Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canadas Arctic by Adam Shoalts

Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canadas Arctic Reviews

• 
  Arah-Lynda

  It has been a long while since I last read a true adventure story.
  
  And what a story this is.
  
  It’s about one man, travelling alone, primarily by canoe, following the Arctic’s rivers and lakes across Canada’s Arctic region. His name is Adam and his journey began in Eagle Plains, Yukon and culminated in Baker Lake, Nunavit. Planning and preparing for this unimaginable trek began well on three years ago.
  
  Take a look at a map and you will better appreciate the magnitude of such an undertaking. This is unrelenting and most unforgiving terrain my friends. A place where you can travel alone for months and never encounter another human being. Since he is travelling by canoe he must consider shifting ice floes and gale force winds across a land largely uninhabited, with barren terrain that offers scant protection from the elements. But there is life here, everywhere, from Grizzles and Muskox to Acrtic Terns. And there is beauty. Heart stopping, breathtaking beauty. But beware folks this is not a journey to be taken lightly!
  
  I was engaged from start to finish.
  
  Bring your waders and join us.
• 
  Brandon Forsyth

  I wish I liked this book more, but all I can really get to is admiration. Shoalts is everything you’d want from a modern day explorer: leaving only footprints, taking only photographs, respectful and humble to both local communities and the power of nature, all while doing some truly insane shit that helps bring awareness to larger issues. The only difficulty here is in reading page after page of portaging - if I can damn him with faint praise, Shoalts makes the interminable process of lugging supplies over the same patch of territory as tough to read as it must be to do. There’s some absolutely magical moments in this book, like when he comes across a family of wolves, but they’re few and far between.
• 
  Bandit

  I devour travelogues and travel adventures the way a thoroughly unadventurous stationary person might. Voraciously. So I came across this one on Netgalley and it’s advertised as written by Canada’s Indiana Jones. What? Ok, yeah, bring it. But what comes to mind trying to imagine a Canadian Indiana Jones? Like a really mild mannered, polite one? I mean, I don’t get how the comparison holds up, not based on this book anyway. This isn’t Indiana Jones, this is a guy who loves nature and solitude and crazily demanding endurance expeditions for the sake of pushing himself and proving he can do it. Which is great, but, you know, no treasures, no babes, no evil masterminds, none of that. An occasional fellow canoer and a few locals here and there, but otherwise a primarily solitary trip as a way to commemorate Canada’s sesquicentennial (that’s 150th for those forgetting their Latin) national celebration. So Adam Shoalts sets off to canoe across the Canadian Arctic. We’re talking forbidding climates, dangerous nature and at times impenetrably rugged terrain. And the idea is to canoe against the current in waters where even going with the current isn’t especially safe or easy. And all of this done completely alone. Depending on your perspective, this is either insanely exciting, insanely masochistic or plain insane. But obviously, Shoalts manages to complete his mission, otherwise there wouldn’t be a book about it. Or there would be, but you wouldn’t want to read it. So the bulk of the story is a man canoeing alone. It’s pretty exciting considering, because Shoalts has a definite talent for writing about nature. He’s obviously very, very passionate about it, but there is also a cinematic quality to his descriptions. But if you’re thinking you’re going to lean about different cultures, like the First Nation people living up north, there’s barely any of that. There’s some historical accounts of early exploits of the area. But mostly, one man, one canoe. And as much as I enjoy the peace of mind nature offers, this journey was just much too much to relate to the enjoyability of it. It sounded brutal and punishing in an unnecessary sort of way. Maybe I don’t relate to personal endurance quests that much. I always found endurance magic to be the least exciting of all magic too. David Blaine was so much more fun before he started pushing personal limitations of whatever the f. And there’s also the why of it all. Some of the brave and tragic souls that have boldly gone back in the day where Shoalts did recently did so for a proper reason, like discovering Northern passage or mapping out the territory. What would they think of someone undergoing such punishing privations for no reason but establishing some sort of personal record. I mean, I know some really get off on the idea of proving something originally deemed impossible possible, just not sure always as to why. But these are just some random thoughts and I don’t want it to seem like I didn’t enjoy the book, because I did. Surprisingly so, considering. From the relative comfort of my couch it was an enjoyable, albeit somewhat bewildering, trip plus it’s somewhere I’d certainly never travel to on my own, so thanks to the author that’s another place in the world checked out vicariously. Mine is the first review here on GR, hope it’s an encouraging one. No idea what Indiana Jones would think about all this, Probably something along the lines of general confusion. But fans of nature writing would delight in this trip. Thanks Netgalley.
• 
  Anne

