Temagami’s Tangled Wild traces the processes and power relationships through which the Temagami area of northeastern Ontario has become emblematic of Canadian wilderness. In this sophisticated analysis, Jocelyn Thorpe uncovers how struggles over meaning, racialized and gendered identities, and land have made Temagami a site of wild Canadian nature. Despite the fact that the Teme-Augama Anishnabai have for many generations understood the region as their homeland rather than as a wilderness, the forestry and tourism industries, as well as Canadian law, have refused to acknowledge this claim. Instead, the concept of wilderness has been employed to aid in Aboriginal dispossession and to create a home for non-Aboriginal Canadians on Native land. An eloquent critique and engaging history, Temagami’s Tangled Wild challenges readers to acknowledge how colonial relations are embedded in our notions of wilderness, and to reconsider our understanding of the wilderness ideal.

""Living on the Kipawa River is pretty quaint and simple, isn't it?" "That's right, Ma'am, quaint and simple is good enough for us." Scott Sorensen knew that arguing with her would be useless; for it is only to those who can see a little farther, climb a little higher, and dive a little deeper that the answer is not so simple -- only the question is quaint.Perhaps if she had paddled a canoe with the wild, red-haired Whistler of the North, or kayaked the rapids with Don Quixote de la Kipawa, or come face to face with the thirteen lifeless boys adrift in the currents of Lake Temiskaming, she might never have put her question to words. The remote and rugged shores of the Kipawa River have been home to the Sorensens for 25 years. Their lives and those of numerous others are intertwined with the flow of this world-class whitewater river. But the Kipawa River is at risk. The most powerful hydro-electric company in North America has proposed to reduce this historic waterway to a trickle of water in a rocky ditch. This book captures the unique heritage of the Kipawa River, and the struggle to preserve it for future generations."--from www.chapters.indigo.ca.

There are few writers who can take the facts of an actual event and transform them into a compelling story that captures the mind and the heart. James Raffan is that rare author, proving with Deep Waters that he is a masterful storyteller who has not only penned a story that is by turns harrowing and poignant, but is also a powerful investigative work that sensitively explores the nature of courage, risk and loss. On the morning of June 11, 1978, 27 boys and four leaders from St. John’s School in Ontario set out on a canoeing expedition on Lake Timiskaming. By the end of the day, 12 boys and one leader were dead, with all four canoes overturned and floating aimlessly in the wind. This tragedy, which was first deemed to be an “accident,” was actually, as James Raffan explains, a shocking tale of a school’s survival philosophy gone terribly wrong, unsafe canoes and equipment, and a total lack of emergency preparedness training. Deep Waters is a remarkable story of endurance, courage and unspeakable pain, a book that also explores the nature of risk-taking and the resilience of the human spirit.