Interview- Best Selling Canadian Author Adam Shoalts

Canada’s greatest modern-day explorer sets out into the arctic wilderness to solve a mystery more than 100 years old.

Shoalts discusses his brand new book-Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell, the kindness of strangers, the philosophy of respecting nature, &  physical and mental limitations of being human. 

"In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the Northwest Territories. A prospector swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell made his name as an expert guide, trapper, & restless wanderer, venturing where few others dared. At a time when travel by dogsled in the North was the norm, Darrell became legendary for traversing thousands of kilometres alone and on foot; ranging over mountains and across windswept tundra from Alaska to Hudson Bay...he helped rescue sailors trapped in sea ice, led Mounties on their patrols, and even guided some of the era’s most famous explorers. Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole, held Darrell in awe, remarking once that with men like him, he could go to the moon. 

Contemporaries regarded Darrell as the hardiest, most competent explorer of his day. Shoalts traces Darrell's trail of letters, journals, and hand-drawn maps... the most epic of unknown cold cases and Canadian mysteries. Faded clues, forgotten routes... searching for cabin ruins & old campsites. Detective story. Biography.  First-person adventure narrative, Vanished Beyond the Map combines expeditions with history to solve one the coldest of cases."

This discussion emphasizes the significance of daily adventures & role of exploration in inspiring others, appreciating what Canada has to offer. Shoalts delves into the life of Darrell, a forgotten, who vanished in 1910. He discusses Darrell's extraordinary skills, mysterious disappearance, & the quest to uncover his story. Shoalts reflects on the allure of exploration, the impact of geography on history, and the importance of inspiring future generations to connect with nature.

Keywords: 

Narrative, thriller, story, stories, crime, mystery, myth, legends, canada, Klondike, cold case, gold, disappearance, winter, spooky, vibe, interesting new books, novels, audiobooks, recommendations, timeworthy, adam shoalts, vanished beyond the map, falcon, geography, nature, wilderness, true stories, wild, adventure, exploring, canoe, portage, hiking, pathways, education, learning, fun, identity, perspectives, how to write, how to research 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Hey everybody, it's Jamie from Canadian Grit. Welcome. Today we have Canadian author Dr. Adam Schultz. And right from Mr. Schultz's website, I'll just read a bit of an introduction. Adam Schultz is a professional explorer and national belt best-selling author. Elected a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for, quote, extraordinary contributions to geography, quote, and completed a nearly 4,000 kilometer solo journey across Canada's Arctic. And we're going to be talking about Mr. Schultz's new book that's coming out. A geographer and historian, he holds a PhD from McMaster University, has participated in numerous archaeological digs, and undertakes solo expeditions in the most remote wilderness areas. He is the Westaway Explorer in residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. And in 2016 was named a national champion of the K Trans-Canadian Trail. Declared one of the greatest living explorers by Canadian Geographic, and named Canada's Indiana Jones by the Toronto Star. Adam Schultz is a professional adventurer and one of Canada's best-selling authors. And again, there's a lot more here, and we're going to go through that too. But one of Canada's greatest modern explorers, uh most accomplished adventurer, says Global News. Adam Schultz, 21st century explorer, calmly describes the things he has endured that would drive most people to despair or even madness. Rare insight into the heart and mind of an explorer and the insatiable hunger for the unknown that both inspires and drives one to the edge. And that's from Colonel Chris Hadfield, uh, who many of you may know as probably the most uh famous recent Canadian astronaut uh and commander of the International Space Station. Um one of my favorite is you know, forget the forget keeping up with the Kardashians, try keeping up with this guy. Uh so the it's so funny. The accolades precede you, but when I read your books, um the this introduction was just to get us going and to get into you just got back from the Arctic, um, but also to paint a picture for our audience, because uh if anybody's read your books, um when I read your books, there's a sense of humility that I really appreciate about you. Um there's a sense of humanity that I pick up, um uh which I find is really amazing. And uh, you know, you welcome the reader into your danger and your own reflections on danger, things that went wrong, uh, your luck. Honestly, it's just so nice to meet you. Um, and thanks for joining me and making the time uh as a history guy. Um, you know, I'm sitting here with your books. Uh and it's just so this is a special moment for me when I started Canadian Grit, and I'm just so excited to hear about your your voyages and whatever you want to talk about today. Sounds good. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01: 2:52

I'm doing great. Is that I love your background, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 2:55

Is that a real background? This here is is so I'm literally uh yeah. So when I started Canadian Grit, it was uh actually very gritty. So I'm in my basement in a corner with some mattresses, and so this is uh a favorite rock and roll band, yes.

SPEAKER_02: 3:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

Um and so this is an old Walmart towel that was in the basement. Um, and I have an old wooden door behind here and an old swimming towel from my wife who was uh a competitive swimmer when she liked it.

unknown: 3:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 3:29

Well, this is what I was going for. I was just, you know, uh a big thing of what I'm trying to do here is just bring out some information and to highlight people in our communities who are doing some great things. Awesome. Um yeah, and so this is and as a teacher too, I always said to kids, you know, just go and make it. And um I I you know when I was like, I don't know how to start a podcast, and I had one student who just said, be yourself. I'm starting with what I've got, and the the important thing was starting. Um, you know, and and i if you never start, it never goes anywhere. Um and and going back to your work, just again to preface is that um you know your books inspired a lot of what's happening here, so thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 4:13

Oh, my pleasure. So that's great. Yeah, anytime an author hears they have an audience, I'm just happy about that.

SPEAKER_00: 4:19

Well, yeah, and I understand that too. So I've made questions. Um I got your books here. I could talk with you probably forever about anything. I respect your time. And and hopefully that, you know, in the future we can connect more too because um just with so many overlaps and and I think that you know Canada could really use your stories, your history, uh stuff you do is changing the world, which is pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_02: 4:42

Thank you. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00: 4:44

So that's um because I'm pumped to talk to you about your brand new book, uh, which I've pre-ordered and I can't wait to read it. So this is exciting for me.

SPEAKER_02: 4:52

You're one of the first. I think I've only done uh I think you're the second podcast. No, the third podcast I've done um this fall. So you're still very early.

SPEAKER_01: 5:00

I have a whole bunch scheduled later, but this is kind of a scoop because the book is so new, it is not even available yet. It's coming out on store in stores on Tuesday. But I was excited to actually talk to someone ahead of time who's you know a historian, you know the subject matter. Um share it. I mean, I think you, even though you haven't read the book yet, it's just organic. Uh a lot of the themes, the wilderness, Canadian history, the Arctic, the North, the mystery. Um I'm hoping that you know this is a subject that will appeal to a lot of different people, not just people like us who love history and the outdoors, right?

SPEAKER_00: 5:32

Absolutely. And uh again, you've inspired me. Uh I also have started writing some shorter um uh in your vein, I I took uh a German myth and fairy tale fairy tale course uh and also did a paper on the Wagner, Nibel, and lead, and I'm very interested in in Norse mythology. Oh wow. Uh you know, oh yeah, like so this uh when I was reading I just left it upstairs. The um The Whisper on the Night Wind? Yeah, the Whisper on the Night Wind, sorry, thank you. And all the stuff about the Yeti and the Lugaroo. And I'm just uh this is it because I did a whole paper on how the turn of German nationalism or before 1871, and and what Richard Wagner saw as the ability to unify the German nation of German-speaking peoples through creating a collective history, and he literally just sort of sniped the uh the story and the the Norse mythology and changed the character names to Siegfried, uh, you know, in the Rhine Gold. And and again, it's the story of the Lord of the Rings, it's all there, uh, and to unite the people and to see through history teleologically how that's been misappropriated or misunderstood. But also, I think a huge part of what Canadian Grid is and what you lit me onto is the idea of our shared Canadian history. That is the idea of our nation, what makes us Canadian. Um, and I think that in your books, certainly uh The Adventures, but when I read a history of Canada and 10 Maps, uh it just absolutely blew my mind as a historian because I was just like, I still have so much to do. Um, and but the way you manage to weave history with meaning and all of the voices and the perspectives, that's something I really seek to emulate. Um, so again, when I started and I was like, well, how can I start? What do I know? So, well, I know music, I know some rock and roll, and I know this. And I actually took History of Canada and 10 maps, and I use that sort of as the framing structure for the historical episodes that I've created. Your book, uh, you know, 10 years ago, I was going to Algonquin Park. I bought Alone Against the North, uh, and I'm reading it, and I was like, Adam Schultz, uh, you know, and I was reading about your your credentials a bit, and I'm like, that you this guy's got to be in his 50s. And I I I know I and I honestly, because I'm like, how have I never heard of this guy? I, you know, I have my finger on a lot of this pulse and and stuff in this field, and I said, I do not know. And this is 10 years ago, uh, right after that came out. And to find out, I think you're just a couple years older. I'm born in 1987. Um and so when I when I read that 86, okay, so you're the same age as my uh one brother, Jeremy. And so when I was reading this, I was like, I could be doing something like this, and it's not it wasn't that what you were doing is what I wanted to do, but it was just it it pushed me to be like, wow, there uh it's not too late. And I and literally I I I went and started my PhD. Um, and a lot of that was, you know, it could have been easy, uh what's the point? But seeing the idea of doing a PhD, I didn't want to sort of go into the ivory tower. My goal is to democratize information, you know, whether it be through just making a a a basement studio. Uh so that was a bit about me, just to preface why uh just beyond wanting to have you here, it really is about the the history and what you're doing is really uh is a I see you as a role model to a lot of people, including myself. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 8:53