  This is the sort of book I love to read in bed with the wind roaring outside and the rain lashing on the window. I'm tucked up cosy and comfortable reading about an adventurer canoeing alone across the north of Canada and having to sit it out for days because the ice is too thick to break through with out damaging his canoe. I sip my tea and give thanks that people like Adam Shoalts are driven to do these things so I can read about them!
  
  I am not in the least adventurous. I get panicked if I have to go to a new supermarket but I love to read about people who can push themselves beyond their limits - and survive. That's the main thing. Mr Shoalts takes his canoe through arctic conditions as a celebration of 150 years of Canada and it is terrifying at times but it is written in a quite matter of fact way. He talks about portage as if it is something added to the price of a bottle of port instead of carrying his belongings over several kilometres because the water ways are not appropriate for his canoe. And its not as if he just sits there paddling and enjoying the view because a lot of it, he has to push along the bottom to manoeuvre his canoe through rough terrain.
  
  He gives a potted history of the areas he goes through and he interacts occasionally - and increasingly unwillingly - with fellow humans but overall this is one man and his canoe describing his journey and it is excellent.
  
  I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.
• 
  Triumphal Reads

  *I did receive a digital version of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
  
  Se more reviews at
  www.triumphalreads.com
  
  After first reading the book was going to be about a 4,000 kilometer canoe trip, I knew it would be a pretty good travel story. However, after also reading that these 4,000 kilometers were also pretty much all above the Arctic Circle in the far north of Canada, I knew this would also be an excellent adventure story as well considering the harrowing conditions involved. Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada's Arctic by Adam Shoalts is the author's firsthand account of this epic endeavor that he completed in 2017 and reads as a monumental travelogue.
  Unfortunately, despite essentially being a travel journal of the highest order, this in part becomes the work's largest flaw. While much of what the author is doing on this adventure is grand in scope and is also quite detailed, the work bogs down frequently with what becomes almost a play-by-play of the days and weeks of this journey. This is magnified by the fact that many of the scenarios involved on this canoeing trip are by nature repetitive. Namely that the author canoes upriver in unfavorable conditions, followed by a portage to the next body of water (that has to be done usually three times to carry all of his gear and supplies), followed by a period of relatively easier going. Many of the obstacles along this journey were the same such as having to wade through the water dragging his canoe behind him or having to portage over rocky terrain. While the names of the rivers were different, it just seemed many of the stretches of the journey were very similar to each other so that a day by day rendition of the trip became quite repetitive.
  There were also a few other downsides to the book as well. Probably most strikingly is the question of the purpose or the real reason why the author did this journey in the first place. Without this why it did seem that the trip, while epic for sure, didn't seem to have a whole lot of meaning behind it. There is some vague gesturing to celebrating Canada's sesquicentennial, but to be honest it's not really clear why this would be a celebration of that anniversary and after that the question of why is never addressed. And this leads sort of to my last disappointment with the work in that because the purpose and why of the journey is not really addressed, but only the how, much of what I was expecting in the work simply wasn't part of the book. There wasn't much deep reflection on the actual nature and environment of Canada's Arctic aside from the immediate physical path and obstacles on his journey. Every now and then there were token musings and reminisces on such topics in most chapters, particularly with some of the wildlife he encountered, and it just left me wanting more. Part of this was due to the author's time-crunch in completing his journey before the weather became too dangerous, but it just seemed that while he was indeed alone in the arctic wilderness he couldn't appreciate and soak in all that was around him due to always having to be on the move and progressing towards the goal. However, I am sure that in real life the author certainly did appreciate these sorts of things, it just may not have come across well in the book.
  Now, that isn't to say that there wasn't anything good in this adventure work. Far from it. Just as a pure travel journal on how the author actually physically made this trip is mind boggling. Considering the scale involved of being above the Arctic Circle for months completing a 4,000 kilometer journey by himself, the fact the author accomplished it is amazing. The how-to and perseverance of the author tackling problems and obstacles left and right on his journey was certainly a highlight. Even though the narrative might have been repetitive it was interesting to learn about different ways of canoeing and traversing through rough waters and terrain with a canoe. He also show that with practice, skill, and determination a single person can accomplish astounding things. Lastly, I felt the author was at his best when writing about his encounters and sightings of wildlife with a particular favorite being the family of wolves he observed towards the end of his trip.
  Overall, Beyond the Trees by Adam Shoalts was an interesting and detailed description of how one actually does a canoe trip across the Canadian Arctic. While the detailed day by day nature of the work may not be for everyone, no one could deny the immensity of the completing such an undertaking and this alone makes it a worthy read.
  3.5 out of 5 stars.
  
