BEYOND the TREES

 Adam Shoalts. BEYOND the TREES: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic. Penguin, 2020.

Our bookclub selection for September. At first I feared it was going to be a cold lonely slog, but the narrator managed to coax me along with him, mostly because of his great attitude. His slogan, "There's an upside to everything" should be on my bulletin board. I also enjoyed his confidence in his experience and skills at camping, paddling, portaging, organizing cache drops of supplies, and just the unbelievable nature of the chosen adventure, alone across the Arctic, often going up rather than down the rivers. His awareness of the magic in the wild places and the need for us to take better care of them is encouraging. 

I liked learning details of the flora and fauna, his thrill at seeing the wolf family, his wise leeriness of the muskox--big and not used to human intrusion. I also liked learning new words: waterfall, cascade, & swift (a new term for me for whitewater). Waterhead for headwaters. Tuckamores--wind-shaped trees. There is also history in some of the names--Dempster, Deese, Franklin's earlier inland explorations. And about the geology of the region, some mountains unglaciated. 

My only hesitation, as a travel memoir, is that the narrator does not appear to change over the course of his journey. He had the skills. He was lucky. He survived.

I'm glad I read it.