Oh, thank you. I mean, that is my my goal of my books is to reach as wide an audience as possible. Um I never, even though I did my PhD, I didn't want to write history books that only seven people in university or academia would ever read. I thought, you know, there's n life is so short. There's so many fascinating stories out there. I want to actually focus on things that hopefully will appeal to people from all walks of life. Whether you like history or you hate it, um the first rule I always say in writing a book is do not be boring. Life is too short to be boring. Uh there's thousands of books. Even if you had all the time in the universe, you'd never be able to even scratch the surface of all the books that are out there. So every book I write, whether it's an adventure story like crossing 4,000 kilometers of the Arctic alone, or more of a history book like The Whisper on the Night Wind, uh my rule of thumb for every single chapter is uh don't waste the reader's time. Make this the most exciting, interesting thing you possibly can. And uh that's what I try to do. So with the Whisper on the Night Wind, that was a story that's I think appropriate for this time of year, getting into October. A little bit spooky, a campfire legend, um, things that go bump in the night. We've all wondered about that. Anyone who's ever slept alone in the Canadian wilderness in a tent, you know, what's that sound coming out? Is that an owl? Is that something else? You know, we've all heard tales of Sasquatch and Windigo. So I wanted to do a deep dive into that subject matter, but to look at it from um uh you know, a scholarly perspective, right? Try to bring uh some research to bear on it, but make it still a fun adventure. And that's hopefully what that book did.

SPEAKER_00: 10:20

Uh you've really made me question the term strangers. Um, because everywhere you go, uh, you know, and especially uh where the uh where the falcon flies, a few of your adventures, you know, and uh one of my favorite pictures of you was actually out in front of the wind turbines. Um and just hearing about how people help. But not only that is that you include those people in your story. So I don't think you're the type of guy who's gonna come on here and talk about all of your accolades. Uh and I don't that's not necessarily why we're here, but I just really want to uh put that out there for people to understand um how lucky we are to have people like like you uh inspiring us and doing this. So thank you for being here again. Um and welcome to Canadian Grit.

SPEAKER_02: 11:05

Yeah, my pleasure, Jamie. Thanks for having me on the show.

SPEAKER_01: 11:08

It's uh it's funny you should mention that that's your uh one of your favorite photos that you've seen of me because um the one where I'm on Lake Erie, I was canoeing to the Arctic from Lake Erie. The other week my my wife happened to mention to me just randomly out of the blue that that's her favorite photo of me too. And come on. Yes, and it's a photo where of course you can't really see my face and I'm far away, so I don't think alarmed as the wife sended it of all the photos that that's the favorite one of me, the one that was taken at a considerable distance. But yeah, as you mentioned with strangers, that was a photo taken of me uh by someone who'd been a stranger, well, at least 24 hours pre previous to the photo. I just randomly met him as I was canoeing to the Arctic, a wonderful guy named Brad Wood, who was nice enough to let me camp in his backyard because I had nowhere else to camp and it was a bit of a stormy night. And uh it turned out he was a bit of a photographer and he snapped that photo of me as I was setting off to canoe another 3,000 kilometers or so up to the uh open.

SPEAKER_00: 12:08

It's it is in the book here. It's uh and again it will show up better after it's done loading. But this is the picture here. We can see Adam uh and it paddling on Lake Erie with wind turbines in New York State behind me, photo credit by Brad Wood, uh who was of Coburg, I believe you said. Or Coburn. Oh Paul Coburn, yes, that's correct. Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

Yeah, usually uh usually most of the photos that I feature on my social media or in my books are just selfies pulled out of my GoPro, which is mounted on my canoe as I'm canoeing through rapids or bushwhacking. Um, but it was nice for ones to actually have a stranger who was generous enough to take the photo of me, show some perspective because I was far I was a couple kilometers offshore on the lake when I was paddling by there, and uh he actually reached out to me on Instagram with those photos after my journey and uh said, Hey, you if you want to use them, have at it. And he was nice enough to let me print them in the book. So I think there's about three or four, four photos that he took of me on the journey uh that feature in that book, where the falcon flies.

SPEAKER_00: 13:04

Yeah, and that the again, uh correct me if I'm wrong, but when you got to the Peace Bridge and you I think there's a scene where you pull your canoe over, and was he maybe not there as well? Or there was somebody was that the same guy?

SPEAKER_02: 13:15

That's the same guy that was Bradwood, and there was a couple other people.

SPEAKER_00: 13:17

Yeah, yes. And that part to me was again, so uh for me when you were talking about that whole scene in in Niagara Falls and the police escort, uh that was one of the most vivid. I'm like, man, what an amazing story of the the police coming and then all of these things that just sort of let uh it leads to you getting to where you need to go and the people who are involved. I love how you also uh include them in showing how these these journeys you plan are often it takes uh everyone you run into sometimes as well.

SPEAKER_01: 13:47

Yeah, I mean that's what I try to do justice to everyone I cross paths with in my journeys that I've written about in my books. So I remember in my uh journey from Lake Erie to the Arctic. I mean, to get to the Arctic, I was used to traveling in remote wilderness places. Just a couple of years earlier, I'd done my 4,000 kilometer solo journey across the Arctic, which involved long periods of time without even seeing another human being. But that journey from Lake Erie to the Arctic was, of course, uh totally different. To get to the Arctic, I had to canoe and camp in some of the biggest cities in Canada, home to millions of people like Toronto and Montreal. I had absolutely no idea ahead of time where I would camp for the night because it was impossible to predict where I'd end up with storms and big waves on the Great Lakes and everything else beyond my control. Um, you know, some nights I I went to sleep, for example, one night under the Burlington Skyway. Uh just instead of Hamilton.

SPEAKER_00: 14:37

It gave me and again, all of those stops. And I think for me, the way you describe those things, I feel the anxiety of having traveled and not the way you are doing, but to have slept on a floor somewhere, you know, but to the Burlington Skyway. I mean, you drive over it, but you never actually look down and think somebody's gonna be paddling through the Hamilton Harbor. And the way you personify nature, uh, and you see that I think that's really special because a lot of these adventures are solo. And the way you turn um, for example, uh Great Lake freighters into almost an adversary. Um and when I I I went paddling, uh, when I went my wife and I went to Gordon Island, uh, and I just went out on my kayak by myself into the St. Lawrence, and I had some real uh lessons there, just even in calm water, as I was looking at these shipping lanes and boats, uh, and then just to have even that minimal amount of experience to sort of appreciate what you're looking at, because growing up in Muskoka on the Muskoka River, Lake Muskoka was considered big water. Uh, you know, and then you see Lake Superior, you uh Lake Erie. And you're out there paddling these places, and uh the scene where you're going around the Break Wall and Port Coburn. Um, I was there with you, you know, and the the fact that you share those as well, I know uh it really draws the reader in and it it puts that level adventure and risk that you're willing to take uh really is is special to get that story and that experience vividly and realistically.

SPEAKER_01: 16:12

Yeah, it's funny you should mention, you know, canoeing on big water, whether it's Lake Muskoka or the Arctic Ocean or the Great Lakes. I would have to say that's maybe one of the things I enjoy the least about doing those big journeys, even though I frequently seem to find myself canoeing miles from land, um, you know, riding along with big waves or canoeing in really cold conditions in the far north. But it's probably the most anxiety-inducing thing that I do. I mean, I get asked that question all the time. Uh people will say, you know, what's the scariest moment? Is when a polar bear charged you, or when a grizzly bear, you know, how do you deal with sleeping alone around polar bears? But I always say, No, to be honest, like the scariest moments I've had, I've had a few scary moments and close calls with bears. But the thing that has given me the most nightmares, the most stress, is actually just canoeing far from land across big bodies of water, because when you're in a little tiny canoe, um, you are very much at the mercy of the elements. When those waves get big, there's not a lot you can do with you know breaking white caps and surf. I had some tense moments on both Lake Erie and on Lake Ontario on that journey. And then further north, when I was in Labrador, uh towards the end of my journey, some of those lakes, even if they're not as big, when the wind picks up up in Labrador, boy, does it ever howl and it means it generates huge white caps. And I remember I was like a kilometer out from land. That was maybe my most white knuckle moment. I was really thinking, uh, no matter what I do now, I'm gonna capsize, I'm gonna swamp and go into this water. So I was psychologically preparing myself for a very long and difficult swim, even with the life jacket on, uh, to try to sylvage as much of my gear as I could get and paddle for the shore. Somehow or another, I mean, knock on wood, probably just pure luck, I managed to keep that canoe upright over the waves and just sort of ride the waves. Fortunately, they were coming from a tailwind. So I rode the waves all the way back to the shore there, and then I I don't normally want a canoe in uh high winds, so I stayed on shore and set up my tent in the middle of the day and you know, just waited there until the evening when the wave died waves died down, and then I continued. But I mean, whether it is Lake Muskoka or some other lake, I mean, uh you never want to make light of it because yeah, even on a lake like Lake Muskoka, things can get dangerous pretty quickly in high wind. It doesn't take a whole lot to overwhelm a canoe. So my my mantra, my philosophy always when doing those journeys is kind of like uh respect Mother Nature. And when Mother Nature is saying, now is the time to rest, don't push the envelope and just say, okay, I'm gonna make the best of this scenario. I might be stuck on this point on this lake for three days because of high winds, relentless. Um, but what can I do to actually make the most of these next three days? I can um rehydrate because I'm pretty parched from all the hard paddling, but now I can actually, you know, gather some driftwood, make a fire here, even if it's in the Arctic, there's usually driftwood around, and boil water, make some tea, you know, recharge my batteries both metaphorically and literally, because I have a solar panel, so I'll mount that on a rock, charge up my GoPro batteries, um, get caught up on my journal. I haven't been writing as much as I would like. I try to write my books in the moment, so you know, descriptively happening. Uh study my maps, I've spread out my topographic maps on the rocks there, and try to commit to memory as much as I can where I'm going to be going the next two to three days because that was too much time. Now I'll know, like, okay, head northwest along this lake and then look from a river coming into a bay with an island. Um so I'll do all those things, dry out all my clothing that's been wet, um, and just sort of sleep as much as I can because oftentimes on a long journey I won't get a lot of chance to sleep as much as I normally would like. But if I'm under the Burlington Skyway, it's hard to sleep, you mean? I had an okay sleep under there. I was a little bit apprehensive about some of the locals, but um everyone I met turned out to be incredibly kind uh on that entire journey, crossing paths with hundreds of different people. I didn't meet anyone who wasn't anything other than kind and even enthusiastic about helping me, a perfect stranger, uh, get to the Arctic. And a lot of the times, I mean, they didn't know anything about me. They didn't even really know necessarily where I'd come from or how long into the journey I was. But it was just they saw a guy with a canoe, and there's something wonderful about the kindness of Canadians when they meet a stranger traveling with a canoe. It was just like, what can we do to help you? Do you need somewhere to camp? Can we give you food? Can I help you portage, uh, get that canoe back down to the water? I had to get around some obstacles in downtown Montreal. But yeah, that was that was the the sort of the blessing in disguise is that all those strangers I met with on my travels actually ended up to be uh friends I just didn't know yet who are willing to help me on my journey.