• 
  Ben Gigone

  My first travel log and I enjoyed it a lot. Would’ve loved to get inside Shoalts’ head a little bit more as the majority was simply describing the physicality of the trek. Adding a star because he’s a local homie and way cooler than I am.
• 
  Dorine

  Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada’s Arctic by Adam Shoalts is an amazing, adventurous true story that makes the heart yearn for desolate, wild places. Most significant is how any human can make a trip of this magnitude all alone. I constantly feared for Adam’s safety and sanity.
  
  See the full color review at my blog,
  TheZestQuest.com
  
  I can relate to the magnificence of the wilderness, but I enjoy it with a few more conveniences. This book enthused me with its awareness to be in tune with my own surroundings. Although I was on the fringe of a state forest in a tiny camper with running water and electricity while reading this book, I envied Adam his fearlessness and physical ability. His words made me yearn for solitude and oneness with nature.
  
  Not that I don’t feel that way when I camp. It’s why I go. But I very avidly lived through his experiences with a wistful heart.
  
  It’s hard to believe that 288 pages of repetitive landscape and animal sightings can be so fascinating, but I thoroughly enjoyed this adventure. Each bend in a river, or lap of the waves when he reaches shore held me captive.
  
  As with any adventure, there’s danger – real or imagined. Nothing worthwhile is done without fear. I lived it with Adam, hoping he survived and flourished because of his experiences.
  
  After reading this book, I can easily imagine a week or two of wilderness trekking. But months all alone through treacherous terrain? Not even. I think the hardest part would be to be without my camera. Even though I’m sure I’d never forget an experience like this, I’d miss the photos to jog my memory of the small details we inevitably forget. The view of pristine, untouched by man, wildlife and scenery had to make all Adam’s sacrifices worth it.
  
  In the end, the book made me smile. Make sure you read it cover-to-cover, including the acknowledgements.
  
  Beyond the Trees is perfect for every nature enthusiast, with the call of the wild to enhance your arm-chair adventure. Recommended!
  
  Review by Dorine, courtesy of
  TheZestQuest.com. A digital advanced copy was provided by the publisher for an honest review. Thanks in advance for following links and sharing this review on social media.
  
• 
  Chantel

  In an unprecedented feat, Shoalts journey across the arctic in a single season. His book depicts both wonderful & harrowing scenes of the Canadian landscape. I enjoyed reading about his efforts, very much.
  
  Canada is a large landmass — the landscape could be painted a thousand times over & still there would be more to appreciate & love. Reading about the first-person experiences & knowledge from Shoalts truly made this read enjoyable.
  
  That being said, this book did feel longer than it was. I admit, there were times when my eyes would skim over parts of the retelling because I felt them to be longer than necessary. I take full ownership on that — this is not a reflection of the quality of the read but rather that I don’t enjoy very long descriptions, shall we say.
  
