Large new planning map of the Temagami region

I know posted this on our Facebook page but I thought we should put it onto our blog as well!

Large new planning map of the Temagami region of Northeastern Ontario. With over 4000 km of canoe routes and 1100 campsites together with over 30 significant and accessible stands of old growth pine forests.

Goes really we with Hap Wilson's updated book Temagami | 2nd Edition.

Features the best canoe, kayak and hiking routes in the wild Temagami region of Ontario. "Compiled by Hap Wilson, an outdoor writer who has more than thirty years of experience as a wilderness guide

. . . personally documented maps . . . far more information than a volume this size might lead the reader to expect." -- Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal

Temagami is one of the northern hemisphere's most desirable and pristine wilderness areas. Each year thousands visit this 10,000 km2 wilderness area in Central Ontario in search of rugged solitude and authentic backwoods adventure.

This comprehensive guidebook clearly details 25 of the best canoeing, kayaking and hiking routes and contains notes on the region's history, geography, archaeology, flora and fauna, as well as important outfitting, camping and safety tips. Trips include: Temagami to Lake Wanapitei Loop Marten River to Wicksteed Loop Lake Temagami Circle Loop Red Cedar to Jumping Cariboo Lake Loop Anima Nipissing and Jackpine Lake Loop Rabbit and Twin Lakes Loop Turner Lake Loop Matabitchuan River Route Nasmith and Obabika River Route Lady Evelyn, Makobe River, Montreal River Loop Anima Nipissing -- Montreal River Loop Maple Mountain Loop Sugar Lake, Muskego River Links Gowganda to Elk Lake Route Smoothwater Lake, Lady Evelyn River Loop Makobe Lake and Trethewey Lake Links Smoothwater Lake to Sturgeon River Route.

Hap Wilson show at TAG

We thought we would pass this along. Author and Artist Hap Wilson will be having a show the Temiskaming Art Gallery(TAG) on March 23rd to April 27th 2012! The Show opens Friday March 23rd at 7:30pm!!

Hap Wilson is a self-taught artist and photographer, he has travelled over sixty thousand kilometres by canoe and snowshoe, and embarked on more than three hundred wilderness expeditions. He is one of North America's best-known wilderness guides and canoeists, and has been building sustainable trails for more than thirty years. He is also the co-founder of the environmental group Earthroots. He lives in Rosseau, Ontario. for more information, please visit Hap's website at www.eskakwa.ca.

Recommend Reading:

Features the best canoe, kayak and hiking routes in the wild Temagami region of Ontario. "Compiled by Hap Wilson, an outdoor writer who has more than thirty years of experience as a wilderness guide . . . personally documented maps . . . far more information than a volume this size might lead the reader to expect." -- Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal Temagami is one of the northern hemisphere's most desirable and pristine wilderness areas. Each year thousands visit this 10,000 km2 wilderness area in Central Ontario in search of rugged solitude and authentic backwoods adventure.

One hundred years ago, a young doctor from Cleveland by the name of Robert Newcomb, travelled north to a place called Temagami. It was as far north as one could travel by any modern means. Beautiful beyond any simple expletive, the Temagami wilderness was a land rich in timber, clear-water lakes, fast flowing rivers, mystery and adventure. Newcomb befriended the local Aboriginals -- the Deep Water People -- and quickly discovered the best way to explore was by canoe. Bewitched by the spirit of an interior river named after the elusive brook trout, Majamagosibi, Newcomb had a remote cabin built overlooking one of her precipitous cataracts.

Hap Wilson is back for another journey, this time on the lighter side of the adventure trail, where the bizarre melds with the sublime. Nurtured by the writings of Canadian environmentalist and wannabe-Native, Grey Owl, Wilson adopted a lifestyle similar to the 1930s conservationist but with his own twists and turns along a meandering path full of humorous misadventures. Wilson, too, learned many of his nature skills as a youth, paddling in Temagami, working as a wilderness canoe ranger and guide, and following in the footsteps of one of Canada's most revered outdoor icons.

Hap Wilson's The Cabin back in print

We just got in new copies of Hap Wilson's book "The Cabin" which I am happy to see are back in print!!