SPEAKER_00: 20:33

Yeah, and so one gentleman, I can't remember if he you knew his name, but I think he helped you uh throw your canoe over after the park official told you you were crazy and he stood there and yet So I I think what my point is when I read your books, I I I think where again the self-awareness that you have, you know, there's another scene where you you had to go out past a point, I think on Lake Erie, and you could see people at shore probably wondering who's that crazy guy out there. You I think you're very aware of how people are going to perceive you, but I think therein is also something that when people meet you, they are probably so here's a guy with a canoe who just told me at Niagara Falls he's gonna paddle to Labrador. I think that's so exceptionally wonderful, even as a dream, that you're unlocking in people something else. And that's maybe secondarily through the writing and and your work, that's how you've inspired things like this. Because I want to share your story because I think or stories um that there's still somebody just willing to go out alone against the north is you know, that book when I was going paddling with my friend Sam, we would go to Algonquin Park uh as you know, his family had a 99-year lease and still do it on like Lake Kayosh Koki. Wow. And we would do some just a couple day portages. And uh a couple times ago I went up, I I was like, I need a book to read. It's gonna be quiet. And I was I and I just picked up your book by chance, and it and it really just changed sort of everything. Um, that here's a guy who's hey, I'm gonna literally put on a backpack and go look for a river that's never been named. You know, so I I guess too, there's a question for you, uh Adam, is how do you pick of all the, and I mean the you we can get into your new book, but I I mean I've uh Beyond the Trees, where the Falcon flies, uh A History of Canada and 10 Maps, an amazing, uh concise version of history that's not ever been told that I I've ever seen. Uh the maps are beautiful. But when because you're only one guy doing all of these things, how do you pick the next adventure? So that's a big question. But if for example, so you just come back from the Arctic, why don't you tell us about that in your new book and and all about the impetus for how you got there from where the falcon flies? Because we get to have another book from you in the same year.

SPEAKER_01: 22:49

Yeah. Oh well, I mean, I guess the first thing I should say is that almost every day of the week, 365 days of the year, I try to get outside and have some mini or micro adventure, even if it's just in the backyard. I'm lucky that I have a forest right around my my house. So I'm constantly going outside. And that's kind of like what I've I think I've really discovered is that you don't necessarily have to travel thousands of kilometers or disappear for months in the wild to have a real rewarding adventure in the great outdoors. So you literally yesterday I was just around my house here in the woods and I was finding puffballs, and uh that was exciting to me. I was with my my son who's four years old, an adventure for him. But we were collecting uh gem-studded puffballs, which are edible and bringing them back to the house to cook and eat. And it's like, yeah, that's kind of an adventure in itself. And many people around the world enjoy uh forging for wild edibles, whether it's mushrooms or plants or berries. It's kind of fun in itself, and it's kind of like a miniature version of what I do when I'm on a big expedition for months. You know, you're going out into the wild uh to look for something and uh trying trying to find it, and there may be obstacles along the way to find those puffballs. Maybe we had to get through some thorns on the raspberry bushes, we had to climb over a fallen down tree, and then there's the puffballs. So it's like a miniature little adventure. But just for that hour, it's like you're escaping uh from the humdrum of of emails and everyday life and remind reminding yourself how much fun it can be to simply get out into the great outdoors, like your kids again, you know, catching frogs or fishing under the local bridge, um, doing these sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00: 24:22

So it's so it's so simple. You know, it's all right there. We have everything. And just as a quick second there, uh you're talking about kids. How many kids have you got, sir?

SPEAKER_01: 24:31

I have three now. My uh my newest one's still pretty fresh. He's a five-month-old baby, but I have three boys who keep me on my toes. That's kind of the biggest adventure of all, uh, being a parent to three rambunctious little boys, ages five months, two, and four. But uh, it's great. And I get them out in the woods as much as I can. They don't come on big expeditions with me because I'd be a little bit nervous taking them around polar bear babies. But uh maybe one day when they're bigger. But yeah, that's a lot of fun as well.

SPEAKER_00: 24:59

Well, and I no, I would just um I want to just ask you that because as a parent, uh a fresh parent myself, you know, why it's uh uh nine weeks now or just two months, and we've had an adventure. Thank you so much. Uh it's been life-changing. And and I totally agree that the adventure that it, you know, it's created. And I'm trying also to think of ways, you know, when he's in these moments of being inconsolable or crying, I'm just trying to, even for myself, put myself in, okay, we're gonna be camping someday. I'm gonna be teaching you something fun. And this is all part of each stage, but just uh I think, you know, not to make uh uh my PhD, sustainable coping strategies. A big thing that I see in your book, uh uh, I think that most people, maybe without being able to articulate it, maybe, or say the words, is that the champion mindset that you exude and exhibit and whether or not, uh, and again, this isn't just to say that you're going out there and doing this explicitly on purpose, but just in that story you just shared, from what I see, and I'm this is my storytelling, is I see somebody who has the end goal in mind at all times. Even when you talk in your books about hardships and bears and uh white caps, you always bring the reader back to the same hope I think that you hold, that you know you're just gonna, you're gonna in every single moment, whether it's white knuckle or you're uh having to wait out the storm, that's perfect mindfulness, I think, that you exhibit your ability to compartmentalize and to stay focused on the end goal. Uh, well, we're gonna have to get through some raspberry bushes. There are gonna be bugs on the way to the Arctic. You know, that's those are realistic um planning that you've you've accounted for, but it hasn't taken away from the fact that you're still gonna go through the tough or the hard stuff to get to the delicious puffs.

SPEAKER_01: 26:50

Yes, yes. Well, that's just a backyard adventure, but I never really tackled your bigger question, which is how do I actually desi decide or come up with the big adventures, uh, some of which have become books. But as I was saying, I try to do an adventure almost every day just getting out in the woods, you know, maybe it's looking for a bird or a particular type of tree, like uh, there's a big old red oak in this woods, and I love old growth forest, so I want to go find it. Um but I try to come up with ideas that captivate me first and foremost. That's something that I want to put my heart and soul in and blood, sweat, and tears for months out in the wild. And if it captivates me, hopefully it'll captivate other people as well. So I come up with all kinds of expedition ideas ranging from one of my current projects is photographing all of Canada's different snake species in the wild. There's I mean, it's amazing. We have 33 different species of snake in Canada. Yet if you talk to the average Canadian, even Canadians who love the great outdoors, they struggle to name even four or five of them. Everyone knows garter snakes and maybe rattlesnakes and milk snakes. Uh but many of the other snake species, uh they don't get a lot of attention here in Canada. We don't really associate snakes uh with the great outdoors in Canada. And you know, to me I thought reptiles, but maybe they don't get the love they deserve, but also this is something that can appeal to kids uh no matter where they live in Canada. Even if you're in a big city like Vancouver or Calgary or Toronto, maybe you're not necessarily going to get to the Arctic this weekend. But the cool thing is, the neat thing is that you have different species of snake, um, even in those big cities or close to them, and you could see them in your local park or your local conservation area. And many of those species are endangered. In some cases, there's only a few hundred left in the wild. So I kind of wanted to bring attention to them. And I tried to do it in a way that would appeal to classrooms. So I wanted to make it kind of educational uh in the sense that I could take photographs of these snakes, describe a little bit about the adventure on the way, where they live, uh what kind of habitat they need, what threatens them, and maybe what we can do to help them. So that's one adventure that's totally different than say going off to the Arctic and looking for a lost explorer who vanished almost without a trace a hundred years ago, somewhere in uncharted territory in the high Arctic among icebergs and polar bears, and saying, Okay, I'm gonna find this guy's letters. And and track down his route, retrace his steps, no matter what it takes, go for months and try to find his old campsites, his old um his old trail, and establish uh what happened to him and tell the story of his life as best as I can. So they're both adventures that revolve around my love of nature and the great outdoors and exploring and mystery, all these things. But yeah, that's how I kind of come up with them. And probably like a lot of people, I'll write down on a notepad with a pen, like a list of ten ideas that I have, and I'll kind of weigh them and say, okay, what can I do with this? What would the budget be for that? Um, is that possible? Can I do that? But I have kind of a dream list of trips that I would love to do, and then I work through them and I focus on things that kind of to a certain extent come back to my own field of expertise, which is history, archaeology, historical geography. So something like looking for a lost explorer, it's like, well, that's that's maybe something I can do. I've got the skill set, I can go into the archives, I can find I can find his journal, I can look for artifacts, I can do something like that, but it doesn't necessarily have to be something like that. I could also do projects like Where the Falcon Flies, uh, which is the name I gave to my book, which is simply a personal journey. I want to see could I could I actually go from my doorstep in southern Ontario? Could I walk out the front door with my backpack in my canoe and basically canoe from my front yard to the Arctic?

