Tales of how author transported provisions, built their cabin and spent their honeymoon year on the South Nahanni River. A tale of adventure, strength and nature's ever changing moods and faces. The South Nahanni River of Canada's Northwest Territories has captivated canoeists and mountain adventurers for decades. Imagine flying 4,000 pounds of supplies into the Nahanni River Valley with plans to build a cabin on the shores of the legendary river and live there for a year--on your honeymoon. That is what John and Joanne Moore did. The author tells how they transported their provisions into the remote area and built their cabin on the South Nahanni River, an area cut off from the outside world by mountain ranges, its only highway the wild river that carves its way through cliffs a thousand feet high. Here the Moores lived for a year, and traveled by canoe, foot, snowshoe and ski in the isolated land they came to love. It was not always idyllic: they fought against loneliness and dangerously cold temperatures, John narrowly escaped being crushed under their food cache and both fell through the ice into the freezing water of the river. An engaging adventure story, this is also the blueprint for anyone wishing to make a wilderness-living dream come true. Included in this edition are the author's thoughts twenty year5s after the adventure as she and John embark on a return visit to the Nahanni with their two children.
In an eloquent bit of understatement, RM Patterson called the savage South Nahanni River "The Dangerous River". Despite this advance billing, John Moore proposed marriage to his fiancée and, at the same time, suggested that they spend their honeymoon homesteading for one year in the wildly remote Nahanni valley. Joanne accepted and the rest, as they say, is history. Lovers of adventure reading will savor "Nahanni Trailhead", the distillation of Joanne's journal from their wilderness year, compiled from diary notes written at the end of almost every challenging day. Courage, romance, hardship, excitement, cold, danger, peace, tranquility, fulfilment, loneliness and occasionally even tedium ... but all of it in an easy going style of writing that flows naturally from first page to last. Read it once and, I guarantee it, you'll read it again. Highly recommended! Paul Weiss
A classic
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 21 years ago
I love this book and reread it every couple of years. It has always been my dream to live in the wilderness for a year, as this honeymooning couple did. It is well and simply written, with a few maps but only disappointingly blurry pictures. There's lots of great description, including the occasional tedium of holing up for the winter, the joys they had exploring the area once spring arrived, and the terror of dealing with wolves (or was it bears?) trying to break into their cabin. They are candid about what they did wrong and how they dealt with spending so much uninterrupted time together.
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