Destination: Canada
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Travel Literature
To get you in the mood for your trip, consider reading some of these titles written by travelers who have visited Canada before you.
Part history, part adventure tale, Maps & Dreams: Indians and the British Columbia Frontier is Hugh Brody's colorful account of the ancient ways of a small band of Beaver nation Aboriginals in northwest Canada and their clash with modern civilization.
Jonathan Waterman takes a similar focus in Arctic Crossing, a personal journey through the Northwest Passage and into Inuit territory where he observes the progress, failures and history of the embattled Inuit people.
The Inuit referred to Victoria Jason as Kabloona in the Yellow Kayak (kabloona means 'stranger'), which became the title of this grandmother's compelling book about her 7500km paddling expedition from Churchill, Manitoba, to Tuktoyaktuk on the Beaufort Sea from 1991 to '94.
Humor, magic and sly literary conceits make David McFadden's Great Lakes Suites, a collection of vignettes about trips he took around Lakes Erie, Huron and Ontario, hallucinogenically funny and poignantly insightful.
Humorous at times, scholarly at others, Rediscovering the Great Plains by Norman Henderson is an engaging travel memoir recounting the author's adventures while exploring Saskatchewan's Qu'Appelle River Valley via horse, canoe and dogsled.
In Wilderness Journey, Ian and Sally Wilson weave a fascinating blend of their own travel adventures and tales from voyageur life as they follow in the footsteps of fur traders in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Finally, Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec, by Taras Grescoe, is an often laugh-out-loud book that introduces us to the hilarious and maddening foibles of the Quebecois. Linguistics, unsavory lust for poutine and the province's reputation as 'Canada's smoking section' are all artfully skewered by the author's dry wit.
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