SPEAKER_00: 30:24

The whole idea that it's standing out there staring at the stars. Hey, I wonder if I could just paddle, you know, to Florida from Bracebridge was like 2300 kilometers and almost took 24 hours. So when I look at where the Falcon flies, a 3,400 kilometer Odyssey from my doorstep to the Arctic, I'm immediately thinking, well, you've driven to Florida and halfway back, but you didn't drive, you paddled. That's how my mind works. And then I look at the map and I'm just saying, well, that you know, it's it's unbelievable. And just to see and to help people understand that process is uh well, and for me, just out of pure interest, I think is really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01: 31:00

Yeah. I mean, it was slow and steady wins the race. That's what I kept telling myself. You know, don't worry about 3,400 kilometers, just worry about the next 34. If I can get across this bay or down this river, I can make a camp, get warm and dry, and uh I've I've done enough for that day. And tomorrow is a whole new day and a whole new set of challenges. So I take it one step at a time, slow and steady. And before I knew it, I'd left Southern Ontario and I was among caribou and polar bears in the Arctic. I got there eventually. Um but the underlying idea behind that, it was one thing to say, you know, could I travel from my doorstep to the Arctic and follow uh follow the Arctic birds like peregrine falcons that migrate from southern Ontario to the Arctic, but the i the real idea, the underlying message or theme behind that was I really I was really concerned about the loss of of forests and wetlands and wild places in southern Canada. Um as you as everyone knows who lives here, we've seen amazing development pressure in the South. We've seen, you know, forests clear-cut and wetlands paved over and green space turned into suburban sprawl and parking lots and uh Starbucks and all the rest of it. And I thought, ah, you know, it's yeah, I could go out and say, please don't do that, but it doesn't really seem to resonate. You just said preaching to the choir. So I thought how do you know people love the the Arctic and Canadians. I mean, it looms large in our national mythology, and we all understand the importance of protecting polar bears and Arctic wildlife. Uh but I thought, you know, how do you how do you make someone feel connected to that? How do they relate to it? How does it relate to their own backyard, their own neighborhood, their own community, uh, their own city block? And there's a way that it does. And I'm not even really being metaphorical. It in a really tangible.

SPEAKER_00: 32:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You characterize it in the book very well. The idea of progress when you're uh looking at Burlington and all these different places, you uh i that's another thing that I mentioned. I have lots of notes on on this book, but you're in every instance how you do a shout-out uh to the you know, the ornithology sanctuaries, the bird sanctuaries, all of these places as you travel, you're uh as an objective reader, while I was reading it, you know, before this, I one of the things that struck me was the value of this and how you present the fact that, you know, through history the 401 and these these highways have literally been paved over indigenous trails and and routes of trade, you know, that have existed forever. Yet Canada, you know, Britain, France, these were all seafaring empires. And that from your vantage point on these rivers, you're seeing our Canadian mythology and history that is often now hidden away due to its proximity to water, you know, what you I think at one point called the highways of the New France and the Dominion of Canada. Um and that we as you paddle through those areas, you describe the change of um of eco zones. Uh and and so you're bringing in all of that in a very layered but approachable way, what we'd probably call interdisciplinary approaches as a you know in pedagogy. Uh, but that's it, is is i you know, John Dewey and experience. Learning is meaningless unless people can put themselves in it. And you really have, in my opinion, been successful at making that. You're creating something that, again, all of these things, we see a polar bear on the Toonie, we see uh uh or even on a Coca-Cola commercial, but we uh oh, there's polar there are polar bears in Churchill, but how many people ever get to go there?

SPEAKER_01: 34:35

Yeah, well that that was the idea I was driving at, which is it's all interconnected. So you even if you live in downtown Toronto in a condo, there's a part of the Arctic there, not necessarily a polar bear, but there's Arctic birds. Over a hundred Arctic species of bird migrate south every year. Um I mean, not only peregrine falcons, which is what the title of the book comes from, but you know, snow geese, tundra swans, semi-pominated sandpipers, they all come south. So that little city park just down the road uh might be where some Arctic birds are literally overwintering before flying back up to Ellesmere Island or the tundra of Nunavut and uh the Yukon in the Northwest Territories. I thought that's really that's really neat. No matter where you live in Canada, in the south, in the north, um, you can see the same wildlife, the same animals on these journeys. And it's a reminder of how it's all interconnected. So, yeah, I wanted to tell kind of on a grand scale uh the story of Canada's geography and weave it all together with history and people and you know what does it look like today if you were to do this journey, um you're gonna see glittering skyscrapers and busy highways, but you also see places that haven't changed much in hundreds of years and catch those uh fascinating glimpses into the world we lost into a vanished past. And uh whenever I would do that, you know, pass through Old Grove Forest outside Quebec City as it was going up the slopes, I'd say, you know, this is amazing, these sugar maple trees or these birch, uh they've been here hundreds of years, and here they are still flourishing to this day. And you know, if trees could talk, what are some of the stories they would tell? Um so all of that is is part of the story in the book, and yeah, I'm always fascinated by that idea, like, hey, you know, you can be in downtown Toronto, but imagine if you went back not that long ago, 200, 230 years, there could be black bear and even elk and you know, mountain lions, cougars uh wandering around that same intersection that's now uh thousands of people on the way to work. So that's kind of like what I tried to do in that book is uh make it a better story, but also make it a sort of this is why I think you know we should protect these places, these green spaces we still have in the south, because they're all interconnected. They remind us of what once was and they provide homes for the birds that still come south.

SPEAKER_00: 36:45

And that's where exactly where we live. Um and and to see how they're we are trying to conserve these spaces because even the Lake Simcoe conserve uh uh conservation efforts that are going on here well as a watershed that feeds, you know, berries south to Lake Ontario and how important these watersheds are. Um, and what can we do locally uh talking about road salts and the effects of even uh businesses using road salts or uh salts outside of uh on the sidewalks and these sorts of effects long term. But your books show us that continuity and change and how close it is if we can just imagine. Um, and what I teach students in Europe, um, I uh one of the big things is I always say, you're in a in a new city, no phones, look up. And uh with what you're saying about the birds, and I have always loved birds as well, to, but I don't know to look up and I say, wow, I love birds, but to think that could be someone on the way or to the Arctic is pretty special. So your new book. I uh saw your video on Instagram yesterday. You were unboxing uh your new was that yesterday that you received the uh a shipment of your new book? Yes. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:51

The author of the book usually gets it about a week or so before it actually comes out in stores. So I have uh Okay. I have some copies, the author copies of my own new book, which is coming out on October 7th, so very soon. Okay. And so uh I have one here. I can pick it up. Yes, please. I don't know. There it is. Vanish Beyond the Map, The Mystery of Lost Explorer, Hubert Darrell.

SPEAKER_00: 38:12

And uh it's it's beautiful, the coloring and everything. Uh I don't know who uh who does your cover art, it catches the eye. Um the dark purples, and uh again, I love uh visuals, so that is something that immediately makes me want to read it.

SPEAKER_01: 38:24

Yeah, I guess. I gotta say it's probably one of my nicest. I mean, all the covers are really nice. It's Penguin Random House. They have a graphics design department. Uh oh I see, okay. It's uh actually got more photos and maps in it than any book I've ever published before. We've got some color maps and we've got lots of color photos actually in this book. I think about fifty, don't quote me, but there's around fifty color photographs in this book um and lots of maps put it in throughout the book, which were important to the story because it's a mystery book. It's the story of the explorer who disappeared in the Arctic, and wherever possible, I'd get black and white photographs from his journeys or his expeditions, and then I would literally go to that same spot more than a hundred years later and retrace the route and photograph it and show, like, I think this is where he was camped, right on this point looking out over the water. This is exactly what he described in his journal. Here I am in the same spot. Oh, look, this stump is the same stump he cut 112 years ago. In the south, of course, if you cut a stump, it will never last very long because of the humidity in July and August, so it will rapidly rot away. But the amazing thing about the Arctic, north of the Arctic Circle, it's so cold that everything is preserved. It's like a time capsule. So you can literally cut a stump in the 1800s and it might still be there even to this day in 2025. Um an axe or a hatchet on it. There might be lichens growing over it, which is usually a clue to how old it is, because lichens uh grow very, very slowly in the Arctic, you know, usually just a m you know, 0.1 millimeter a year if that. So if it's got you know dense growth of lichens on the stump someone cut and it's on the exact spot that someone wrote in their journal, um, it's all these breadcrumb clues that I tried to follow. And I wanted to show the reader that I described it, but I was like, we've got to put as many photos, color photos, into this book as we can. And I managed to squeeze in about 50 or so into that book. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 40:15

And so, Hubert Darrell, if you uh just were to give us a little bit, uh so we earlier we talked about how how you pick adventures, uh, you have a list of adventures, and I really like that you did that. Uh uh What about him, or how did you discover him and decide that was going to be the project that that you chose at the time?

