'Canada's Indiana Jones' Adam Shoalts brings Arctic to Williamstown
Published Dec 01, 2023 • Last updated 9 hours ago • 3 minute read
WILLIAMSTOWN – It turns out that a century or two after the heyday of explorers like Peary, Nansen, Ross and Thompson, exploring Canada’s Arctic is still a thing.
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A young Canadian does that, the old fashioned way and with limited use of the former Internet Explorer. Adam Shoalts has had great success and considerable notoriety too, and on Thursday night he was a guest speaker at a small community where exploration of yesteryear is still celebrated, even in an era of drive-thru fast food.
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“Imagine that you can (paddle and portage) for thousands of kilometres over (many weeks), and not see a single Tim Hortons,’’ Shoalts recounted for a large gathering in a hall in Williamstown, part of his book tour that swung through eastern Ontario and Montreal this week, the South Glengarry stop a fundraiser for the Glengarry Nor’Westers and Loyalist Museum.
Explorer Adam Shoalts during his presentation in Williamstown. Photo on Thursday, November 30, 2023, in Williamstown Ont. Todd Hambleton/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia Network Photo by Todd Hambleton /Todd Hambleton/Standard-FreeholderShoalts brought slides, humour and fascinating anecdotes to the Tartan Room upstairs at the arena, coming as no surprise from someone who the Toronto Star once called “Canada’s Indiana Jones, portaging in the north, dodging scary rapids, plunging into darkness, and surviving to tell the tale.”
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But what many might not have known is that Shoalts, of the Norfolk County area on the north shore of Lake Erie in southern Ontario, has family ties to Cornwall and area – his mom had roots in Morrisburg, and his uncle Frank Hummell was a principal at Char-Lan high school.
One of Shoalts’ strongest memories of Cornwall is of an abundance of mosquitos. It’s a long story – 3,400 km long, in the spring and summer of 2022, his odyssey from his doorstep on Lake Erie to the Arctic, the trip resulting in his latest smash book, Where the Falcon Flies, published earlier this fall and a national best-seller for two months.
It was a slow journey but Shoalts was in a rush, three months starting in late April to get to his northern destination before stormy season in the Arctic which arrives early in August in the form of gale-force winds.
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His paddling started on Lake Erie and took him close to Buffalo, followed by portaging at Niagara Falls, onto Lake Ontario, past Kingston and Cornwall on the St. Lawrence River, trying not to get run over by commercial freighters along the way, reaching saltwater on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and bushwhacking in Labrador’s wilderness – all en route to Kangiqsualujjuaq in the Arctic by canoe and on foot.
Oh yes, those Cornwall mosquitos. His 17-hour paddling days brought him close to the Seaway City about three weeks into the journey in mid-May, a cold spring that was mosquito-free until portaging in Guindon Park.
“I couldn’t help but laugh – usually I’m not (dealing with mosquitos) until the sub-Arctic, and here they were in Cornwall of all places,’’ Shoalts said.
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And there were those polar bears to fend off in Cornwall too. Well, at least the ones in his head.
“Even in Cornwall, polar bears were never far from my mind,’’ he said of the importance of arriving in Canada’s north before fall, when the bears are still well-fed and less aggressive.
Shoalts, elected a Fellow at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for his extraordinary contributions and who in 2017 completed a nearly 4,000-km solo journey across Canada’s Arctic, said the 2022 trip was inspired by a peregrine falcon he spotted through the window at his home, flying over a nearby corn field.
Shoalts in his previous expedition had seen those birds in the Arctic, and when he saw one in southern Ontario was reminded that “it’s all connected, so why not get in my canoe and follow its journey?’’
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Not so fast though. That local falcon spotting was in the spring of 2020, and Shoalts – often a spontaneous traveller – had to wait two years until a post-pandemic period to head out again.
Field Guide Outdoors has called Shoalts the “adventurer and explorer of our time.’’ He’s a geographer and historian, holding a Ph.D from McMaster University in Hamilton.
Explorer Adam Shoalts during his presentation in Williamstown. Photo on Thursday, November 30, 2023, in Williamstown Ont. Todd Hambleton/Cornwall Standard-Freeholder/Postmedia Network Photo by Todd Hambleton /Todd Hambleton/Standard-FreeholderShoalts was speaking Thursday at the museum that preserves and interprets the history of the United Empire Loyalist migration to Glengarry County and of the Glengarry partners of the North West Company.
For more information on Shoalts, the Westaway Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society who in 2016 was named a national champion of the Trans-Canada Trail, visit adamshoalts.com.
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