View topic - For P.G. Downes fans

I just received this notification from the publishers:

Distant Summers

P. G. Downes’ Journals of Travels in Northern Canada, 1936-1947

by P. G. Downes (author of Sleeping Island)

Edited by R. H. Cockburn

With nearly 100 illustrations and 8 maps

Distant Summers (Vol I) contains the accounts of P. G. Downes’ 1936 and 1937 trips in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and of his 1938 journey to Great Bear and Great Slave lakes. Downes wrote a classic of northern canoe travel, Sleeping Island, originally published in 1943. This is the first time his remarkably detailed journals have appeared in book format. Volume II is forthcoming from McGahern Stewart Publishing.

Title: Distant Summers: P. G. Downes' Journals of Travels in Northern Canada, 1936-1947 (Vol I: 1936-1938)
Author: P. G. Downes
Editor: R. H. Cockburn
Publication Information: McGahern Stewart Publishing, Ottawa, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9868600-2-7
Price: 26.00
Available exclusively from McGahern Stewart Publishing.
To order:
613-230-2275
mcspublishing@gmail.com

-jmc

jmc,
Thanks, I'll be ordering it today.
Ralph

Isn't everyone a PG Downs fan?

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Brian
http://www.JohnstonPursuits.ca

 

Thanks JMC! I will be placing an order!

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My YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Wintertrekker

Update:

The second volume of Downes' journals, covering his Sleeping Island trip of 1939 and his attempt to reach Kasba Lake in 1940, along with a shorter trip in 1947, is now available.

I really enjoyed volume one, and I expect this to be equally entertaining.

-jmc

I bought both volumes and enjoyed them immensely. A favourite anecdote.
Downs quotes an Indian who was on an aborted trip on the Kazan.They ran out of food and starving, found a cache of rotting meat which they ate.
"After that, every time somebody break wind, my God, even the dogs run away howling."

I'm just finishing the final chapters of Sleeping Island, and I got the 2 volumes of Distant Summers in the mailbox last week! I'm thinking about paddling the Churchill & north to Reindeer Lake in 2015. Sleeping Island has added more fuel to the fire.

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www.mikemonaghan.ca

Sleeping Island is a snapshot of a lost time in the Canadian North. Hardship, freedom, joy, misery, hard work.... a different way of life. Great read!!!

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Dave

"The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness, and of a freedom almost forgotten." Sigurd Olson, 1956