Kirkus Review

A budding writer and environmental scholar chronicles her historic canoeing adventure with her adventurous best friend. Shortly after graduating college in 2011, Warren and her best friend, Ann, decided to re-create the historic wilderness voyage of Eric Sevareid and Walter C. Port, whose 1935 classic, Canoeing With the Cree, chronicled their 2,000-mile paddling trip from Minneapolis to the Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada. Armed with a minimum of sponsors, the best equipment they could scrounge, and a literal barrel of food, the duo began their adventure on the heavily flooded Minnesota River, an obstacle that almost deterred them. But they persevered on the difficult quest, and the author offers a captivating mix of personal narrative, history lessons, environmentalism, and travelogue, not to mention healthy doses of friendly friction between friends. Warren also captures the tension between wide-eyed, naïve excitement and the realities involved in such a daunting expedition. "There is a big difference between going on an expedition and just going camping," writes the author in the prologue. "On an expedition you feel a sense of urgency to continue on a trail and will relax only long enough to rejuvenate….I often thought about the psychology behind what makes anyone hell-bent on one thing while knowing that, in the big scheme of things, their greatest passions seem miniscule and unimportant." Along the way, there were plenty of hurdles, among them numerous stretches of dangerous water conditions and run-ins with curious black bears and "help" from both generous and suspicious strangers. During a visit with the Cree people, the adventurers quite accidentally took on a new companion, "Myhan the wolf dog." Neither as visceral as Cheryl Strayed's Wild nor as folksy and quaint as Bill Bryson's rambles, this story lives, like its locale, in a unique place. A friendly, educational quest story for readers of everyone from Rachel Carson to Edward Abbey. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.