SPEAKER_01: 40:35

Yeah, I mean, uh there's something about Lost Explorers, whether it's Franklin or Percy Fawcett in the Amazon, Lost Explorers is a subject that fascinates the imagination. Um but I had happened 14 years ago, back in 2011, I stumbled upon a Lost Explorer who I felt taught all the others in terms of mystery, fascination, and how extraordinary his story really was. And the incredible incredible thing about it is this is the greatest explorer that no one has ever heard of. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. If you Googled him, nothing would come back. Now, of course, that's changing because I literally just published a big book on the guy. Um but at the time there was like almost nothing available on him. He was a legend in his own time. Some of the greatest explorers, guys like Amiston, the first man to the South Pole, first man to sail through the Northwest Passage, they spoke of Hubert Darrell in awe, saying, you know, he's a polar explorer on a different level entirely. Amiston, this Norwegian explorer, first man, as I said, to the South Pole. He literally said, with Daryl, with men like him, I could go to the moon as a testament to how much respect and even awe he held him in. And he was hardly alone in that assessment. I found Darrell's name would constantly come up in the diaries of other explorers, of their other travelers in the north. It seemed like a hundred plus years ago, uh everyone knew who he was, from Alaska to Hudson's Bay to the high Arctic. Um he really was a legend, a a wanderer, a solitary wanderer who would go for thousands of miles in all kinds of conditions, dead of winter, and he was respected and admired by pretty much everyone I could find. Harden whaling captains on the Beaufort Sea, uh grizzled old prospectors in the Klondike, indigenous leaders, indigenous chiefs of the uh different indigenous nations. He could speak at least two different indigenous languages fluently, mounties who tried to hire him as a special constable to lead their sled dog patrols on foot because he had almost like superhuman iron stamina. He would walk ahead of the dog sleds in the snow just to break the trail so they could follow, and he would do this for literally thousands of miles. Um so he was this fascinating character, and yet there was almost nothing available about him. You know, I'd look him up in the library, no one's ever written a book about him, and he'd been forgotten about. So I said, you know, I want to I want to learn more. Turned out that he had disappeared in 1910. He was born in 1874, I ended up finding his baptism records. He grew up in Manitoba on a farm there in a little remote place called Bertle, Manitoba, town today of about six hundred people and even smaller in his day in the eighteen hundreds. Uh, and he learned his skills in the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and trapping on the farm there. And then while he was still a very young man, uh the Klondike gold rush had erupted, and like thousands of others, he went north to the Yukon to seek his fortune in the Klondike. Uh he never struck it rich, he never found gold, but it was among those mountains and rivers that he discovered his real talent, his real calling, which was exploration and map making. He was a self-taught map maker, self-taught explorer, and he became a wanderer. Uh this solitary figure who wandered among the mountains and you know, trapped, hunted, guided other people, but uh he quickly became a legend across the north and then he vanished in 1910 very mysteriously. And there were so many fascinating aspects to his story, a lot of drama. I mean, times it seemed like a Hollywood movie. He got in fights with people, there were people murdered. Uh it was incredible. But it turned out that he had he had kept a diary. And he kept letters, and he had mailed those to his sisters and uh to his family. And they had held on to these letters and diaries, and they had uh kept them for over half a century, and then when they passed away, they donated them to a local archive where they essentially collected dust for another fifty years, uh, right up until today when I stumbled upon the waiting and said, Yeah, this is what I need. So I literally, with a magnifying glass, went through his original letters by hand. Uh many of them were faded, hard to make out, you know, water stained, the pencil writing wasn't clear, but it took a while, a bit of a slog. Uh but I transcribed what he was saying, and I was able to use that as the blueprint to go to the wilderness, go into the Arctic, and retrace his route and try to unravel his life story, which I tried to tell in the book and uh ultimately solve the mystery. You know, what happened to him? Why did he vanish? Did he go away voluntarily, just build a cabin, turn his back on the world? Was he murdered? Did he fall through the ice? You know, what happened to him? Uh so many dangers inherent alone in the Arctic. I tried to unravel what had happened to him. And I found lots of clues. I'd go through all the other journals and diaries from other people who were in the North at the time. Again, ships captains, missionaries, other explorers, uh, Northwest Mounted Police Records. I went to their archive in Ottawa, went through the old case file on Hubert Darrell, how he disappeared, and tried to put it all together. And that's the story of the book. It's kind of a two-part book. The first part is a history book, the story of his life. Second part is a story of my personal quest to figure out where he vanished, his last camp in the Arctic, um, pinpoint that, go to the location, canoe there in the summer, and try to, you know, search for any trace of him, uh, which is what I ended up doing.

SPEAKER_00: 45:52

That's amazing. Um and all of this is just uh I think when you're talking about the Klondike uh and the north, there's gonna be a lot of people pulled in just by that. Uh in 2019, went up to uh Alaska in the Yukon, and I got to spend a couple of weeks driving back. But uh prior to that I read Klondike by Pierre Burton. And, you know, just reading about um the past through Skegway and the history involved and what happened in the Yukon and in uh Whitehorse and all of these places in this history, um, you know, I my question is how or it's probably in the book, and I don't want you to spoil anything. However, I mean, uh why do you think history forgot someone that was as influential to other explorers? So how did if all of these other explorers knew about him and we know about them, how did they or we allow him to be forgotten, do you think?

SPEAKER_01: 46:47

Yeah, I mean that's a good question. I've often I've often asked myself that. Uh to their credit, guys like Stefanson, who was the leader of the Canadian Arctic expeditions, they were tasked with mapping islands in the high Arctic. And Amiston, they tried to, they tried to do their own part to bring Daryl out of the shadows. They paid tribute to them in their own autobiographies, saying this guy was the real legend. He didn't he never sought publicity in his own time, but he did things that would blow all the rest of us out of the water. So they did try to bring him to light. And when he vanished, it did make headlines. That was the other thing that was interesting. I went to the New York Times archive and found stories about Daryl's disappearance and you know the plot thickened because two years after he went missing, they started to discover uh writing from him carved into trees in the area, very remote area of the Northwest Territories where he vanished. So it was an incredible story, and it felt like for sure someone you know should have written a book about this years earlier. If not made it into a movie, but it just didn't happen. Well, that's it, right? Like it is. It's just one of the ironies of history that some of the most fascinating stories just happen to slip through the cracks and they be can be forgotten about. Uh Daryl himself never had any children, so it wasn't like he had grandkids or great-grandkids today kind of holding on to the family lore, telling this to the tale of Grandpa Daryl who disappeared. He got forgotten in that sense. And uh, you know, it was a very remote area where he vanished. So the other thing that was really interesting is no one had ever actually gone and searched for him. Unlike Franklin, when Franklin disappeared, it launched dozens of search expeditions, his disappearance to try to unravel it. Now, of course, the circumstances were totally different. Franklin disappeared with two ships full of hundreds of sailors. Daryl was a lone man, so he was much less of a priority. Uh but he was in such a remote, isolated area, it was so difficult. Um, and he was the legend. It was years before anyone even really started to suspect he's not coming back. And by that point, you know, the trail had gone cold, no one could really go and look for him. So it was kind of bizarre, but it was like here I am a hundred years later, mounting really the first ever search for Hubert Darrell to figure out what had happened to this ball.

SPEAKER_00: 48:53

Time, like a true historical, like almost like a time cop story of you know, uh and doing having done some research, you know, getting to a point, or I've done transcribing, like you say, and you're even as you're looking at the person's writing, um, I did some of uh for Igor Stravinsky and Nadia Belager, who are famous uh European musicians of the 20th century, and they had letters uh of correspondence in French. And I remember just one of my professors who I worked with in my masters transcribing what a hard process that was, the number of hours that took, but also how I felt I almost m better knew those characters or who are people. Um, and and I think also the magic of the story, these types of stories and why they're so attractive to people en masse yes, the intrigue, yes, the mystery. It's like Tom Thompson, what happened, Bill Barilko. Um, but it's human. You're bringing you're making it from something abstract to just like the the the peregrine falcon, it flies over your house. And if somebody sees, oh wow, they can find that connection as a human. And so, as a human, what what did you learn maybe about Hubert uh Daryl from all of this as a person and an explorer? Was there something maybe that fueled him?