  If you would like to read a lovely story about the Canadian wilderness; places untouched and beautiful, this book will definitely do it justice.
• 
  Louise

  I was expecting to be entertained by a great adventure story. I was not. I was bored most of the way through. It did not help that I listened to this in audio, narrated by the author with his dull, monotone voice. Audiobook narration should be left up to the professionals....
  
  I also think the author has a fixation with the word "portage" because it must be used over a thousand times in the book.
• 
  David Philpott

  The book is not what I expected, but I suppose that is my fault. I was hoping to learn about what drives a man to spend four months alone crossing 4 000 km of Arctic tundra. But Adam didn't write so much about why. He wrote about how. This book was a detailed account of his day-to-day travel and strategies he used. If you were planning a similar trip this book would be very useful. But for me, as a casual reader, I was a little bored. Kudos to Adam though, I still struggle to believe he actual made this expedition happen!
• 
  Brandon

  In the spring of 2017, author and adventurer Adam Shoalts embarked on an ambitious project. For four months, Adam would travel alone across Canada’s arctic region by canoe. The four thousand kilometer trek would see Shoalts go weeks without human contact as he would battle dangerous terrain, ice-packed water and horrendous winds. I haven’t even mentioned the threat of wildlife! Bears, wolves and muskoxen would threaten his safety. Oh, and don’t forget the hordes of black flies chomping at even the slightest bit of exposed skin.
  
  No humans, though. That sounds pretty good right about now.
  
  There’s something romantic about remote isolation. Don’t get me wrong, I am the last person on this planet equipped to “live off the land”, but to sit alone on a wide open expanse under the endless breadth of a starry sky just captures my imagination. As a species, we’re better equipped for something like this today as opposed to the late 1800s where many explorers would attempt to conquer the top of the planet only to be met with disaster.
  
  For Adam Shoalts, this wasn’t his first rodeo. This is actually something he does often. In fact, he’s written a handful of books about it. Just a few years ago to be specific, he ventured into the Hudson Bay Lowlands – not far from where his journey would conclude in this book.
  
  The courage and determination it took to make this journey should absolutely be commended. Shoalts took a real beating from the elements over the weeks and months in between Eagle Plains, Yukon and Bayer Lake, Nunavut but it all became a bit repetitive after a while. To be honest, not a lot happens to Adam. Thankfully, he’s more than capable of taking care of himself when danger arrives on his doorstep and because of this, it’s not what I would consider a page turner. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t rooting for Shoalts to experience a life-or-death situation, but it very much reads like someone who faced little adversity outside of the physical toll such a journey must extract.
  
  Still, I liked reading Shoalts’ tangents into others’ past failed attempts to navigate the north. He offers up some interesting history about the region and why it’s such a risk to attempt to cross the Canadian Shield. Along his journey, he would walk past long since abandoned shacks as well as a memorial for a couple lost among the rapids. It’s not an area that welcomes inhabitants from down south. I enjoyed learning about the wildlife that make up the unforgiving ecosystem – well, maybe not the black flies.
  
  Beyond The Trees is a testament to one’s drive to accomplish the seemingly impossible. I will say one thing – after reading this book, I never want to have to portage a canoe in my entire life.
• 
  Wendelle

  really great travel journal of one person's test of the human limits of mental and physical perseverance, in pursuit of contact with nature in the Canadian north. There is no bloat in this account, no torturous ruminations of the author's self-sacrifice, but not much record of the author's inner reflections or epiphanies either. Rather, this is a meticulous record of the author's encounters and experiences, visual descriptions of the harsh but unique landscape, close-ups with wildlife like the muskox, clear travel log of the author's daily setbacks and navigation choices, that altogether sum up to a wonderful vicarious experience of an Arctic canoe adventure for the reader. It was kind of worrisome how lean the author's operations was, how isolated and lonesome his travel mechanism was and how shoestring his budget was-- he was always teetering on the edge of hunger, his uncharted path choices and near-threadbare exposure to the elements thankfully did not lead to some medical emergency.
• 
  Lorena