Back in 2005 we had both Hap Wilson and Soren Bondrup-Nielsen in the store for a book signing. The year before Soren had written a great book called "Winter on Diamond: An encounter with the Temagami Wilderness" and at the time Hap Wilson's new book "The Cabin: A Search for Personal Sanctuary" had just come out. Unknown to all of us the 2 brothers who had built the Cabin that Both Soren and Hap had spent a winter in some 25 years before both showed up for the book signing. Below is a picture of all 4 gentlemen.



The Cabin: A Search for Personal Sanctuary
Hap Wilson

One hundred years ago, a young doctor from Cleveland by the name of Robert Newcomb, travelled north to a place called Temagami. It was as far north as one could travel by any modern means. Beautiful beyond any simple expletive, the Temagami wilderness was a land rich in timber, clear-water lakes, fast flowing rivers, mystery and adventure. Newcomb befriended the local Aboriginals -- the Deep Water People -- and quickly discovered the best way to explore was by canoe.

Bewitched by the spirit of an interior river named after the elusive brook trout, Majamagosibi, Newcomb had a remote cabin built overlooking one of her precipitous cataracts. The cabin remained unused for decades, save for a few passing canoeists; it changed ownership twice and slowly began to show its age. The author discovered the cabin while on a canoe trip in 1970. Like Newcomb, Hap Wilson was lured to Temagami in pursuit of adventure and personal sanctuary. That search for sanctuary took the author incredible distances by canoe and snowshoe, through near death experiences and Herculean challenges. Secretly building cabins, homesteading and working as a park ranger, Wilson finally became owner of The Cabin in 2000. Artist, author and adventurer, Hap Wilson is perhaps best known for his ecotourism/travel guidebooks.

He has led over 300 wilderness expeditions in Canada, and served as actor Pierce Brosnan's personal outdoor trainer for the feature film Grey Owl."This is a complex and fascinating story, beautifully told. At first, it draws us in because the author appears to be living the life we all dream of-a simpler life, close to nature, free from the stress and strain of our consumer culture. But the reality, with its myriad challenges, is what holds our attention and gives the book its substance."
- Judith Ruan, Muskoka Magazine

Winter on Diamond: An encounter with the Temagami Wilderness
Soren Bondrup-Nielsen

Winter on Diamond is the story of two young men who winter deep in the Temagami Wilderness, neighbouring with whiskey-jacks and the tall red pines. It is the remembrance of a fifty-year old biologist who discovered the power in life by lifting his feet one snowshoe-step at a time across a season of cold. Winter on Diamond, redefines the meaning of adventure, where the surprise is not the danger encountered but the impact experienced. No longer is it necessary to conquer mountains. Sometimes it’s more powerful to rest in a cabin with your closest friend, eat bannock, cut firewood, play cribbage, feed the red black vole that befriends you and trek through the cold night mesmerized by an outburst of stars.

Adventure in the Barrens talk at Chat Noir Books

Date: Friday March 2nd, 2012
Time: 6 p.m. to 8p.m.
Place: Chat Noir Books, New Liskeard

Come out this Friday and see local authors Murray Muir and Nico Roger, as they recount their grand adventures of four intrepid explorers on a 2011 journey from Yellowknife, NWT to Baker Lake, Nunavut.

Murray Muir

Murray began writing about places to explore for newspapers at the age of sixteen. When twenty, he hiked across B.C., through the bush and on trails, for three months. For the past quarter century Murray and Vicky Muir have been exploring, blazing and documenting hiking trails and out-of-the-way canoe routes throughout the Temagami/Temiskaming area. The new revised edition of Discovering Wild Temiskaming, One Day Adventures and Beyond is the culmination of their lifes work on the trail.

Nico Rogers

Nico Rogers is a storyteller and performance artist, and has appeared at writing and folk festivals across the country, as well as on TV and radio. He has taught writing and literature in post-secondary institutions in Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton and now lives in Toronto, where he is working on a novel which will be a thematic continuation of "The Fetch".




Also Recommend reading:

Late Nights on Air
by Elizabeth Hay

Harry Boyd, a hard-bitten refugee from failure in Toronto television, has returned to a small radio station in the Canadian North. There, in Yellowknife, in the summer of 1975, he falls in love with a voice on air, though the real woman, Dido Paris, is both a surprise and even more than he imagined.