SPEAKER_01: 50:12

Oh, absolutely. Um I mean, absolutely. There are many things about him, and I tried to tell his whole life story. So there was a personal dimension as well. He had a fiance in Manitoba. And uh Daryl had disappeared in 1910. So I was doing the math, and I'm like, oh man, even if we were like Guinness World Record, oldest person alive today, you'd probably still be too young to have ever known Hubert Daryl, right? Even if I could find a hundred-year-old elder, uh they wouldn't have known Daryl. But I did try to go all over the map from Manitoba to Tactoyot to find uh elderly folks who might have remembered, not Daryl, no one did, as it turned out, but uh people who were connected to him, his brother, who continued to farm in Manitoba for decades after his disappearance. I found people who'd known his brother, as well as his fiance, who lived right up until the early 1950s when she passed away at a ripe old age. So I actually found an individual named Margaret Ashcroft, who's 90 years old, and she'd actually been born in the Great Depression on the farm um adjacent to the Darrell farm in Manitoba. So I ended up going to her farmhouse in Manitoba and sitting down at her kitchen table and telling her, like, I'm interested in this guy, Hubert Darrell. Uh you knew his fiance, you knew his brother, tell me everything you can about him. And that that's in the book as well. Every time I do that, from the Arctic to the prairies, meeting with people, uh, trying to learn, you know, uns unravel this mystery. I've shared that in the book. So yeah, absolutely. We do try to get inside Daryl's head, uh, put ourselves in his shoes and really tell his story what motivated him, what made him tick, how did he how did he find the the willpower to go do these journeys? And you know, Daryl, he he was born in the 1800s. He came from a humble background. Uh there wasn't a lot of money, and he and his brother had to leave home as teenagers to make ends meet, to find their own way in the world, which today in Canada would seem completely bizarre, right? But it's like 16 years old, you're a man, you've got to go out on your own in the world and tr and try to make make a go of it. And what that's what had happened to him. And because he was always struggling financially, being a poor Manitoba farmer, it's easy to imagine why. Uh, he went north hoping to actually pay off his farm's debts and strike it rich or somehow make money, enough money in the north to pay off his family's debt and be able to wed his fiance, who with whom he seems to have been madly in love with, and she was madly in love with him. She continued to pine for him ever afterwards. She actually wrote to some of the most famous Arctic explorers in the world after he disappeared, begging them to go search for him, try to figure out what had happened. She was the last to really give up hope that he was not coming back. Um so I've tried to explain all that. But there's something else that I think many people even today can identify with in Daryl's story, which is that elusive, enchanting uh call of the wild, right? We all know what it is, but it's hard to put into words. Uh what is it about the wilderness that speaks to our hearts and souls and draws us out there, you know, uh to see what's on the other side of the mountain or over the next hill or up the next bend in the river? And Daryl very much was a guy who was captivated by the spell of the beyond, uh, the allure of the the wild. And, you know, for him it wasn't enough just to go to say northern Manitoba or the Yukon. He was constantly hungering, thirsting after those really blank spots on the map, which is where the title of the book comes from Vanish Beyond the Map. He had specifically gone uh into an area that was uncharted to try to map it beyond any of the existing maps uh when he vanished. And this was something he had done many times before, but you know, there was something in his lonely soul that those remote faraway places called out to and lured him out there time and time again, and almost like a moth to the flame. In the end, he couldn't resist, and it ended up being uh his doom. It destroyed him. And I do think I found his final camp, his last place on earth, uh, where he met his tragic end. And it w I don't want to spoil the end of the book, but was it ever uh dramatic? All the evidence points to this uh this conclusion and it is in the book there, but I don't want to spoil the ending of the book the book.

SPEAKER_00: 54:21

Yeah, and I don't want you to spoil it, but yeah, whatever you have to say, you can go ahead and say. I won't tell. Um and just because uh you mentioned Call of the Wild um was the uh whisper on the night wind. Is that that uh in the opening chapter uh was did you not quote uh Call of the Wild? Is that not where that title came from? Close. It's Robert Service, uh the poetry.

SPEAKER_01: 54:44

Oh, Robert Service in the Yukon, yeah. Contemporary of Jack London. I do have Jack London in this book. That's the other thing about Hubert Darrell. So Robert Service, Robert Service was maybe the most famous poet in Canada a century ago. He knew Hubert Darrell. And he admired Hubert Darrell, like everyone in the Yukon. He thought Darrell was a legend. And this is bizarre. When I dug up the old newspaper accounts of his disappearance in the the Dawson newspaper or the Alaskan newspapers, it was Robert Service, the famous poet, the guy who wrote like uh Sam McGee and all that. The creation of Sam McGee. He was the guy who broke the story of Daryl's disappearance. He was the first guy to bring word that he was missing to the outside world. And this was part of the problem. In that day, news traveled very, very slowly. It was the opposite of today where we're bombarded with 24-hour news cycles. There was no telegram station in Fort McPherson or any of these other remote places. So news actually had to come south by dog sled. And there would only be one journey a year where the mail would come south on dog sled. So and then it would come to Dawson and they had a telegram station there where they could relay it to the outside world. Um so this made it even more difficult to try to unravel things. But it was actually Robert Service, he was the guy, the famous poet, who first broke the story that Hubert Darrell, Fearless Explorer, has gone missing. And uh, you know, Jack London, did he know Hubert Darrell? It's possible they were in the north at the same time. Many other big names who were in the Yukon at that time did indeed know him, some of the most famous mounties uh in the Yukon. They were good friends with Hubert Darrell, they knew him well, and he'd actually guided them, he'd led them in the wilderness uh many times. So yeah, lots of those names, Jack London, Robert Service come up in the book as well, and how they crossed Daryl's path.

SPEAKER_00: 56:30

And just as uh an aside here, I'm trying to remember uh from I'm remembering from Pierre Burton's Kondike, Sam. Was there a mounty named Sam?

SPEAKER_02: 56:38

Oh, you think it's Sam Steele, probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 56:40

Sam Steele. But again, uh at the time, uh what we think of Mounties now with the hat and the horses, those guys who were sent up to to the Yukon during the gold rush, they were, you know, it was uh I don't want to over you know, the Wild West, but uh those mounties were pretty tough as well and and uh had to get through quite a bit of uh mayhem of of humanity.

SPEAKER_01: 57:01

Yeah, that's a whole lot that's a whole nother story. But the that's the other thing that really comes across when you're trying to reconstruct the world of a hundred years ago, especially in a remotest place as Canada's Arctic or North, is how small it was. It's like you're a mounty there. There is no backup. You can't grab your phone and call for backup. It'd be like, you know, there's there's six mounties and there's a thousand angry prospectors, American gold seekers here, and nothing else around for thousands of miles but mountains and snow and bitterly cold minus forty degree temperatures. Um yeah, people were very they had to be a lot more self-reliant, a lot more rugged and independent in the sense that help was not a phone call away, and and nobody really personified that more than Daryl, um, who went out in the wilderness hundreds of miles from anywhere on his own. And that was something that everyone at the time thought was extraordinary. I mean, it didn't matter if you were an Inuit, Danet, Gwichin, uh French Canadian fur trapper, American gold seeker, everyone kind of traveled in groups. They had friends or partners or families, but Daryl was known even in his own time as the lone wolf, the this mysterious wanderer who just would disappear. There he goes, he's out on snowshoes. And then like six months later, they'd hear that he was on Hudson's Bay, and they're like, How'd you get to Hudson's Bay? I walked. Um, he developed this extra Yeah, he developed this extraordinary reputation. They ended up saving, he's credited with saving the lives of hundreds of sailors who get frozen into the Arctic Ocean. They're trapped in the Arctic ice in the Beaufort Sea during the very cold winter of 1906. Uh, they'd gone up there to hunt whales, uh, but they couldn't get south in time because the sea froze solid and they had enough provisions to last for a while, but they were running low, and they couldn't get out. Um now there's no way for them to just you know come south. The nearest telegram station is a thousand kilometers away, there's no trail, there's mountains, there's arctic darkness, it's the winter, there's no sunrise at those latitudes. But one guy shows up and volunteers to go alone without even sled dogs, because the snow is too deep for Huskies, and travel 1,000 kilometers alone over the mountains to try to save everyone's life, get to the nearest telegram station in Alaska and send word that the ships are frozen in, that they're running out of provisions, so that hopefully uh ships can be sent north, sail around the Bering Sea and across uh the Bulford Sea and bring them, you know, relief, provisions. And that man, of course, is Hubert Darrell. When he sets off on snowshoes over the mountains alone in the dead of winter in January, everyone thinks, you know, he we'll never see him again. He's a dead man. There goes uh there goes him. But he travels with almost superhuman strength, stamina, and speed because he knows literally life's are hanging in the balance. And barely a month later, he's covered a thousand kilometers over the mountains, and he shows up in this little tiny fur trade post in Alaska and he comes out of the mountains. I mean, you can barely Barely imagine it. Windswept face, you know, frostbit, huge beard, long hair. This wild guy once is encrusted in a yeti. They think he's a phantom. Yeah, like this. Yeah. What is this ghost? And uh he says, you know, here are the dispatches from the whaling captains. They're frozen into the sea. There's not a moment to lose. Send out word. And he rests barely a couple of weeks. They give him word back from the telegram station. He says, okay, now I'll go back all the way to the ships, a thousand kilometers again, and uh let them know that I got word out and everything's gonna be okay. Um so I mean that's the extraordinary story that is Hubert Darrell, uh, this legend, who again was you know highly uh admired and respected in the north, across the north in his own time, but had been forgotten about uh by history.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:47

Mm-hmm. And and as you're describing that particular adventure of saving the sailors, there's uh the story of Togo, again, uh like Balto, right? And I think I it was Togo, I think, wasn't it? And uh they made it into a movie with Willem Defoe. And it was it's a very good movie, a dra dramatic movie, and and speaks to the heart of the Arctic explorer. And I think that's why I, again, the the edge with Anthony Hopkins is something that I love. Uh, you know, that but when you look at that movie and you think, wow, they made a movie about Balto and about this this story is uh uh just hearing it now, I'm even more excited to get the book and read it because this is exactly what you know I I thirst for in the other books. And um I I I read another upcoming review or something that this book is you nailing everything else that you've done so far into one big uh amazing volume that is Vanished Beyond the Map. Um and so uh from here, just for an example, what would it take, do you think, or is that something that you would ever even consider is if something like this were to be turned into a movie? I don't I I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:51

