Book Review: Northern Saskatchewan Canoe Country

If the names of Northern Saskatchewan’s rivers — the Churchill, the Clearwater, the Fond du Lac, the Sturgeon-weir — aren’t enough to beckon you to paddle on them, then perhaps the photos in Robin and Arlene Karpan’s book will finally send you down one in a canoe.

The couple’s Northern Saskatchewan Canoe Country (Parkland Publishing, $34.95) shows the region’s canoe routes in their full photographic splendor.

While not solely a photographic, coffee-table volume, the strength of the book is in the Karpans’ photos from their trips across the stunning northern Saskatchewan countryside. The book’s 230 images capture the landscapes, wildlife, and paddling reality of an area steeped in wilderness, history, and adventure. The book’s high-quality, glossy stock displays the couple’s images in their full glory. The pair pays particular photographic attention to the geology and pictographs of the area, which is welcome.

The book’s text straddles the paths of “trip narrative” and “guide book.” The authors describe the book’s fifteen routes largely by describing their own trips and peppering those personal stories with historical notes, basic route information, and for-further-reference book suggestions. The narratives are informative and, along with a back-of-the-book reference section, point the reader to the more in-depth information needed for trip planning.

We’d have preferred choosing one route or the other with the book’s copy. More thorough guidebook-style details would have put a beautiful, complete reference into readers’ hands in a fashion similar to Ken Madsen and Peter Mather’s A Guide to Paddling in the Yukon. (Which we reviewed HERE.) On the other hand, if the Karpans didn’t want to duplicate the efforts of Laurel Archer’s 2003 Northern Saskatchewan Canoe Trips: A Guide to 15 Wilderness Rivers, less prosaic, more fully-realized stories about each river would have complimented the book’s photos most naturally and given the whole volume — photos and text — a sustained feel.

In any case, the Karpans’ fine photos of their stunning region make Northern Saskatchewan Canoe Country an important addition to the canoe library of the area.