Summer North of Sixty

by James Raffan

This account of a canoe trip by six canoeists travelling across the Barrens in the Keewatin district of the Northwest Territories from Yellowknife via the Back River and Burnside River to Bathurst Inlet in the summer of 1980 includes discussion of the value of wilderness and description of an Inuit drum dance.

229 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Phill · Rating 3 out of 5]

The journey was interesting but was marred by too much “native good/everybody else bad”. This type of generalization is not constructive. For example: The unrelated overt criticism of Franklin, deservedly or not, was not near the subdued and seemingly brushed off Dene massacre of Inuit. The core story of the paddlers journey was what I read the book for and for this was satisfied with good writing. The moot preaching of a romanticized view of native existence a hundred years ago, whom with high powered rifles and diesel skidoo’s today, is not explained as the contradiction it is.