Yeah, it's not uh I'm not a movie maker or a filmmaker, so that's uh beyond my uh beyond my reach. But I mean theoretically, theoretically that's how movies get made, is someone comes along, reads a book, and says, let's buy the rights to the book and turn it into a movie. So if someone from someone from Steven Spielberg comes knocking on my door, I'm certainly not gonna say no. Hey yo, Steve. Yeah. Vanish Beyond the Map. And I think Togo, the Get Off My Doorstep. Yeah, that movie you referenced, Togo. I'm not a I'm not a I don't know for sure, but I think it's it's similar to the Hubert Darrell case where the dog that was credited in that famous survival story was not the dog that actually did it. So they kind of like they tried to bring the real hero to light. And uh Hubert Darrell is sort of like that as well. I mean, it there's I couldn't even tell you everything that happened in this book. He gets in a fight in the Arctic in the middle of nowhere with a British aristocrat, um, another guy who tried to hire him as a guide, a very wealthy sport hunter from New York called Henry Radford. He hears of Daryl's legendary reputation, and he says, This is I don't care what the price is, I'm gonna hire you as my guide. I want you to lead me into the Arctic. I'm a big game hunter. And Daryl says, I don't want anything to do with you. He thinks he's really green and arrogant and won't take him in the Yukon. And that same year that Daryl disappears, Radford goes into the Arctic and he ends up murdered. He gets his throat slit. Um I know there's all these fascinating stories that are the greatest story that's never been told. I know. It's uh the drama, it write it practically wrote itself this book, and wherever possible, I tried to use the original letters, the original diaries, and the original newspaper articles, and reproduce them in the book so that the reader can actually see it through the eyes of the people who were there in their own words. Uh this is what's happening. Um that's all part of the book. And as I said, October 7th, it's coming out in bookstores um all across Canada. You can get it online, Amazon, Indigo Chapters, Coles, independent bookstores.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:46

My website has the links and adamsholz.com, and I'll also be posting more of that as the book comes out too. So I'll this, I'll be sure that uh I'm putting that out there for you too, because again, your work merits and deserves it. This is what you're doing is Canadian history, and you're getting a whole generation of people into something that again, when you know I was the kid in grade seven learning about the Court de Bois, uh, about Jean Talon and the the you know the establishment of New France, and I was like, oh, give me more. And other kids seemingly were like, oh, and so having this, you've created for all Canadian historians and and you've created, you're creating a pop culture going back to our previous discussion about Richard Wagner and this idea of a national myth. Um uh what do you think maybe the role of myth is or legend in your stories or this book? Um, I know uh that that's something you talked about um in your previous books as well. Uh the whisper on the night wind, you talk about mythology and legend, uh, the Lugaroo, which is the werewolf. And so to go back to those books, people can read them if they haven't, they should. Uh, because the the outcome of that book was really interesting as well, right? What what was it? Right.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:00

Um, well, and the subtitle the subtitle of that book, The Whisper on the Night Wind, is actually the true history of a wilderness legend. Um, so I did try to take a little bit of skepticism, but not total skepticism. I said, you know, these are legends, these are myths, but they're not entirely fictional. They have a grain of truth behind them, and that's what fascinates me is I want to dig down into the roots of these legends and find out what is that true or real thing uh that inspired the story. And I think there's an element of that, you know, legendary, myth making, many different features of history, probably in Daryl's own life. Uh he became a living legend, so you know what it's like. Uh when you've done something, like you caught it this big muskie, the biggest muskie in the lake, it was this big, oh, it was 40 pound, and then it becomes a 50-pound, then it becomes a 60-pound. So Daryl probably experienced that in his own life among those isolated fur trappers and fur trade posts. Stories of his exploits exploits spread like wildfire. And he probably did become kind of like a Paul Bunyan uh mythical figure in his own time, but he was one that uh had vanished from the history books until now, when of course I'm trying to bring him back and put them into the history books. And actually, I I heard that his l his hometown in Bertle, Manitoba, um, because of what I've done here, they're making an exhibit on him in the local museum. And I'm actually going to be going there in a few weeks to do a talk at the museum and uh help bring his story to out of the shadows. So, yeah, I mean that's all part of it.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:23

And the pride in the community that you've created, you've uh uh awoken uh a pride in the in the past. And again, that is identity and uh and and those are all sort of tertiary or secondary outcomes of what you're doing. Uh and and through this too, another question I guess I have is while you do these stories and you're putting them together, do you find that in the region, because a lot of your work is in the Arctic, um, and as you dig through that, again, sparser areas, has your or have your own experiences and explorations of the Arctic changed your outlooks as a historian or how you do your work? I mean, because I've never really been there. I don't know if that's a clear question, but uh maybe through your voyages and as a historian, you know, what has been the biggest lesson on how you curate these histories, maybe?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:10

Probably uh it's definitely actually going out onto the land. And I don't think this is necessarily the case just with the history of the Arctic, but really anything you're studying, even if you're studying World War II, uh what have you, any subject under the sun, um, it really reinforces when you actually get away from the library and the history books, the massive impact geography, the land has on history. So for me, that's front and center. It's kind of like the land or the geography shapes the history. And that was the whole idea behind my book that you held up earlier, a history of Canada in 10 maps. Um, let the maps tell the story. So I think that's that's very true. It you know, Canada's history develops around the waterways, the lakes, the canoe routes, the traditional travel routes, uh, that really influences the whole development of the country. And uh You know, Canada is not Canada if it doesn't have this northern geography. And the same is true of France and its vineyards and its its uh orchards and farmyards and everywhere else in the world, right? Um so yeah, that that's what I would say is that when you're actually out there sleeping under the stars or paddling a canoe in the river, it really reinforces or brings home to you the massive impact the land itself has on the history. So my history books are a little bit unusual in the sense that the land itself is almost like a character in the book alongside Hubert Darrell or Samuel Duchamplain. It's the land itself that's actually taking on uh sort of a starring role in the story because it's the land that shapes really everything else, and it's front and center in all of my books.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:38

Climate and where we come from. And uh that's a big issue as well, is to think, you know, uh sea seafaring uh civilizations more likely to have seafood and those types of things in their culture and how all of those things are holistically creating us. And I think without getting, you know, uh from my point of view as a historian, and and I guess I I love the psychological aspects too of how culture comes to be. Uh, and again, you can't remove that from climate, from geography, because even within Canada, you know, what is Canada in Southern Ontario versus Northern Ontario? It's a very different way of life based on geographical uh realities. Right. Um, you know, and that that ultimately explores, and I think that too feeds into, you know, what does it mean to be Canadian? I think part of the reason of starting Canadian Grit and trying to bring these types of stories to life that you've made so beautifully for us to just open and it it doesn't most people will be like, oh, this is an amazing book, but they don't see the years and the hours that it takes. Um but I I just think that that is i it's really important in creating that national cohesion of what does it mean, you know, in in a day where there's a lot of politics and different things all over the world going on. But what does it mean to be at home when we have so many different pieces of history and groups of people, anthropology? What is Canada? And I think what you exhibit from my personal point of view is that you are keeping the spirit of exploration alive, and in my opinion, that is Canada. That's my subjective opinion that we've always been explorers. We've never had one identity all the way back to your history of Canada in ten maps, all the way back to uh the earliest maps of the Vikings coming to Labrador uh and these places is, you know, who got here? Well, a lot of people, but you know, Samuel Le Champlain, a lot of people will call him a colonizer. But we also pick it apart and say, well, uh if we look at human history, isn't all exploration considered colonization? And these are the questions, again, that uh when I read your book, I end up with more questions and more desire to learn about all of the things about Canada that I don't know. Um, and I think that's really special just as a little plug to you, uh, you know, and to to sort of honor your efforts that I think uh even you in your humility wouldn't, I think it's really special what you do because this is important for Canada and for kids. The fact that you go and do snakes, uh, you know, the 33 types of snakes, you are also appealing to all Canadians and trying to make a creative, cohesive image of that, I think. And it's powerful.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:25

Well, thank you very much, Shane.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:27

Yeah, I know you're a busy man. Um uh, but the maybe one of the last things is um uh uh uh just as a question, if I were to say to you, uh, because I think this is just interesting because uh trying to show youth and other people that they can make changes in their life and they can pursue dreams, uh, and that you know uh that some people might look at what you do as quote unquote crazy. You you might might hear this, right? Do people come to you and say, What are you doing, right? Uh uh Do people think you're crazy? Maybe speak to that, and crazy maybe not the good word, but do you see yourself as an influencer? And in this day of digital media, and this is what's really funny, is because uh I think it's important that I I I want to call you an influencer, uh, because you're somebody who's showing people how things can be better or done or understood, as opposed to trying to change them. You're allowing people to come to their own realizations, you're promoting critical thinking. Uh, and I think that's incredibly powerful. And I really want to make that explicit because um that's what this is. History is an active and democratic participation, and you are an active person who is bringing important stories of humanity to keep that going. So, in all of that, is uh are you an influencer? And so when people say to you, are you know, are you you obviously you know you go to these places, do you get scared? Why do you do it? Because I I look at you and I'm like, man, I I I want to do these things and and to explore. So what makes you want to do it is and it's gotta be for yourself, like you said at the beginning, right? Because if you don't have the passion, you wouldn't be able to do any of this.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:04