Dido and Harry are part of the cast of eccentric, utterly loveable characters, all transplants from elsewhere, who form an unlikely group at the station. Their loves and longings, their rivalries and entanglements, the stories of their pasts and what brought each of them to the North, form the centre. One summer, on a canoe trip four of them make into the Arctic wilderness (following in the steps of the legendary Englishman John Hornby, who, along with his small party, starved to death in the barrens in 1927), they find the balance of love shifting, much as the balance of power in the North is being changed by the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, which threatens to displace Native people from their land.

Trails and Tribulations: Confessions of a Wilderness Pathfinder
by Hap Wilson | Ingrid Zschogner

In an age when "survival" shows permeate the media, noted northern traveller Hap Wilson shares accounts of his lifelong involvement with wilderness living within the Canadian Shield. Wilson knows better than most how to live in the woods. As park ranger, canoe guide, outfitter, trail builder, and environmental activist, he learned from firsthand experience that nature can neither be beaten or tamed. Trails and Tribulations takes the reader on a journey with the author through natural settings ranging from austere to mysterious and breathtaking. Contents include animal attacks, bush fires, the threat of hypothermia, and vision-quest sites, to name but a few.

Author Event with Hap Wilson and musical guest Headframe

Author Hap Wilson and illustrator Ingrid Zschogner will be in the store on August 20th with musical guest Headframe to talk about and sign copies of his new book "Grey Owl and Me: Stories From the Trail and Beyond"

The event will be from 6:30pm to 9:30pm.


About the Books

Hap Wilson is back for another journey, this time on the lighter side of the adventure trail, where the bizarre melds with the sublime. Nurtured by the writings of Canadian environmentalist and wannabe-Native, Grey Owl, Wilson adopted a lifestyle similar to the 1930s conservationist but with his own twists and turns along a meandering path full of humorous misadventures. Wilson, too, learned many of his nature skills as a youth, paddling in Temagami, working as a wilderness canoe ranger and guide, and following in the footsteps of one of Canada's most revered outdoor icons.

The author recounts early days winter camping, motorcycling the Labrador coast, and teaching actor Pierce Brosnan how to throw knives and paddle a canoe for the Richard Attenborough film about Grey Owl. He also takes us to a few of his favourite places and shares intimate secrets of wilderness living. Here, Grey Owl has returned as an ever-present critic -- a buckskin-clad spectre in a modern world of Gore-Tex, Kevlar canoes, and gear freaks.

Hap Wilson's New Book Grey Owl and Me

Hap Wilson's new book is out and we have it in stock here at the store!!

We are working on a date for a book signing with Hap hopefully some time at the end of June or early July. Local band Headframe will also here for the book signing event!

More to come soon!!

Grey Owl and Me: Stories From the Trail and Beyond (Paperback)
by Hap Wilson Illustrated by Hap Wilson and Ingrid Zschogner
Publisher: Dundurn

Hap Wilson is back for another journey, this time on the lighter side of the adventure trail, where the bizarre melds with the sublime. Nurtured by the writings of Canadian environmentalist and wannabe-Native, Grey Owl, Wilson adopted a lifestyle similar to the 1930s conservationist but with his own twists and turns along a meandering path full of humorous misadventures. Wilson, too, learned many of his nature skills as a youth, paddling in Temagami, working as a wilderness canoe ranger and guide, and following in the footsteps of one of Canada's most revered outdoor icons.

The author recounts early days winter camping, motorcycling the Labrador coast, and teaching actor Pierce Brosnan how to throw knives and paddle a canoe for the Richard Attenborough film about Grey Owl. He also takes us to a few of his favourite places and shares intimate secrets of wilderness living. Here, Grey Owl has returned as an ever-present critic -- a buckskin-clad spectre in a modern world of Gore-Tex, Kevlar canoes, and gear freaks.

Coming Events

We have a few great events happening at the store in the next few weeks. First off if you have been listening to CBC you know that tomorrow morning CBC Radio One will be hosting Morning North with Markus Schwabe from the store. Jenn and I are really excited, though not so excited about our wake up time.

Also Hap Wilson has a new book out called Trails and Tribulations: Confessions of a Wilderness Pathfinder. Hap will be here in the store on Saturday May 23rd along with Illustrator Ingrid Zschogner and the Band Headframe! The show will start at 7:30 pm on Saturday May 23rd.

Headframe will be opening up the evening with some great tunes, then Hap will talk about his new book. We will have books artwork and Cd's all available to be signed by the artists later on in the evening!