  Phenomenal adventure. Kind of a weird feeling at the end where there weren't any significant mishaps or intense drama but he portrays the journey so well that it still doesn't feel possible to be replicated. Also loved how much random facts were interspersed. It would be hard to make a trip like this boring to read, but Shoalts does better than that. Solid read.
• 
  Natasha Penney

  A wonderful adventure story with ambition, imagination and courage. So. Much. Portaging detail weighed down the narrative at times. But Shoalts does have a gift for telling a really good story. Considering the source material he had to draw from, I am not surprised at all I enjoyed this book.
• 
  Robin Nemeth

  I simply, loved this book.
  
  To me, Adam had a way of bringing to life the barren wilds of the Arctic. What could have been a very fact filled and dry account of his journey was turned into something utterly fascinating.
  
  By no means an I am adventurer like Adam, but I definitely connect with finding calm and peace and being reenergized by nature. I love hiking and paddling and the simple calm overlooking a body of water, or the utter awe looking up in a stand of trees. That’s my cathedral in life.
  
  While reading Adam’s journey, I got those same feelings and could connect with his story. It has sparked that live of adventure back in me and I can’t wait FlyIn take my snowshoes out and go traipsing across the surface of freshly fallen snow, feeling the crisp air filling my lungs.
  
  Thank you for your passion of adventure and the outdoors and working to preserve our open and wild places in Canada.
• 
  Karrie

  Part personal journey, touches on history and black flies. Shoalts describes his journey in detail, but aside from it having not been done previously - there wasn't anything particularly unique about the voyage. I understand the constant peril he was in, but I thought more joy would be expressed. Perhaps this is better suited to people who don't live in Canada.
  
  My favourite part was him talking about how awkward it was when he encountered people after being alone for so long. The part that grated on my last nerve was in listening to the audio book - he pronounced escape excape - and it happened often. I know I'm petty.
• 
  Cindy Wiedemer

  Wow! I was not prepared for this book. I was wonderful. It was a random find and then I was put off by something I read about the author being cocky and over confident making for unpleasant reading. I will say, except for in very minor places, where honestly he probably has every right to brag (he canoed up a river everyone told him was impossible to do) I couldn't put this book down. The way he writes, the insertion of stories/history of places, people tales of areas he passed was absolutely wonderful for the history geek in me. The description of the landscape and animals wasn't over done which I can personally find boring of over done was wonderfully done. My only criticism if you can call it that, is the small number of images included, I would have loved images to have been within the pages or at least at each section to fill in the beauty of the landscape he describes. What an amazing way to build awareness for the loss we see every day throughout Canada and the world of the vast landscape and wilderness. And I say he has earned bragging rights. I will add, sometimes when anyone tells a tale from the past of an expedition where everyone was lost and states, this is what happened, pulls at my brain, how do you know their canoe was fatally hit by winds, overturned and they all drowned, if they all drowned? Just something I personally noticed in not only this book, but others as well. I highly recommend this book and hope to read more of his in the future.
• 
  Heather

  Hi, another reminder that I'm deleting all this and transitioning to only using The StoryGraph at the end of this year.
  Find me here.
  
  --
  
  I may edit this review to gush more over this book. THIS BOOK.
  
  It's somehow entertaining, inspiring, relatable, otherworldly, funny, educational, and incredibly precise. The author's voice is incredibly well-formed and his storytelling throughout is impeccable.
  
  I have revelled in reading this - I kept drawing out finishing it. (Plus, due to the aforementioned incredible preciseness, I spent equally as much time tracing Adam's route via Google Maps as I did reading the book.) This book has been my companion on all of my solo camping expeditions this year, which happened to include my first-ever (truly) solo night camping. I can't praise it highly enough.
  
