"I dig out my Canada map and scan the country to the east. A few hundred miles away, on the Mackenzie River, I spot Fort Simpson. Now I'm more than pleased that I loaded extra fuel at Tagish Air. After crossing the Mackenzie Mountains, I'll intercept Canada's "Grand Canyon" of the South Nahanni River and land at Virginia Falls, a 315-foot-high spectacle that eclipses Niagara Falls. Perhaps I'll stop at Glacier Lake, a wilderness rival of Banff's Lake Louise, or, if the weather holds, camp beside a lovely beach at Little Doctor Lake."
"The Cub climbs at full throttle toward the peaks of the Selwyn Range, where I cross the Continental Divide and return to the Northwest Territories. In dreamlike serenity, the Cub floats past 9,000-foot Mount Sir James MacBrien, soaring above sculpted snow fields as pristine as those of the Coastal Range until a glittering finger of water at Mount MacBrien's base finally slips into sight. I throttle back, letting the Cub slalom down to Glacier Lake, the crown jewel of the Ragged Range. S-turning through sweeping turns, the Cub and I descend through valley-cradled air."
"As I coast to a stop beside a placid stream at the edge of a quiet beach, a stellar jay flits toward the mountain's vertical face. My eyes follow the jay, then climb six thousand feet of glistening rock to the pinnacles far above. At the foot of the mountain, a meadow bathes in sunlight, green and soft as a fantasy."
"Spotting an odd-looking object protruding from the reeds, I remove my boots and socks, and wade through the frigid water toward what becomes a set of moose antlers. I'd love to take t hem home, but they'd never fit in the Cub, and they'd raise aerodynamic havoc if I strapped them to the floats. Still, I can't ignore such a find, so I haul the antlers back to camp and hoist them onto the Cub for a unique photograph. Backed by MacBrien's towering columns, the yellow Cub gleams at the edge of a sparkling stream, sporting a dark brown moose-antler hood ornament."
..."Immersed in mountain silence, I stand at the end of the float, trout in hand as a majestic array of snow-capped peaks spreads mirror images across the lake's opalescent green. At the head of the lake, the highest peak in the Territories guards the Cirque of the Unclimbables, an amphitheater of vertical faces that are sought by skilled climbers from around the world. Surrounded by such Macchu Picchu-like beauty, I understand why so many native Americans honoured the land and rejected the white man's heaven."
"An appallingly thin lynx walks into camp in the midst of my supper. Long-legged, with big feet and pointed Spock-like ears, the lynx strolls calmly past, not far from my hissing stove. It must be aware of me, but the scruffy animal hardly gives me a glance. Perhaps it had just passed through the depths of the endless ten-year-long boom-and-bust cycle of hare and lynx populations, and it isn't about to let pointless distractions sap its strength."

Sometimes you read a book that so entrances you with the quality of its observations, its setting descriptions and the lyrical quality of the writing, you feel you know the person intimately who is writing his account of a solo months' long trip to the Canadian Arctic. Minnesotan George Erickson, a retired dentist and amateur bush pilot who flies a refurbished period Piper Cub loves flying, loves nature, loves wilderness and decided he'd take time to make one last protracted trip.

He sees and experiences all that nature is capable of throwing at him, from forest fires to wild winds, killer whales, muskoxen, caribou and polar bears. He is calm in facing quick-witted decision making, excited about unique exposures to events that he can immediately share with no one else. Casual and practical, his mind and his appreciation of the vast area he traverses from Churchill on Hudson Bay, Chantrey Inlet on the Arctic Sea, Northwest Territories, Coppermine and Yellowknife.

He fills his book with the thoughts that pass his mind, memories of past such excursions with friends, and you are left with the sense that this man in his mature years has planned this trip as one that will cap his adventurous soul with 'complete'. But apart from his wonderfully poetic writing style, he is also a consummate story-teller and an erudite student of history, both ancient and current, taking in philosophy, astronomy, science, biology, human nature and the nature of survival.

I do read quite a lot of such books. Of personal accounts of travel to the Arctic, Antarctica, the Himalayas in period narrative form and through biographies. This American man's passion for the Canadian North and his love of the wilderness, his casual approach to his responsibility to his own security are all impressive, but it is his writing style that is utterly captivating. After reading a book of this calibre it's hard to settle down to successive books because your mind tends to compare writing skills and the capability of another writer to bring you sympathetically into the circle of their thoughts.

I had to put aside two books I started after reading George Erickson's True North, Exploring the Great Canadian Wilderness by Bush Plane published in 2000 by Thomas Allen Publishers. Eventually I picked up another: PaddleNorth, Adventure, Resilience, and Renewal in The Arctic Wild by Jennifer Kingsley, a young woman who set out with five good friends, all athletic like herself, accustomed to handling a canoe under all conditions, and determined to paddle the Arctic's Back River.

Where George Erickson battled ferocious winds, heavy rain, soot-blackened skies from wildfires, Jennifer Kingsley and her crew also faced raging winds, sea ice and wild rapids. They saw grizzlies, came across wolves frequently and saw caribou in their northern wilderness adventure of a lifetime. Her style of writing is also very personal, but with a kind of intense quality to it that speaks of tension, in contrast to Erickson's, with the good-natured quality of a relaxed mind.

And while Kingsley also throws in ample anecdotes of a very personal nature, they have a jarring effect and seem unwelcome, reflecting a kind of bemusement of someone uncertain of themselves. She too brings in historical accounts of the people and places being passed through, all of which give perspective to the time and place but somehow there is a feeling their placement is contrived rather than casual, in comparison to the erudite Erickson.

"Levi and I climbed the banks in silence until we could see unexplored ponds and steams, Lower MacDougall Lake, and the girls' abandoned camp in the distance. Turnaround time. Nothing to report."
"When I finally took my eyes away from the horizon to look down at the hillside below us, I slowly reached for Levi's arm. He looked at me, then followed my eyes. Four wolves were climbing straight toward us, padding easily over angled boulders."
"We stood still at first, mesmerized by the casual rhythm of their gait. Their legs chose each rock blindly yet never missed. Yellow-white twists of fur lifted and dropped with each step; their eyes fixed me in place. They climbed straight for us and showed no sign of stopping until two broke off to our right. Are they flanking us? Levi and I shrank back on our haunches behind a boulder, I unholstered my bear spray -- just in case -- and we waited for the wolves to crest the rise. After a few moments, Levi and I stood up again, but the wolves had vanished. I scrutinized each rock with my binoculars, picking out lichen and cotton grass, but we never saw those wolves again."

Clearly, Kingsley is no slouch in her observational skills and writing abilities. Yet to me there is something almost magical about Erickson's writing skill, his absorbing accounts of his activities, his thoughts and preoccupations. When he casts back to retrieve memories they somehow fit the narrative, whereas I found Kingsley's somewhat jarring. Perhaps a result of revealing a tad too much about her intimate thoughts; no one's concern but her own.