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Disappointment River
- Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage
- Narrated by: Brian Castner
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's Summary
In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie traveled the 1,125 miles of the immense river in Canada that now bears his name, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, only to confront impassable pack ice. In 2016 the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey - and discovered the passage he could not find.
Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports listeners back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of energy extraction and climate change. Eleven years before Lewis and Clark, the Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie actually crossed the North American continent with a team of voyageurs and Indian guides. Before that he was the first to discover a route to the Arctic Ocean from the Great Lakes, along the river he named Disappointment because he believed he'd failed in his mission to find a trade route to the riches of the East. In fact he had - he was just two-plus centuries early.
In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels in an 1,125 mile canoe voyage down the river that bears his name, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white-water rapids, and the threat of bears. He transports listeners to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote Native American villages, and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that is quickly becoming a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.
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- Alex White
- 2024-03-29
The up's and downs of the unknown
Amazing listen and recommend it to all people who love history and adventure. It had me hanging in right till the end, love how the author flipped from the past to present! Great read.
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- Marcella Matzeit
- 2020-05-22
Great juxtaposition between the past and the present
I really enjoyed this story, I rarely go for adventure tales but I couldn’t stop listening to this one!
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- C.
- 2023-01-03
Midnight Sun From the River!
I enjoyed listening to this book very much. The intersperse of the authors experiences with the historical accounts of Alexander’s was very effective and realistic.
I experienced the Mackenzie River myself in the 70’s as a Smoke Jumper stationed at Fort Simpson. I canoed the river in my limited spare time and flew over the entire length. Yes I jumped out of an airplane while in view of the river, only to land in the river and have to swim ashore. With gear on! It was for practice they said.
Thank you for refreshing my memories, it has been quite emotional book for me!
CRS
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- J Dave
- 2023-03-14
Great Book
What a great idea to paddle a historical and import river and tell the historic story and your current story together. Mackenzie’s story needs to be better known, the trip alone is only half the story, the encounters tell so much more about the people and how they lived and interacted. Thanks.
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