  I will now proceed to devour the rest of the author's published works. But first, one of my favourite quotes from this one:
  
  

  "We tend to think of the world as a fast-shrinking place, where modern technology has bridged distances. That's partly true. But the funny thing is, if you get out on the land in a canoe or on foot, the world remains just as big as it ever was."
• 
  Sarah

  4000 km solo journey by foot and canoe across Canada’s arctic. Adam’s greatest challenge? Bears? Wolves? ...... Blackflies! Good descriptions of the landscapes and his physical endurance but what was lacking was introspection, reflection.
• 
  Maria

  I have a bit of a backlog of reviews to write, but I decided to start with Adam Shoalts' book, Beyond the Trees, because it's the one that stands out the most in my memory. 
  
  Adam Shoalts is a Canadian adventurer that had his 15 minutes of fame when he discovered a waterfall canoeing the Hudson Bay lowlands that wasn't shown on any maps. From there he landed a job as Explorer in Residence with the Canadian Geographic Society, which pretty much sounds like the coolest gig in the world to me. 
  
  In honour of Canada150 in 2017, he decided to do something extraordinary and canoe his way across the entire arctic circle in one summer. Now that sounds pretty wild to me already, but it reality, it's even more wild than it sounds. There's no obvious river that follows along the entire arctic circle, so Shoalts created his own 4000 km route across the great white north, canoeing dozens of rivers, many kilometers of portaging, and even canoeing across Great Bear Lake. And he did all of this solo.
  
  Nothing makes me happier than exploring the great outdoors, so everything about this book enthralled me. What I liked most about the book was the realization that Canada still has so much unexplored and uninhabited wilderness. There's really no where else in the world you could go where you could travel 4000km and only see about a half dozen people throughout 4 months. It really was just Adam and his canoe and the great wildness of the north.
  
  Now upon reading this, it immediately becomes evident that Shoalts is not your average adventurer. It was easy to think from the outset that he was just a normal guy with big ideas, but don't be fooled, he is a very experienced outdoorsman. He starts off by hiking 300km up the Dempster highway in Yukon in like 6 days and then proceeds to beat every single distance expectation he sets for himself on the trip, arriving early to each milestone. 
  
  He starts his canoe adventure on the Mackenzie River and we are shocked to find out that not only does he plan to canoe 4000km, he plans to paddle more than half of it upriver. That's right, more than half of his journey was against the current and in some rivers, against rocks and rapids. He travels using a number of different techniques, sometimes paddling, sometimes poling (using a long stick to push upriver against the bottom), sometimes dragging the canoe with a rope from the shore, and of course, portaging. A few times he even rigs up a little sail to his canoe to propel him upstream when the wind is behind him.
  
  All in all, the journey takes him from the end of May to early September. He had to time the trip to leave right after the ice flows broke up in the river and planned to arrive at Great Bear Lake once the ice had broken up there as well. Unfortunately, it was a late spring and he had the added challenge of fighting against the ice on several parts of his journey.
  
  Anyways. I don't want to give it all away, but it's safe to say this book captivated me. I can't really pinpoint exactly why, his writing is pretty straightforward and honestly it's not very introspective, so it was really just how incredible this journey was that propelled me through the book. I could see it not being for everyone, there's a lot of descriptions of paddling and portaging that could get tedious. Plus I wish he'd spent a little more time on self reflection, but even still, I loved the book. I read complaints on his other book that he came across as really arrogant, I did not get that vibe at all in this book and actually thought him reasonably humble, so it seems like something he's working on since his last book.
  
  His journey was a real test of endurance and I have to conclude that Adam may be part machine to have undertaken it so quickly. It's amazing to think of so much untouched wilderness. Thanks to Adam for sharing it with us!
• 
  Scott C

  This is probably the hardest review I have ever written. First, right up front let me say, I really enjoyed this book. It is well written, wonderful story and having spent time in the north myself I could picture everything Adam was seeing and describing. An amazing journey! But there is a very big BUT.....
  
