Book: On Top of a Boulder Notes from Tyrrell's Cairn

by Brian Johnston (Paperback) 76 pages

"A wonderful little window on history and the lure of faraway places!" —James Raffan, Author and Executive Director, The Canadian Canoe Museum

This new book reveals subarctic cairn notes—penned by wilderness travellers. Witness over a century of travellers’ thoughts captured on top of a massive boulder on an otherwise barren landscape.

Longtime Arctic paddler Brian Johnston is helping to preserve a unique collection of notes that speak to the essence of far north wilderness canoe travel. Johnston, a veteran far north paddler, traversed 1000 km eastward along the edge of the subarctic on route visiting Tyrrell’s Carey Lake boulder cairn on the Dubawnt River. There, Johnston found the cairn notes deteriorating. He decided to preserve and share them before the harsh environment eroded the historical record. Dating back to 1893 when J.B. Tyrrell first established the cairn, it is one of a few cairns with this length of accumulated history. The notes form a multilayered record of the echoes of history, including the ill-fated Art Moffat expedition.

If you enjoy canoe travel or share a kinship with travellers in an unbounded land, then On Top of a Boulder: Notes from Tyrrell’s Cairn is a piece of history waiting your exploration.

Shipping Delay: This item ships out July 20

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