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sunnybear09
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03/27/2017 09:09AM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
The ground is still snow covered here in NY, the deer are getting really thin, but with the confirmation that paddling will soon be here I am devouring books to nourish my long anticipated dreaming-of season. Canoecopia was the start of "spring breakup" in my mind, and since I got home, and knowing I would be returning to Alaska this summer, I rerererereread Herb Pohl's "The Lure of Far Away Places" for overall excitement, then "The Last Giant of Beringia" by Dan O'Neill about the scientific evidence for the Bering Land Bridge (actually a 700 mile wide north-to-south plain!) for a quick link to Alaska, "The Last Wilderness" by Peter Browning about a 600 mile trip in the NWTs ending at Snowdrift Lake, and now, thanks to MissMolly's post in the fishing forum, a reread of Robert Traver's "Trout Madness", perhaps my all-time most reread book (for 56 years and still a thrill!)

So, what's on your lap? And why? To read is to live! And learn!
 
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Whatsit
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03/27/2017 10:29AM  
Well I just got the spring addition of the bw journal on Friday and also been reading some of cliff Jacobson's books as well as for third time "a walk in the woods"
 
sunnybear09
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03/27/2017 10:55AM  
quote Whatsit: "Well I just got the spring addition of the bw journal on Friday and also been reading some of cliff Jacobson's books as well as for third time "a walk in the woods""


Solid choices! I bought Cliff's books on Cooking and Solo Canoeing at Copia and read thru them, then enjoyed the pictures in "Canoeing Wild Rivers" for the rush. I haven't gotten my spring BWJ yet, but that will help, too. Bryson's book is really funny, makes a good take-along read for bad weather days in the bush.
 
03/27/2017 01:24PM  
Just got spring BWJ last week. I am only through the first 2 articles but they were both excellent and the juices are really going now.

Ran into Stu Osthoff at the NW Sports Show on Saturday and spent a few minutes talking. Always interesting to read his views in BWJ but that was the first time I had ever met him. I was happy to be able to put a face with the name...
 
BearBurrito
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03/27/2017 03:42PM  
I'm currently reading The Singing Wilderness for the umpteenth time. I am also working through the Cork O'Connor novels by William Kent Kruger. I am thoroughly enjoying them.
 
03/27/2017 10:12PM  
I too am slogging through the Corcoran O'Connor WKK books. Easy reading, but man they hooked me. Currently on Thunder Bay.
 
03/28/2017 05:50AM  
Verlin Krueger's one incredible journey. Thanks to Joe Wilderness.
 
03/28/2017 09:32AM  
read all the Wm Kent Krueger, got my 83 yr old mother hooked! she has 5 books left in the series.

read all C.J. Box Joe Pickett series, 16 books in that series with the 17th just released. if you like the Wyoming wilderness you'll enjoy these murder mysteries.

read all the Nevada Barr Anna Pigeon series, 19 total so far. more murder mysteries that take place in National Parks.

haven't found my maps yet, they are somewhere, and all my books are in storage. the local library has some that are interesting.

oh, and i have really taken a liking to the Large Print books! LOL
 
03/28/2017 10:50AM  
quote BearBurrito: "I'm currently reading The Singing Wilderness for the umpteenth time. I am also working through the Cork O'Connor novels by William Kent Kruger. I am thoroughly enjoying them."


I second that! I'm plowin through Manitou Canyon at the moment. Ran into WKK once at a coffee shop in St. Paul and he was in the middle of writing one of his latest in the O'Connor series.
 
BlueSkiesWI
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03/28/2017 11:15AM  
I'm in a capstone project that takes a lot from "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. Just started reading it and it has a lot of interesting topics related to childhood and environmental education!
 
03/28/2017 11:43AM  
I'm most of the way through "Oh No! We're Gonna Die! by Bob Bell. It's humorous stories about the Alaskan Wilderness that have happened to the author on his many many trips into the wilderness. Pretty good read but there's a lot in there about close calls with grizzlies,moose, weather, and private aircraft so if you're squeamish about some of that stuff, be warned. Lots of good info about mistakes NOT to make while in the woods.

I have been referring to "Tom Brown's Field Guide To Wilderness Survival" quite a bit lately since I've been binge watching "Alone" on the History Channel lately and want to see how they compare.

I also just purchased the Singing Wilderness which rounded out my Sig O. collection that I got mostly from my Grandfather. I'm looking forward to reading that one on a rainy day in late May while on my first trip of the year.
 
03/28/2017 12:37PM  
I was just reading a spring issue of BWJ from... 2000!
 
