Canadian Yachting February 2022 - 55

Somewhat counter to intuition,
nearly all of Canada
was mapped using a sextant.
We know Vancouver,
Cook, Bligh, Quadra and
La Perouse were extraordinarily
gifted navigators
and cartographers. We
also know they did it with a
sextant. What is not widely
known, and most certainly
underappreciated, is
Thompson, Fidler, Turnor,
MacKenzie and Champlain
were every bit the navigators and cartographers their naval
counterparts were. Cook's chart of Newfoundland was not
superseded until the middle of the 20th century. Likewise, some
of Thompson's maps of Canada's vast, trackless interior.
After having retraced many of the great navigators' wakes, including
Vancouver's and Quadra's, by sailing around the world
via the five great capes in the soop eauran, m preparing to
retrace MacKenzie's footsteps across Canada. I plan to do that
using only the navigational tools he used: compass, sextant,
watch and tables.
Starting April 1, 2022 from the area where Simon Fraser meets
the aish ea near the niversit of ritish Coumia, and finishing
on the Atlantic seaboard near Dalhousie, New Brunswick,
I plan to travel on foot and in a canoe, solo and unassisted,
the same routes that First Nations peoples used to traverse
vast tracts of land and later, guide some of Canada's greatest
mapmakers and cartographers. The route is more than 7,200
kilometres long, and will carry me over many of the places that
shaped and utimate hep define this countr.
As opposed to Seaburban's 45-foot length and 30,000 plus
pounds displacement, I'll be travelling in a 16-foot canoe and
carrying less than 120 pounds of gear and food. Carrying is
the operative word as I'll be portaging, pulling or dragging the
canoe by foot overland for more than 500 kilometres. Additionally,
there will be no shortage of trying to paddle upstream,
including portions of the
Fraser and Columbia rivers.
Having completed a solo
circumnavigation, anyone
who has learned of this
next adventure has typically
skipped the usual
'You must be crazy' comments
and opted for 'Why?'
I know now how to answer
because the context is usually
muddled by incredulity.
Why are you doing this
alone? Why in a canoe and
not a motorhome? Why leave home at all?
How can one know much of anything of a history without reaching
out across time, and indeed space, to try and recapture what
those who helped make it might have experienced? I want to
experience and learn something of this land, and the nation it
would become, by experiencing it the way those who helped
create it did. From the explorers who literally put Canada on
the map to the First Nations peoples who struggled, lived and
loved by their sides every step and stroke along the way. Their
path, their footsteps, their wakes will by my guide. ■
CANADIANYACHTING.CA
55
http://www.CANADIANYACHTING.CA
Canadian Yachting February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Canadian Yachting February 2022
