In 1955, five men in their early twenties set off with 36-year-old Art Moffat on a canoe trip through Canada's arctic. The group was unprepared for the cold. They ran out of food and winter closed in. Then the group inadvertently went over a waterfall and the leader. Art Moffat died of hypothermia. One of the young men on the trip, George Grinnell, has worked on his account of the journey for fifty years. It is a powerful book of survival and awakening - a physical and spiritual odyssey. A Death on the Barrens, was originally published in 1996. This revised Heron Dance Press edition contains Roderick MacIver watercolors.

"The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go."—Michael Punke, author of The Revenant This riveting debut is at once a white-water adventure, coming-of-age novel, and tale of tragic love—and an extraordinary father-daughter collaboration. Two young women attending college decide to have a summer adventure canoeing the rapids-strewn Thelon River that runs 450 miles through the uninhabited Barren Lands of subarctic Canada. Holly made the trip once before with a group of skilled paddlers she trained with at camp, and she wants to share that experience with her friend and lover, Lee, believing it will draw them closer. But a week in, Holly, the risk-taker, falls while taking a selfie near the edge of a cliff. She is left injured and comatose, and soon dies. Their locator beacon for summoning rescue was smashed in Holly’s fall. It remains to Lee, the inexperienced paddler, to continue the grueling and dangerous trip alone, to save herself and return her lover’s body to civilization and Holly’s family. In their relationship, Holly and Lee had always told each other stories; Lee had called Holly a “storyist.” Storytelling helps Lee endure the rigors of her journey and engage her grief as she explores her relationship with Holly while chronicling her own coming-of-age off the grid in Nebraska with her estranged eco-anarchist father, who is now serving time in prison.

Awasin, a Cree Indian boy, and Jamie, a Canadian orphan living with his uncle, the trapper Angus Macnair, are enchanted by the magic of the great Arctic wastes. They set out on an adventure that proves longer and more dangerous than they could have imagined. Drawing on his knowledge of the ways of the wilderness and the implacable northern elements, Farley Mowat has created a memorable tale of daring and adventure. When first published in 1956, Lost in the Barrens won the Governor-General’s Award for Juvenile Literature, the Book-of-the-Year Medal of the Canadian Association of Children’s Librarians and the Boys’ Club of America Junior Book Award.

Set in the remote arctic region of Northern Canada, this book takes readers on a harrowing canoe voyage that results in tragedy, redemption, and, ultimately, transformation. George Grinnell was one of six young men who set off on the 1955 expedition led by experienced wilderness canoeist Art Moffatt. Poorly planned and executed, the journey seemed doomed from the start. Ignoring the approaching winter, the men became entranced with the peace and beauty of the arctic in autumn. As winter closed in, they suddenly faced numbing cold and dwindling food. When the crew is swept over a waterfall, Moffatt is killed and most of the gear and emergency food supplies destroyed. Confronting freezing conditions and near starvation, the remaining crew struggled to make it back to civilization. For Grinnell, the three-month expedition was both a rite of passage and a spiritual odyssey. In the Barrens, he lost his sense of identity and what he had been conditioned to think about society and himself. Forever changed by the experience, he unsparingly describes how the expedition influenced his adult life and what powerful insights he was able to glean from this life-altering experience.

A tale as haunting as a bad memory and as chilling as its reality

Tales of mystery, crime, and the supernatural are presented by the bestselling author of the Repairman Jack novels.

To many people the Jersey Devil is real. It's not just a legend. Stories have been told for years about a demon of some kind living in the Pine lands and dirt roads of New Jersey that looks partly like a kangaroo, with the face of a horse, the head of a dog, bat-like wings and has horns and a tail. For more than three hundred years stories have been told about this creature, prowling the pine forests of Southern New Jersey and emerging from time to time to frighten and cause deaths of people living in the area. It seems the origin of the Jersey Devil started back in the 1700's, when Mrs. Lucy Leeds of Estellville, New Jersey gave birth to her thirteenth child. The child she delivered was reported to have been a baby devil that escaped into a nearby swamp and has been terrorizing people ever since. There have been lots of stories about the Jersey Devil over the years raiding chicken coops, farms, destroying crops, killing animals and even killing people. People in more than fifty different towns and villages in the area claim to have seen the creature whenever it has emerged from its lair in the Pine lands. On more than one occasion a posy has been formed to search for and catch the Devil, but so far all attempts have been unsuccessful. On one occasion a $100,000 reward was offered for anyone who could bring in the Devil, dead or alive. There have even been reports of the death of the Jersey Devil from time to time, but these have also proved to be inconclusive. Even the scientific community has not been able to prove or explain one way or the other, if the Jersey Devil truly exists or not? But a lot of people believe the Jersey Devil is real. Reliable people, including police, government officials, businessmen and others have claimed to have seen the Jersey Devil and the results of its destruction and killings. It's not unusual, even to this day, for someone to travel down the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and report seeing something "unusual looking", off in the woods as they drive by! Is the creature real? Are the stories true? Or, is it just a legend made up by people who have too much time on their hands? In any case the story you are about to read recounts another of these stories, this one taking place in 1984. Did it really happen? Only you can read the account, make up your own mind and decide for yourself. But I don't think I would want to be taking any camping trips out into the Pine Barrens of New Jersey anytime soon. Like many others, I might not be able to return to tell others of my experience.