03/28/2017 08:52PM  
Just finished it a couple weeks ago; about Meriwether Lewis and the Lewis & Clark Expedition. "Undaunted Courage". Slot of insight new to me. Well researched.
 
03/30/2017 04:33PM  
A book called, The Last River, about a kayak trip to the Tsangpo River in the Himilayas in Tibet. It is the deepest gorge on earth and was/is considered the Mt. Everest of River runs. The river has been pursued for hundreds of years and never run. It was a legend in the hard core paddling community and a kind of a race was on to see who could do it first. This trip was sponsored by Nat Geo. I don't know if it has since the book was written, but tragically one of the paddlers dies in the attempt.
 
03/31/2017 09:00PM  
Half way through Manitou Canyon. My first WKK read.

I just finished Real Mountains which is a true story about the search for Greg Seftick and Walker Kuhl, two friends missing in Grand Teton National Park. Greg was an Afton, Minnesota native and so Minnesotans will remember following the story on the local news.

Just got around to reading Two Bucks and A Can Of Gas. An entertaining account of guy growing up in northern Minnesota and exploring the forests of the North Shore and the Gunflint Trail area in a Model A truck and canoe.




 
04/01/2017 10:58AM  
Currently reading "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador", which is the story of Mina Hubbard's journey through Labrador, following her husband's failed expedition, which is detailed in Dillon Wallace's "The Lure of the Labrador Wild". Wallace also made a second journey written up in "The Long Labrador Trail".

Prose descriptions like this passage are really "feeding my fever":

"There was a head wind and hard paddling for a time, but towards evening it grew calmer, and the lake became very beautiful. In the distance we saw several large masses of floating ice, and lying far away in the west were many islands. The sky above was almost covered with big, soft, silver clouds and as the sun sank gradually towards the horizon the lake was like a great field of light. Once we stopped to listen to the loons calling [Great Northern Divers]. They were somewhere out on the glittering water, and far apart. We could not see them, but there were four, and one wild call answering another rang out into the great silence. It was weird and beautiful beyond words; the big, shining lake with its distant blue islands; the sky with its wonderful clouds and colour; two little canoes so deep in the wilderness, and those wild, reverberant voices coming up from invisible beings away in the "long light" which lay across the water. We listened for a long time, then it ceased."
 
sunnybear09
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04/01/2017 02:46PM  
quote boonie: "Currently reading "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador", which is the story of Mina Hubbard's journey through Labrador, following her husband's failed expedition, which is detailed in Dillon Wallace's "The Lure of the Labrador Wild". Wallace also made a second journey written up in "The Long Labrador Trail".


Prose descriptions like this passage are really "feeding my fever":


"There was a head wind and hard paddling for a time, but towards evening it grew calmer, and the lake became very beautiful. In the distance we saw several large masses of floating ice, and lying far away in the west were many islands. The sky above was almost covered with big, soft, silver clouds and as the sun sank gradually towards the horizon the lake was like a great field of light. Once we stopped to listen to the loons calling [Great Northern Divers]. They were somewhere out on the glittering water, and far apart. We could not see them, but there were four, and one wild call answering another rang out into the great silence. It was weird and beautiful beyond words; the big, shining lake with its distant blue islands; the sky with its wonderful clouds and colour; two little canoes so deep in the wilderness, and those wild, reverberant voices coming up from invisible beings away in the "long light" which lay across the water. We listened for a long time, then it ceased."
"


If that quote doesn't make you want to go out and pet your canoe you're on the wrong site! Thanks, Boonie!
 
04/01/2017 02:50PM  
I'm thinking you've probably already read those books; if not I'd recommend them, reading in order from "The Lure of the Labrador Wild" to "The Long Labrador Trail" and "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador". For those who haven't read them and are interested, all are first-person accounts (all well-written) from these expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century. I downloaded this one from The Project Gutenberg site.
 
CanoeKev
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04/05/2017 11:44AM  
quote boonie: "I'm thinking you've probably already read those books; if not I'd recommend them, reading in order from "The Lure of the Labrador Wild" to "The Long Labrador Trail" and "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador". For those who haven't read them and are interested, all are first-person accounts (all well-written) from these expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century. I downloaded this one from The Project Gutenberg site. "


To that list you should add: Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure by James Davidson -- another recap of the Mina Hubbard journey. All of these books should be required reading for wilderness canoeing enthusiasts.
 
04/05/2017 12:01PM  
I actually read "Great Heart" first. For other readers of this post, it's the story of all three expeditions "and the rest of the story" beyond what is explicit in those three accounts.

 
MikeinMpls
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04/05/2017 12:05PM  
Cache Lake Country by John J. Rowlands........... for about the 27th time.

