Presenting a special 2-book bundle of Anthony Dalton’s outstanding writing on Canada's polar regions, their history, and their greatest explorers.“Dalton does an excellent job … a very enjoyable read.”— Bios NewsletterIncludes:River Rough, River SmoothManitoba’s Hayes River runs over 600 km, from Norway House to Hudson Bay. Traditionally used for transport and hunting by the indigenous Cree, it becam...

Dewey Soper first travelled to the Arctic in 1923. During the next seven years he accepted three research postings on Baffin Island, each of which lasted between one and two years. In 1929 he discovered the breeding grounds of the blue goose in the southwest corner of Baffin Island. He also charted the final unknown region of Baffin Island’s coastline. Later in life he worked in the western Arctic. Outside the Far North, Soper studied bison in Wood Buffalo National Park, documented bird li...

Manitoba’s Hayes River runs over six hundred kilometers from near Norway House to Hudson Bay. On its rush to the sea, the Hayes races over forty-five rapids and waterfalls as it drops down from the Precambrian Shield to the Hudson Bay Lowlands. This great waterway, the largest naturally flowing river in Manitoba, served as the highway for settlers bound for the Red River colony, ferrying their worldly goods in York boats and canoes, struggling against the mighty currents.Traditiona...

In the summer of 1984, Anthony Dalton embarked on a near-fatal voyage in a small open boat along the wild northwest coast of Alaska, attempting a solo transit of the Northwest Passage. His sea quest ran parallel to an arduous relief expedition undertaken in 1897-98, when the officers of the US cutter Bear set out to reach eight whaling ships that were stranded in thick ice, their crews on the verge of starvation. Both journeys are depicted in this captivating adventure tale, and D...

This special bundle is your essential guide to all things concerning Canada’s polar regions, which make up the majority of Canada’s territory but are places most of us will never visit. The Arctic has played a key role in Canada’s history and in the history of the indigenous peoples of this land, and the area will only become more strategically and economically important in the future. This bundle provides an in-depth crash course, including titles on Arctic exploration (Arctic Obsessi...

No vessel that sailed the Arctic seas has raised so much speculation or triggered imaginations as has the legendary Hudson's Bay Company ship Baychimo.In the 1920s, Baychimo set up trading posts in eastern Canada, sailed on fur-trading expeditions to Siberia during the turbulent years of the Russian civil war and made dangerous annual voyages around Alaska to Canada's western Arctic coast, shouldering her way through ice floes to resupply the HBC's remote trading ...

True tales of disaster and daring rescues reveal the fascinating and frightening maritime history of British Columbia's coastline.On January 22, 1906, the passenger ship Valencia lost her way in heavy fog and rain and rammed into the deadly rocks at Pachena Point on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As the wreck was shattered by the pounding waves, the survivors clung desperately to the rigging. Few made it the short distance to shore through the frigid ...

A haunting history of the ships, sailors, and passengers lost on the beautiful but deadly North American Pacific coast.On September 8, 1923, seven US Navy destroyers rammed into jagged rocks on the California coast. Twenty-three sailors died that night. Five years earlier, the Canadian Pacific passenger ship Princess Sophia steamed into Vanderbilt Reef in Alaska's Lynn Canal. When she sank, she took 353 people to their deaths.From San Francisco's f...

After Royal Navy captain Sir John Franklin disappeared in the Arctic in 1846 while seeking the Northwest Passage, the search for his two ships, Erebus and Terror, and survivors of his expedition became one of the most exhaustive quests of the 19th century. Despite tantalizing clues, the ships were never found, and the fate of Franklin’s expedition passed into legend as one of the North’s great and enduring mysteries.Anthony Dalton explores the eventful and fascinating life of this ...

Considered wise and powerful by the Inuit and other Native cultures, and celebrated in legend and literature, polar bears have become a charismatic symbol of animals threatened by climate change in the Arctic ecosystem. Yet for centuries, polar bears were demonized and slaughtered by adventurers who sailed the icy seas seeking wealth and glory. These fascinating stories from northern lands, including Canada, Alaska, Greenland and the Norwegian islands of Spitsbergen, draw from the annals o...

In mid-July 1925, the SS Bayeskimo ran into heavy drift ice at the entrance to Hudson Strait. The ice carried her north, squeezing the steamer and testing the strength of her rivets. Helpless until the tide changed and the ice moved, the officers and crew could only watch and listen to the ship’s tormented groans. Slowly at first, trickles of freezing water seeped through the steel plates on her bow. The trickles became a flood, and Bayeskimo began to sink.Bay...

Anson Northup, the first steamboat on the Canadian prairies, arrived in Fort Garry in 1859. Belching hot sparks and growling in fury, it was called "fire canoe" by the local Cree. The first steam-powered passenger vessel in Canada had begun service on the St. Lawrence River in 1809, and for the next 150 years, steamboats carried passengers and freight on great Canadian rivers, among them the treacherous Stikine and Fraser in British Columbia; the Saskatchewan and Red Rivers on the...