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      We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

       www.dundurn.com

      Colour photos © Anthony Dalton Collection

      Front cover photographs courtesy of the author.

       For Steve Crowhurst and Graeme Halley

      “All my life,” he said, “I have searched for the treasure. I have sought it in the high places, and in the narrow. I have sought it in deep jungles, and at the ends of rivers, and in dark caverns — and yet have not found it.

      “Instead, at the end of every trail, I have found you awaiting me. And now you have become familiar to me, though I cannot say I know you well.

      Who are you?”

      And the stranger answered:

      “Thyself.”

      — From an old tale¹

      CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Rowing Down the River

Chapter 2 The Historic Hayes

Chapter 3 Norway House

Chapter 4 York Boats

Chapter 5 Sea River Falls

       Chapter 6 The Meandering Echimamish

       Chapter 7 A Score of Beaver Dams

       Chapter 8 Painted Stone and Beyond

       Chapter 9 The Longest Portage

       Chapter 10 Logan Lake and Whitewater

       Chapter 11 Near Disaster at Hell Gates

       Chapter 12 Sailing on Windy Lake

       Chapter 13 The Wreck at Wipanipanis Falls

       Chapter 14 An End, and a New Beginning

       Chapter 15 Three Canoes on the Hayes

       Chapter 16 Rapid Descent

       Chapter 17 Final Days on the Mighty River

       Chapter 18 York Factory

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       About the Author

PREFACE

      SINCE I WAS A BOY, roaming alone across a deserted Second-World-War aerodrome¹ in southern England on foot or on my bicycle in search of wild creatures, or building a makeshift raft out of oil drums and old rope and paddling across a flooded gravel quarry, I have felt at home in the outdoors. In those long-gone years, when not at school, my days varied between solitary adventures and reading about the travels of larger-than-life figures from history and from fiction. Books by H. Rider Haggard, G.A. Henty, and R. M. Ballantyne adorned my bookshelves. Later, as I grew older and my literary education improved, I found much satisfaction in the heroic deeds as told by the masters of Greek mythology. Homer in particular thrilled me with his dramatic opus The Iliad and his glorious tale of the epic journey undertaken by Ulysses in The Odyssey. Equally, I was inspired by the magnificent prose poems crafted by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow, Sir Walter Scott, and Alfred Lord Tennyson, plus the controversial but brilliant Charles Beaudelaire.

      Those feelings of youthful comfort in the outdoors, combined with the books I devoured, eventually translated into a nomadic adult life of adventure that has taken me across great deserts, into the high mountains, through steamy jungles, down mighty rivers, and over the world’s seas. By the early 1990s I had travelled just about everywhere I wanted to go, and I had a memory bank full of extremely personal treasures. For these reasons I included

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