Mike
 
Alan Gage
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04/05/2017 12:46PM  
Haven't been reading much to fuel my spring fever. Not because I haven't been reading but because the recent books haven't been that great. Currently finishing Bound for the Barrens - Journal of the Ernest Oberholtzer & Billy Magee 2,000 Mile Canoe Voyage to Hudson Bay in 1912. It's ok but not great. An amazing trip but pretty uninspired journal writing.

Need to go back and re-read Sleeping Island by PG Downes. Hands down best canoeing book ever and a darn good book even without the canoeing aspect. I believe it's out of print but you can still find used copies easily.

And if that trips your trigger do some more digging for volumes one and two of Distant Summers, also by PG Downes, which are the actual journal entries from his canoe wanderings in Northern Saskatcehwan and Manitoba the mid-30's to late 40's.

Alan
 
murphylakejim
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04/05/2017 01:51PM  
Ive been listening to Gulag Archipelago (while I work) as an audio book on youtube. Im about 15 hours in with lots more to go. Not really related to "feeding my spring fever," but its feeding my political fever well.
 
sunnybear09
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04/05/2017 06:33PM  
quote CanoeKev: "
quote boonie: "I'm thinking you've probably already read those books; if not I'd recommend them, reading in order from "The Lure of the Labrador Wild" to "The Long Labrador Trail" and "A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador". For those who haven't read them and are interested, all are first-person accounts (all well-written) from these expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century. I downloaded this one from The Project Gutenberg site. "



To that list you should add: Great Heart: The History of a Labrador Adventure by James Davidson -- another recap of the Mina Hubbard journey. All of these books should be required reading for wilderness canoeing enthusiasts."


The two great mistakes that Hubbard made on the expedition with Wallace are to be always mindful--the first, going up a river that doesn't fit the description of the one you want, and ever thinking you can do better going cross-country in 3 feet of snow rather than staying on a river in a canoe stay with you after reading their trevails, for sure.
 
04/06/2017 05:10AM  
Why they kept going that way always mystified me too, sunnybear. Mina Hubbard has local native guides and the navigation seems mostly to fall to them, especially Job. One of these days, I'd like to go back and read all the books together instead of years apart.
 
QueticoMike
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04/06/2017 09:18AM  
Haven't opened it yet, but I have the BWJ sitting there waiting to be read. No books for me.
 
Alan Gage
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04/06/2017 11:13AM  
quote boonie: "Why they kept going that way always mystified me too, sunnybear. Mina Hubbard has local native guides and the navigation seems mostly to fall to them, especially Job. "


Doesn't seem too surprising. Women seem to be more able to admit they don't know something and leave it up to others who likely do. Men have a harder time recognizing when they don't know what they're talking about and keep pushing on.

Alan
 
sunnybear09
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04/06/2017 04:18PM  
quote QueticoMike: "Haven't opened it yet, but I have the BWJ sitting there waiting to be read. No books for me."


I think you're feeding your fever with bass slime, Mike!!
 
04/06/2017 05:41PM  
No time to read here...its beginning to green up, the lakes are open, and winter is gone.
Time for fishing, put the easel on my deck, play outside...spring is finally here
 
WHendrix
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04/06/2017 06:40PM  
I have just finished reading Alone in a Canoe by Michael Kinziger. It was a nice read. I met Mike several years ago when I lived in Pullman, WA. He lives just across the border in Idaho. I heard about some of his adventures then and it was nice to read about them.

I agree with Alan about the P.G. Downes books. This past winter I re-read Sleeping Island and Vol. 1 of Distant Summers. Along with Sigurd Olson's The Lonely Land they are my favorite books. I've tried to find a copy of Distant Summers Vol. II, but the only one I can find is $775. That's a bit over my limit for a book.

Bill
 
04/06/2017 07:19PM  
quote Alan Gage: "
quote boonie: "Why they kept going that way always mystified me too, sunnybear. Mina Hubbard has local native guides and the navigation seems mostly to fall to them, especially Job. "



Doesn't seem too surprising. Women seem to be more able to admit they don't know something and leave it up to others who likely do. Men have a harder time recognizing when they don't know what they're talking about and keep pushing on.


Alan"


That was basically my thought too Alan and I think it was even more true back in early 1900's. George Elson, the Indian guide who accompanied the original Hubbard Wallace expedition, may have been the only native or local on that trip. While he also accompanied Mina Hubbard on her expedition, he was joined by Job, the Cree Indian from Quebec, and a couple of half-breed trappers with knowledge of the local area.
 
04/07/2017 06:38AM  
I just read the first chapter last night and I'm hooked on The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig.

