Well, that was quite a summer — both good and bad. Some great moments and a tragic one.

Our family vacation to Georgian Bay was a great success. What a few weeks we had!  In fact, when the rest of the east coast of North America was plunged in to darkness by the massive power failure, our solar and propane cottage never blinked! It certainly gave me a new perspective on how to outfit a cottage.

We paddled throughout the rocky islands and clear, warm (!) water — all in all the next best thing to a northern canoe trip.

The sad news arrived on our second last day of vacation when we heard about the missing canoeists Dan Pauze and Susan Barnes.  It provoked some thoughts which I have shared with you all on page five.

We have reported on such incidents over the years but this is the first time we have been personally involved. It’s certainly a reminder of the dangers that are possible when travelling in rough country. Still, I would rather go somewhere in the Torngats than a freeway traffic accident!

We are honoured to have the incomparable Stew Coffin’s words grace our pages. This legendary northern paddler has written of his travels and the forthcoming book, My Black Spruce Journals, will be published next spring by Natural Heritage Books.

And I should correct something we wrote in the last issue. Stew did not have his knees replaced, his companion did, he says his are still fine which he attributes to youthful years picking tobacco.

And finally, Lands Forlorn. We have done a lot on this seminal 1914 book by George Douglas. This latest nugget regarding Robert Service got me thinking that this book is really the  Rosetta Stone of northern historical travel.

Douglas met and mingled with such an astonishing array of people; Hornby, Service, Radford & Street, Coronation Inuit, Father Rouviere and LeRoux and on it goes. This book would be a superb one to reprint - an idea we have been musing with. It needs a high quality job to reproduce the great photos that record a dying era. Maybe that’s a good project to dream about.

                                  Michael Peake