Yeah, it's funny. I don't think I've ever used the word uh influencer to describe myself. I don't really think of that as uh I figured you wouldn't. I know I thought you might laugh, but that's why I guess I'm old-fashioned in the sense that I think of myself as really just a writer, uh, an author, a guy who loves the outdoors and the woods. But um, I guess, you know, technically I have Instagram and I have Facebook. I don't post probably nearly as much as what a true influencer would do. Um but you know, you're too busy, it's hard to do it. With some degree of some degree of irony um talking on a you know a video stream. Uh one of the one of my key messages I try to get across, especially whenever I'm out of school as a guest speaker, is just trying to awaken in every kid a sense of wonder for the natural world and you know get away a little bit from the from the digital screens and and get out into the outdoors, whether it's a local park or a bigger camping trip. I think it's something that speaks to almost all of us as humans, um, regardless of where we come from. There's something about you know the great outdoors that resonates with us, and that's probably because for the vast majority of our human history, uh our our ancestors lived under the stars. They lived in the great outdoors. And I think, you know, now more than ever with AI and and uh increasing digitization, um, you know, more and more uh video games and our lives being lived online, it's important that we try to take steps as a society to influence, to use that word, to get people of all ages, but especially kids, uh, those opportunities to get outdoors and fall in love with exploring, you know, finding that patch of wild blackberries and getting to eat the the thing you forged yourself out in the wild, or finding that you know rare species of queen snake up in the tree, or who knows, maybe dreaming one day of going out into the Arctic and finding a lost explorer. Who knows? Maybe that Adam Schultz guy finally disappeared in the Arctic and a hundred years from my bone. Don't say that. I will I will come for you, sir. I will I will come for you. I will get snowshoes and I will find you. Well, that's the idea. I've inspired you, I've influenced you to do it. So the idea is, yeah, getting kids, you know, you know, that there's nothing holding you back. People ask me that all the time. I want to do what you do, but I don't know where to start. How do I do it? And I always say the same thing, which sounds like a joke, but it's not. But it's I just say put your boots on and you're back back and go. That's the single biggest obstacle. You actually just have to go. It doesn't matter where you're going or what you're doing. In the beginning, I didn't know either. Just get out there, go canoeing, go find some towels up on your wallet. Exactly. Go find a moose. Yeah. Um, have fun and the pieces will fall into place. You'll learn more by doing, um, and you'll get more experience and you'll figure out a path. And that's half the whole fun of the adventure is not knowing uh where you're going or exactly what you're gonna do. Some of the best adventures are the ones that aren't planned, but it's just having the sort of uh push you need or the the courage to take that first step and get out there. And it's all it's all relative. You know, maybe a two-day camping trip in the backcountry is a is a four-month adventure for uh someone else, and that's that's fine. It's just a matter of uh getting out there and experiencing all that this world has to offer in the great outdoors. And uh that's partly what I'm trying to do through my books, is to you know get kids inspired to want to go out there and people of all ages, obviously.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:17

And that's why I'm here too, and why I really appreciate you being here. Um You mentioned one thing about Hubert Darrell having carved in the trees. I I wanted to ask you that, uh, not to lose the the flow of our our discussion here, but did you uh so how what what did he write or did you find any of those while you were on your on your voyage?

SPEAKER_01: 1:16:38

Yeah, so he didn't he didn't carve carve, I shouldn't have said carve. He didn't carve it in with a knife. Well I did say that. He it was like a blaze. Okay. So the tree had been cut, a spruce tree. It'd been cut with a hatchet so it was a smooth surface, and then he actually had had written on the tree. Um in in pen or pencil, he'd written on the tree, like a smooth blaze. So that had faded away. It's not there to be found anymore. I see. Um but I actually did find the archival source, like this old letter that had been collecting dust for a hundred years by a guy who had read the writing and what it was. And it was a message, very important message, um, recording the date when the ice had broken up and where he went. Um and this was actually not uncommon in an age before emails and text messages to do that in the north, as bizarre as it sounds. People would write down on a spot where it would be seen, like a blaze on a tree or a rock that's particled who they were and where they were going. Like hatchet jack, head it west May 4th for Mackenzie River. He did something like breadcrumbs. Exactly. So that was that was important to me in the 21st century here, retracing his route because I actually went there uh with my canoe and traveled west, retracing his steps. I knew he went this way, and I knew approximately where he was when he vanished. And it was just a process of elimination, canoeing through those lakes and rivers in the western Arctic and uh figuring out where his final campsite was. So that was all part of the part of the mystery too. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:08

Uh and so with all of this coming out, your book's coming out October 7th, today, you know, in within a week, yeah. Uh your book's gonna be coming out. So, what's what are your plans for the book launch? Uh, you've mentioned you can get it at Coles, Chapters, Indigo, basically anywhere or on your website.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:25

Independent bookstores, Amazon, you name it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:27

There you go. So it's gonna be everywhere.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:29

Oh, and I should also say before I forget, um, for it's also available in audio book format. So for people who'd rather listen, uh, there is an audio book and that comes out at the same time, October 7th.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:40

Did you narrate it? Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:42

Oh, wow, good for you. You have a you have a podcast voice, sir. Well, thank you. You're you're gonna you're gonna be putting me out of business here very shortly.

SPEAKER_01: 1:18:50

I won't be starting a podcast anytime soon, so you have nothing to worry about.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:53

You can have Adam live from the Arctic. Right. Chatting with polar bears. Um and so as part of that when you're when you're going out and doing that, uh, what are some of the bigger things coming for you? Uh so you mentioned going to Manitoba for Hubert Darrell's opening of the museum. Or do you have any other big uh particular engagements as part of the launch that you do?

SPEAKER_01: 1:19:15

Uh yes, I'll be doing as many book signings and book talks and uh doing slideshows featuring photos and video clips from my own expeditions in the Arctic, retracing Daryl's light uh life, uh all across Ontario and a few in Manitoba this fall. All those details are on my website. But yeah, I'm gonna be all over the map. Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Ottawa, uh Hamilton, Toronto, Niagara. I'm trying to cover as much ground as I can. I always joke the easy part is writing a book. The hard part is actually selling the book, um, which is what I have to do now because if I can sell a few copies, then I can get the funds I need to keep doing adventures. So that's the idea. But yeah, all those details are on my website as well.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:53

The last thing was I saw that you also do guided walks. Uh, did you want to just speak to that as well? And and just for people in southern Ontario, you do trail hikes and other walks. I just wanted to put that out there in case people in the area have friends from Faunt Hill. Uh, a shout out to my friend Kelly, who's encouraged me, pushed me. Uh for years. I said I would love to one day start a podcast. A dream would be to someday talk to Sir Adam Schultz. This day is happening for me. So there have been some people who have pushed me uh to make this happen. And so is uh so that's really exciting. But um the guided hikes, I'm sorry. So because she lives in that area too, I would love people who are anywhere near you uh in Ontario. Where do you do those and how often?

SPEAKER_01: 1:20:38

Uh I do them only once a year. It's a special thing, just an annual hike in the fall. Because actually, another passion of mine is wild mushrooms. So if you like wild mushrooms, uh that's my forte, and I teach people how to identify wild mushrooms and plants. And I actually do them all over Ontario. I changed the location. So I do have one in the in Algonquin. Uh last year I did the Mattawa River in San Mel G Champlain Provincial Park up near North Bay. And I've done tomogamy as well. And yes, I do have one down on the Niagara River, although that's more of a history hike, less of a wild plant hike, although I still talk about the plants we come across. And that's just once a year. So the hikes this year are pretty much sold out because I try to keep them in all groups to make it special. I see. Um but I I have it on my website year-round so people can inquire and sign up. And I'm gonna open some new locations uh next year, most likely, but it's a once-a year thing in the fall. The fall is the best time. We've got beautiful fall colors, no bugs, and that's when all the mushrooms are out, so that's when I like to do them. And yeah, it's they're four-hour hikes and people seem to have a lot of fun on them. I've done them for seven straight years now. Seven straight years. And uh yeah, there's that, all that stuff's on my website. But you know, thank you very much, Jamie, uh, for having me as a guest and getting this chance to talk about.

SPEAKER_00: 1:21:48

Well, thank you for coming. Uh, because again, this is my uh pleasure. And congratulations on your new book. Congratulations on uh making all this happen, on unboxing it, and within a week, you know, your your new book's coming out. Uh, and I'm gonna be telling everybody about it. Uh uh, there are a lot of people who are interested in your stuff, and I think you're giving Canadians something that uh, you know, and I've got your a bookmark right here from Indigo saying the world needs more Canada. Uh, and that's absolutely something I agree with, and that's something I'm trying to do in my own right. And I would just like to thank you, sir, for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule in all of the things that you're doing. As a current and fellow historian, I just would like to say thank you for what you're doing for the field of Canadian history and what you're doing to inspire the next generation of Canadians and for inspiring me. And I thank you for your time. And if you ever would like to come back to Canadian Grit, you will always have a seat and somewhere to talk. So whoever uh where whoever you're chasing down next in the north, or if you want to talk about it, we would love to hear from you. Well, my pleasure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:22:53

May our paths cross again. Thank you very much, Jamie. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:56

Take care of yourself, Adam, and all the best to your family and your kids. Thank you for making time today. Same to you, Jamie. Take care.