"One canoe, four desperate men, twelve hundred miles of treacherous coast..."

I think this will be worth my time investment!
 
Alan Gage
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04/07/2017 09:17AM  
quote WHendrix: " I've tried to find a copy of Distant Summers Vol. II, but the only one I can find is $775. That's a bit over my limit for a book.


I got my copies from Abe Books about a year ago for a normal price. I remember it being slightly confusing trying to figure out if it was volume I or II in the listing but I eventually figured it out.

Unfortunately I just looked now and I can only find volume 1 as well. That's a shame. Hopefully it gets reprinted.

Alan
 
Alan Gage
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04/07/2017 09:26AM  
I've tried to find a copy of Distant Summers Vol. II, but the only one I can find is $775. That's a bit over my limit for a book.


Look what I found: http://www.worldofmaps.com/product/9780986860034.html

Alan
 
WHendrix
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04/07/2017 05:20PM  
Thank you Alan. As soon as I saw your message I left the BWCA site and went to the URL you provided and ordered the book. If I ever run in to you someplace I owe you a beer.

Bill
 
04/07/2017 07:19PM  
quote bobbernumber3: "I just read the first chapter last night and I'm hooked on The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig.


"One canoe, four desperate men, twelve hundred miles of treacherous coast..."
I think this will be worth my time investment!"


this is an excellent book!!! actually, any Ivan Doig book is great.
 
04/07/2017 08:49PM  
quote BearBurrito: "I'm currently reading The Singing Wilderness for the umpteenth time"

+1 great read! Also, my BWJ back issues.
 
wetcanoedog
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04/07/2017 11:13PM  
here is a link to a web site by a Canadian writer and solo canoe tripper,Philip Schubert.
a few years ago he made a solo canoe and hiking trip to Hubbards Rock where a large marker has been set up to mark the site of Hubbards death.
there is too much to go thru but Mr Schubert is an outstanding outdoorsman with lots of good advice on rough camping and a clever bow rudder device using the spare paddle. hubbard

rock
 
sunnybear09
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04/08/2017 04:23AM  
quote WHendrix: "Thank you Alan. As soon as I saw your message I left the BWCA site and went to the URL you provided and ordered the book. If I ever run in to you someplace I owe you a beer.


Bill"


If you have any doubts that this is a great site, forget them! So much help, so much generosity!!
 
Frenchy
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04/08/2017 04:58AM  
This is a really fun read to prepare you for the upcoming paddling season.

Canoeing With The Cree by Eric Sevareid.

 
starwatcher
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04/11/2017 03:52PM  
No Man's River by Farley Mowat, who also wrote Never Cry Wolf.

The book is about his adventures with Inuit, Indians and fur traders living up in Northern Manitoba and taking a canoe trip down an unexplored river to Hudson Bay. Great Book, I highly recommend it, especially to this group.

starwatcher
 
WHendrix
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04/11/2017 05:45PM  
For a somewhat different take on Never Cry Wolf read Sleeping Island by P.G. Downes.
 
DaveOR
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04/17/2017 12:42PM  
From A Wooden Canoe/Jerry Dennis

"I hope this book serves as a kind of walking tour through some of the good things and simple pleasures of the outdoor life. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd like the pace to slow down a bit. I'd like to see people take some time to appreciate what matters. Maybe this is pigheadedness on my part, but I'm convinced that the world looks better from a wooden canoe."
 
Whatsit
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04/18/2017 12:55PM  
I just bought a book about the civil war pow camp "Andersonville"
That will be my next book this spring
 
Alan Gage
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04/18/2017 01:47PM  
I'm about 1/2 of the way into Dangerous River by Patterson about exploring the Nahanni in the NWT in the 20's. Excellent read so far. It's no 'Sleeping Island' but they're on the same level.

Also found a used copy of Bark canoes and skin boats of North America. I see a lot of reviews of the newest versions from Amazon have complaints about the images, which are a very important part of the book, not being produced well. I found a copy from the 80's and they're great. Have just gotten started on it but so far it looks very interesting.

Alan
 
sunnybear09
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04/18/2017 04:42PM  
quote Whatsit: "I just bought a book about the civil war pow camp "Andersonville"
That will be my next book this spring"
e"

Is it the novel titled, "Andersonville" by I think Mackinley Cantor (that could be a brain f**t). Or the documentary account of the same name. I have read the novel, it was excellent.
 
mjmkjun
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04/18/2017 06:22PM  
Spring Fever is long gone here but currently reading J.W. Schultz's MY LIFE AS AN INDIAN. This would be a great book to read after Cache Lake Country by John J. Rowlands.
My next is James A. Michener's ALASKA.
 
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