Amazon.com
In 1903 Leonidas Hubbard set out to cross the Ungava-Labrador Peninsula, and to forge a name for himself as an adventure writer. He took a friend, a guide, a canoe, a ton of equipment, and scads of naive hope. Months later, the friend and guide staggered out of the snow, and Hubbard starved to death in his tent, too weak to attempt the 30-mile trek to safety. And that's just Part I. James West Davidson and John Rugge narrate with simple dignity, making vividly tangible the wretchedness of mosquitoes, the panic of no food, and the rocky tangle of the Labrador wilderness.Book Description
In 1903 Leonidas Hubbard was commissioned by an outdoors magazine to explore Labrador by canoe.Joined by his best friend, Dillon Wallace, and a Scots-Cree guide, George Elson, Hubbard hoped to make a name for himself as an adventurer.But plagued by poor judgment and bad luck, his party
turned back and Hubbard died of starvation just thirty miles from camp.Two years later, Hubbard's widow, Mina, and Wallace returned to Labrador, leading rival expeditions to complete the original trek and fix blame for the earlier failure.Their race made headlines from New York to Nova
Scotia-and it makes fascinating reading today in this widely acclaimed reconstruction of the epic saga.The authors draw on contemporary accounts and their own journeys in Labrador to evoke the intense drama to men and women pushed beyond the limits of endurance in one of the great true adventures
of our century. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

S.K. Lapius
This is a great read. There is little written about this turn of the century, "last frontier" of North America where even today natives will tell you that you can't get there from here. The grueling hardship and trajedy are well portrayed - as are the portraits of each individual. It truly takes the 3 books written about this seminal journey and adds information from the diaries and other writings of the various figures involved; and, this is artfully done by shifting voices. The book flows well and holds suspense to a surprising degree even to those who know the eventual outcome.

Good adventure story
This book tells the story of two expeditions across Labrador. The first took place in 1903 by three men, on which one of them, Leonidas Hubbard, died. Three years later, his wife, Mina, made the same journey successfully. These accounts are well written and make good use of the original journals.

Annoying novelistic style
As you can see from other reviews, most people seem to really like this book. I, however, got a few pages in and found I had no use for it, even though I generally go for just this sort of story. The authors of "Great Heart" use a novelistic narrative style, filling in from their imagination all manner of little details that they obviously could have no way of knowing. I'm apparently enough of a purist that I want my narratives based on reliable source material, not imagination. When an author begins to fictionalize, how can one ever know where the boundary between fact and fiction lies? This doesn't seem to have bothered most of the reviewers, but you might want to stay away from the book if you're similarly picky.

Great book
Excellent read - hard to put it down.

A First Rate Wilderness Adventure with a Twist!
This is a fabulous narrative of a wilderness adventure, like many others filled with the hazards adventurers encounter when they stray far from home.What makes the story unique is not a side-bar intrigue of romance and mystery but a deep underlying question about human motivation, relationships and dreams - as lived through the minds and bodies of the adventurous.The story is told with skill and grace - and is spellbinding. ... Read more

Book Description
Here is Clayton Klein at his best. Challenge the Wilderness is a powerful historical adventure that sweeps across Canada from Ontario to Labrador.

George Elson was the noted guide of the ill-fated Leonidas Hubbard Expedition into Labrador in 1903.

Then two years later he successfully guided Mina Benson Hubbard across the Labrador peninsula from North West River to Ungava Bay. Other than these two journeys very little was formerly known of Mr. Elson outside of Moosonee and Moose Factory.

Learn the Unique way of life of the James Bay Crees during the early years of the twentieth century.

Challenge the Wilderness is a historical novel of the loves and tragedies in the adventure-filled life of the legendary George Elson.

Several years of extensive research by the author have revealed scores of formerly unpublished incidents in the life of this amazing woodsman and explorer. For three decades after his guiding days, Mr. Elson worked for the Revillon Freres Trading Company, first as an apprentice, then for seventeen years as the manager of their post at Fort George along the east side of James Bay. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mans book
One Incredible Journey is a story of two men seeking to cross Canada by river and portage. The revised and updated edition also describes a man in the midst of a change and effectively rededicating himself to the challenge of the wilderness. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (3)

Where the heck are they?
A wonderful book, very readable and absorbing.The strength and courage of these three men is inspiring and can only be imagined.E.g., making a 40 mile portage, half starving, carrying a canoe and several hundred pounds of supplies and equipment, or having to wade across a river (up to their armpits) that was encrusted with ice along its banks and having their now-wet clothes start to freeze on their bodies while they try to build a fire.However, the 3-star rating is not because of the writing or the adventure:this version (Lyon Press, 2004) has no maps and no photos.Photos would have added another dimension to understanding the spartan hardships of such an adventure, not to mention conveying the author's meanings of barren, difficult, or heart-breaking - all of which I thought were understated.And oddly enough, these photos are readily available - a google search will locate many, and the Canadian Virtual Museum has 67.The photos along with the text would have added substantial impact to the question, "How could they have endured this?"

But the lack of a map is intolerable.Maps are referenced half a dozen times by Wallace in the first half a dozen pages: their inaccuracies, their incompleteness, and the details his map now provides.Since a major navigational failing of the expedition is due to an inaccurate map from the Canadian Geological Survey (circa 1896 - and also available online via the CGS website), its absence is unforgivable.Another CGS map that got Hubbard so excited because "Unexplored Territory" was written across northern Labrador is another "must have" exhibit.Without a map, the reader has no idea where these men started, where they wanted to go, where they got lost or how they returned, or can understand the sad realization that a dream predicted an accurate route to safety but was ignored.

I spent more time online looking up maps of Labrador, trying to find the various missteps of the explorers (e.g., the Nascaupee, Susan, and Beaver Rivers) than I did reading the book.If you don't want to get lost reading this incredible adventure, then buy a version of this book that contains maps.I found this version of the book very frustrating.

A truly sincere classic
I couldn't put this book down once I started and really enjoyed the read. It has a place on my shelf of classics and just a very real story that is captured extremely well in words.

And I thought the Boundary Waters was tough
I'm ordering a second copy to give to my fellow canoers who head for the boundary waters canoe area wilderness. We travel with up to date equipment and maps. The fellows in this book "winged" it with what was then state-of-the-art gear. This book is a great contrast between wilderness canoe travel from this century to the last century.
The account is truly chilling at times. You are tempted to exclaim "these guys must have been nuts!!" But their journey was truly an adventure. Few of us would have the stones to attempt this today.
If you do any form of wilderness trekking or canoeing, you will really like this book. ... Read more