Chronicles of Canada Volume 20 - Adventurers of the Far North

For centuries, the Northwest Passage represented the greatest geographical puzzle on Earth: a water route through the frozen Arctic that would connect the Atlantic to the Pacific and reshape global trade. This volume chronicles the men who answered that call, tracing the brutal, triumphant, and often fatal expeditions of three legendary figures. Samuel Hearne becomes the first European to cross the continent's northern interior, walking thousands of miles through wilderness most mapmakers had only imagined. Sir Alexander Mackenzie pushes farther north and west than any explorer before him, driven by the dream of finding a navigable river to the Pacific. Sir John Franklin vanishes into the ice with two ships and 129 men, sparking one of the nineteenth century's most harrowing rescue missions and revealing the true cost of Arctic ambition. Leacock brings his signature wit to these tales of endurance and obsession, but the humor serves a deeper purpose: to illuminate the particular madness and courage that drove men into the most unforgiving landscape on Earth.