  This book really needs massive caveats. DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY OF THIS ON YOUR OWN. This is one of those books that drives people to try and imitate and they will die. The adventure, the landscape, the animals, the dream of being alone and living in the wild are all there - and that is dangerous to the untrained. Reminds me of "Into the Wild". I am sorry Adam, you fought mother nature this entire trip and most people do not fight mother nature and live to tell about it. You had an angel on your shoulder the entire trip.
  
  Tying in with fighting mother nature, IMO, Adam became obsessed with the goal and putting miles in, to the point of risking his life. It is clear that Adam loves nature, the unspoiled world and the simpler things in life (and we all should) but by driving to goals he never stopped to REALLY enjoy what was around him. He did not explore the ruins he came across, take a day to just lay on the tundra and enjoy a beautiful day, to fish for some fresh food, etc..... it was all about "how many miles can I do today and I must finish this trip".
  
  (Spoiler below)
  
  This was being done for the Canada 150 but he did not arrive to media or celebration, he quietly paddled into town. In the end, this was Adam's own Canada 150 and not something the rest of Canada celebrated. A shame, and if it had caught the nations attention, driving those miles would have been more accepting to me as the reader instead, it became Adam having the self satisfaction of achieving the goal. But as Adam gets older, I think he will learn that the self satisfaction is not about goals but about maximizing and enjoying the journey itself. Stop and smell the roses.
  
  Again, totally my opinion and not taking away from Adam's amazing journey and this wonderfully written book. I look forward to more of his adventures. I am a huge fan of the message in this book that these untamed lands must be protected and the wonders that Canada has needs to be seen to fully appreciate.
• 
  Kaeli Wood

  This is a fine piece of travel writing, as Adam Shoalts' voice is funny and thoughtful and his journey is a unique and eventful one. The thing that holds it back from being great travel writing, however, is significant: this book lacks an emotional core. Most travel books need this to really hold together as a coherent "story," and this one reads more like a well-edited copy of someone's travel journal. It's just an account of a journey; it's not a memoir, or a persuasive essay, or even a story that "needed to be told." It's just an account of something this guy did. I don't have any strong sense of him as an individual, or a lasting emotional impression; I've just read some nice descriptions of the landscapes of the north. They were very well rendered descriptions, and his encounters with wildlife were colourful enough to compel me to keep reading, but there was no tension in the book other than, "is he going to make it?" which, for GREAT travel writing, is not strictly enough.
  
  Some examples of what I mean by travel writing with an "emotional core:"
  
  -Journeys that were taken on by necessity, not by choice (prison and POW escape stories mostly, such as ESCAPE FROM CAMP 14, THE LONG WALK, and SEVEN YEARS IN TIBET, etc)
  -journeys where the traveller is dealing with a personal issue or healing in some way (divorce in EAT PRAY LOVE, grief in WILD, phobia of the ocean in LOVE WITH A CHANCE OF DROWNING, a variety of past relationships in 127 HOURS, etc)
  -journeys where something went horribly wrong (mountaineering disasters like INTO THE SILENCE, INTO THIN AIR, and ANNAPURNA: A WOMAN'S PLACE, or other kinds of disaster such as in INTO THE WILD, LOST IN MONGOLIA or 127 HOURS again, etc)
  -journeys through a land for which the author has a deep and truly abiding fascination (TRAVELS IN SIBERIA, most American road trip narratives, etc.)
  
  Okay, so you could argue that Shoalts has an abiding fascination for the Canadian north, but it seems to me more like what he's into is "wilderness," and he'll take that where he can get it. I think for a truly compelling fascination or love affair with a landscape, you need to love the culture as well as the geography. And Shoalts isn't here to tell you about culture. While I personally think encounters with fellow travellers and locals are some of the most interesting parts of travel narratives, Shoalts avoids other people, preferring to stick to his own company and the wild. This is what makes me categorize his book in a travel subgenre called "journeys just because" with Paul Theroux's GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR, a travel book I do not like.
  
