March 2, 2020

Wilfrid Laurier University is known for its field-leading research in Canada’s North, a region that few have explored as thoroughly as Adam Shoalts. In 2017, the professional adventurer completed a nearly 4,000-km journey across the Arctic in a canoe, an experience he documented in his best-selling book Beyond the Trees: A Journey Alone Across Canada’s Arctic.

On March 4, Laurier’s Cold Regions Research Centre (CRRC) will welcome Shoalts for a lecture at the Peters Building on Laurier’s Waterloo campus. He will share stories from his four-month adventure, which took him from the mountains of the Yukon to the Hudson Bay watershed in Nunavut. During his harrowing journey, Shoalts broke through expanses of melting lake ice in his canoe and had his sleep disturbed by bears.

“Staff and students in the CRRC have conducted significant field work in many of the areas Adam has travelled to, photographed and written about, so it was only natural to invite him to speak at Laurier,” says Alex MacLean, a CRRC lab technician. A fan of Shoalts’ books, MacLean was instrumental in bringing him to the university. MacLean just completed field work at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, a lake that Shoalts has canoed.

Faculty, staff, students and the public are welcome to attend Shoalts’ lecture on March 4 at 1 p.m. in the Peters Building (room P327). The event is free of charge and no registration is required.