold far away

The goal you would strive for and win?

ROBERT SERVICE, The Land of Beyond

The rock was ancient, old as time, the oldest rock on the planet. Not a patch of soil could be seen among the vast heaps of boulders that lay scattered far inland from the lakes frigid shore. Only that desolate grey rock, cold, primordial, unwelcoming to the traveller. Its unyielding surface, blasted with the frosts of a hundred million winters and covered in slow-growing lichens, would not permit a tent to be staked downand with the arctic gales no tent could last long unanchored. Despairingly, I swung my paddle again into the icy water, the fierce wind driving me into the landward side. I had to find somewhere to make camp; the gusts were growing too strong to continue.

Ahead on the north shore, the one Id been tracing out in my canoe, there seemed to be a small bit of grass between the ancient boulders. It was perhaps not what most people would consider an attractive campsite, but to me, just now, it looked inviting. I headed for it. Shoals jutted into the water, forcing me to paddle into the wind to get around them. It was fall now; the winds were fierce and steady and frost was in the air. Winter would soon be on its way. When at last I came to the grass amid the rocks, the first such place Id seen for many inhospitable kilometres, I made camp and staked down my tent, securing it with extra guy lines.

Then I carried up my canoeworn, battered, almost paper thin from months of grinding against the rocks and ice floesand overturned it beside the tent. Just a little longer, I thought, looking at my old friend, if you can last just a little longer without puncturing, we can finish our journey. The winds howling grew louder, whipping up whitecaps that smashed into the barren shore. I was thankful to have found this lonely spot among the rocks when I did.

Across the lakes turbulent water rose a range of gracefully sloped mountains, their lower flanks a brilliant red and orange, the fall colours having transformed the slender leaves of the arctic willow and of dwarf birch, bearberries, cloudberries, and other tundra plants. A flock of snow geese passed high overhead. They seemed to only accentuate the emptiness of the landscape. In the past month Id seen one other human being: a bush pilot whod briefly resupplied me on a deep, cold lake, one of tens of thousands of such lakes that lay scattered across the central Arcticso many that no one has ever counted them all.