A contemporary account of tracking a historical explorer across Labrador. In the mode of Leonidas Hubbard and William Cabot, Hesketh Prichard set out with a group of adventurers in the early 1900s, determined to cross Labrador. Disregarding local advice, his expedition headed up a box canyon and climbed five-hundred-metre cliffs all with a canoe in tow—a gruesome portage. The canoe was later abandoned. The Lost Canoe is the account of the contemporary search for Prichard’s lost canoe. Over three summers Larry Coady coaxed friends and strangers into searching for Prichard’s canoe, retracing Prichard’s route, verifying landforms and campsites, and mapping the entire trail. Only hard-nosed hikers immune to blackflies and mosquitoes were enticed to participate. Prichard’s original 1910 photographs and accounts of his journey, published in Through Trackless Labrador, are paired with Coady’s own photographs and writings. The narrative that results reveals a struggle against the elements to cross the ancient landscape of northern Labrador, a subarctic mix of boreal forest and open tundra. The book will appeal to a broad audience, from historians and geographers to adventurers and hikers.
Lawrence Coady, a marine biologist, retired in 2001 from a thirty-year career with Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada. He is a member of the Newfoundland Historical Society and currently serves as vice-president of the organization. A keen hiker and photographer, the author continues to research and visit Labrador. He lives in St. John’s, NFLD.
Reviews
"Coady produces a convincing and comprehensive narrative...[The Lost Canoe] alternates between a more formal account of Hesketh Pritchard's life and journey and an often humorous protrayal of his own adventure. He excels at describing landscape and natural history and rivals some of the best writing on northern biting insects. Coady's efforts are a feisty as the flies he inevitably battled." —The Beaver
"Coady's language is clean, with a lexicographical flair that balances the use of terminology that only a wizened hiker/portager could love, or even understand. Coady revels in Labrador's geological and biological repertoire, sometimes at the expense of his revolving set of travel-mates...Coady himself, however, comes clear as a finely fledged companion: sharp, able and interested. The best kind to have on a long, strange trip." — The Globe and Mail
“Coady did not leave a stone unturned while doing his research.” —The Northern Mariner
"For armchair adventurers and serious outdoor trekkers alike, [The Lost Canoe] will make you feel like 'We had hiked through history'." -Atlantic Books Today