"There are few places left on the North American continent where men can still see the country as it was before Europeans came and know some of the challenges and freedoms of those who saw it first, but in the Canadian Northwest it can still be done".With these words Sigurd Olson begins The Lonely Land, the breathtaking account of a five-hundred-mile Canadian canoe journey. Olson and five companions retraced the waterways used by the Voyageurs, the Hudson Bay traders, and a succession of adventurers who used the mighty Churchill River as a major waterway from Hudson Bay to the Mackenzie. Now available for the first time in paperback, The Lonely Land tells two stories: that of Olson's expedition and that of the Voyageurs who came before them. The text is illuminated by historical quotes, maps, and research about life on the Churchill during the fur-trading years. But each chapter is driven by the beauty and challenges that faced Olson's group. The Lonely Land is a tribute to the unspoiled beauty of the deep wilderness and the rugged individuals past and present who take up a canoe paddle to explore it.