  What saves BEYOND THE TREES from being terrible like GRB is is just a matter of setting. Both Theroux and Shoalts are obvious misanthropes, but since Shoalts is travelling through unpopulated areas, his account is pretty good-natured, whereas Theroux, who made the willing decision to travel solo through the most populous continent, shares a really mean-spirited account wherein he resents and is rude to everyone who interrupts him reading LITTLE DORRIT on the train, ruining the most interesting part of his journey-- the people. Like, if we wanted to read LITTLE DORRIT, we would. Theroux's bad attitude makes not only for a bad traveller, but for bad travel writing, since instead of wonder, intrigue or informative content, the takeaway is "everyone who rides on trains, all the way from Turkey to China, is super annoying."
  
  So what saves Shoalts' book from being dreadful is that, while Theroux seems to loathe every fellow traveller he meets, Shoalts obviously has no antipathy for the individuals he comes across-- but of course, those individuals are largely muskox, grizzlies, wolves etc.
  
  Anyways. This has become a rant on what makes travel writing good, and it's probably not fair to Shoalts to spend so much of this review talking about how I think Theroux sucks. I'll conclude by saying that this book could have been great if he'd spent the journey reflecting on his failed interpersonal relationships or overcoming some other great emotional struggle, using the story to drive home a persuasive point like revealing the effects of climate change on this vulnerable region, or even just chatting up other canoeists he met on the way.
  
  It also would have been really good if he'd talked more about the Indigenous peoples of the lands he travelled across. Sure, once in a while he would mention Indigenous people in local history, but only when they played a part in settler narratives, like voyageurs who took Dene guides with them on fur trade expeditions. Even the concept of "wilderness" is a settler colonial one, and Shoalts spends a lot of time singing praises to the "untouched" and "empty" land in a way that strikes one as a bit short-sighted, especially as this journey was undertaken for the controversial Canada 150, and could have been used to reveal the changes, injustices and struggles that those 150 years hath wrought. This land, after all, is much older than 150 years old, so why not show us why the sesquicentennial is significant here? A way to insert an emotional core into this book would have been to dive into the histories, presents and futures of the Indigenous peoples of these territories since (or even before) Confederation, and/or to draw attention to how climate change and industrial development threaten northern communities. Even a few land acknowledgements would have made this a better book. But I guess acknowledging human geography in any really meaningful way would have ruined the "misanthropic bushman" vibe of the book.
  
  I realize all that I've said is pretty negative, and at the end of this review I even considered bumping it down to 2 stars. All this aside, this isn't a terrible book, and as I said at the beginning, Shoalts writes well and spins an interesting enough travel narrative. It just isn't great.
• 
  Ben Rogers

  Interesting and engaging, but the writing was juvenile. I felt like I was reading a middle schooler's journal.
  
  2.9/5
• 
  Nicole S

  I've never posted a review on here before, but my emotions about this book are so conflicting that I feel I must. So here we go! Never before have I debated between giving a book a 5-star or a 1-star review.
  
  The desire to give this book a 5-star rating comes from an intense admiration for our author. He has the courage to take on an incredible task and demonstrates impressive knowledge, skills, and life experiences along the way. I loved how he approached his journey with a quiet respect and humility toward nature. I laughed and related to how wild geese provided him with more meaningful social interaction than human beings.There were one or two magical moments with other wildlife.
  
  And yet. I was incredibly disappointed with this book. I kept waiting for the author to tap into the emotional journey that inevitably occurs alongside the physical one. I kept reading and hoping for the author to study his motivations for his adventure, to reflect on his life - or the world, the human-nature connection, the climate crisis, the meaning of home, a tree, a particularly unique species of moss, anything really - in an authentic and personal way. I'm just not buying that Adam Shoalts can set out on an adventure of this scale and not be an extremely compelling human being with a unique perspective on the world. I kept reading and hoping to learn more about him or connect to his adventure in some way. It just didn't happen.
  
  I am so disappointed. I wanted to love this book. But it seems the author embarked on a thrilling, grueling, and wildly impressive 5-star adventure, and then wrote a 1-star book about it.