Best book I have read in long time

[AJMD429]

All the more special since my copy says "Lt. X.X.Xxxxx [my great grandfather], 13th Cavalry 1908". He is the guy I posted a picture of circa 1890 on our farm with the 32-20 Marlin I now own.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/145630237 ... -1&pi=SL75

The story is a true one of Dillon Wallace exploring the Canadian wilderness a couple years after his partner Leonidas Hubbard died on an earlier attempt (1903). It is so amazing to read how REMOTE and truly isolated these guys and the outposts and missions they visited really were. Just a decade later airplanes and radios then four more decades and satellite. Now GPS and satellite phones. Read this and envy their endurance and times they lived in. So much change since...technologic advances but socially worse in many ways.

I plan to reread it and loan it so I will soon get a less fragile copy vs. my heirloom one.

[jh45gun]

Thanks for the heads up the local library can get it inter library loan so I requested it.

[piller]

Most of us these days are just not capable of doing what was done by our forebears.

[nemhed]

Thanks for the heads up, Doc, and the mini review. For those interested, I see this is available for free as a Kindle download. And yes, the irony of reading about such an adventure on an e-reader won't escape me . If I like it enough Ill probably still buy a copy of it. For those who don't know, there are thousands of out-of-copyright classics available for free download to the various e-readers.

[Woodtroll]

This is indeed an excellent book! If you like this story, you might also find interesting two books on the other expeditions:

A Woman's Way through Unknown Labrador by Mina Hubbard, widow of Leonidas Hubbard, who completed the planned expedition with a separate crew during the same summer as Wallace's second, and

The Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace, the story of the first tragic expedition. I promise you will never take food for granted after reading this one!

Also very good is the story of a modern-day retracing of these expeditions, and an evaluation of the earlier expeditions:
Great Heart by Davidson and Rugge
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Heart-Labra ... 1568361688
This one plays up romance a little more, sort of in the style of Louis L'Amour, but it is still an excellent read if the originals interest you at all.

Wallace took a lot of criticism for his role and his decisions in the first expedition, but he went on to survive and become a pretty noted outdoor writer of that period. You'll have to read and decide for yourself if he did wrong or not!

Happy reading,
Regan

[airedaleman]

I have a copy of "the Lure of the Labrador Wild" -fifth edition, 1905. (Must have sold well back then.) Pretty chilling tale...

[Irelander]

Just grabbed the free e-book version. Thanks for the heads up.