Paddle Quest: Canada's Best Canoe Routes

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation in Toronto.

Editor Alister Thomas invited a few dozen prominent Canadian paddlers to
contribute accounts of their favorite routes. Some of the essays are
lively and interesting; others are dryly descriptive.

Paul Mason of the celebrated Mason paddling clan provides an
entertaining account of paddling rapids at night on the Ottawa River
(“I expected we would be able to see [the rapids] okay by the light
from our white knuckles”). Group dynamics and challenging water are
recurring themes in Ric Driedger’s amusing account of a trip along
Saskatchewan’s Drinking River with fellow trip guides at the end of
the season. Michael Peake describes a trip along Morse River, named in
honor of Eric Morse, considered by many to be the dean of Canadian
wilderness canoeing.

Morse is one of the “distinguished Canadian paddlers” profiled in
the second part of the book. While most of the profiles are dry
recitations of the biographical highlights, a few manage to communicate
a sense of the real person behind the name. Sheena Masson helps us get a
true appreciation for Steve Cook of Nova Scotia, who upgraded his rapids
certification in his early 70s and was teaching his second generation of
young paddlers. The profiles of Brian Creer of British Columbia and
self-taught paddler Kevin Callan are two other standouts.

The book’s final section is about stewardship. Four essays make the
case for preservation of Canada’s inland waterways, experiential
education, and respect for the environment in general. Wally Schaber
presents a detailed blueprint for a system he feels would prevent the
first decade of the new millennium from becoming the last for wilderness
travel. Altogether, Paddle Quest contains uneven writing, but
consistently interesting essays.