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magazine / mj01
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May/June 2001 issue |
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Back down the river
Maps don’t always tell the truth. That’s what George Drought learned as he canoed
Nunavut’s isolated Back River last summer. After navigating the challenging Malley Rapids,
he discovered that they were wrongly placed on not one but two different maps.
“People travelling on rivers in remote areas should be extremely careful with topographic
maps,” the Ontario filmmaker now cautions. To navigate the rapids safely, he had to
rely on the original journal of Sir George Back, who first explored the river in 1834.
Drought, who is also a professional river guide, and his wife Barbara Burton led a six-week
expedition down the Back River, encountering muskox, caribou and countless bird species along
the way. With the assistance of a Society
grant, he’s producing a film on his 800-kilometre
journey and the history of the Barrens and intends to distribute it in Northwest Territories
and Nunavut schools. And, with broadcast and film-festival plans, Drought also hopes his
documentary will shed light on the river’s ecotourism potential.
— Espen Larsen
(Photo by George Drought)
For details on applying for an RCGS grant, visit
the RCGS website.
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Magazine browsing
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A photographer’s journey
“I thought of this violent land and of these brief moments during which I was
permitted to sit in the shadows amidst its inhabitants as a privileged onlooker. For all
is changing. The ancient culture of the Eskimos is yielding to the insistence of missionaries
and the rulings of governments.”
— Richard Harrington
In our January 1952 issue, the passage above by long-time photographic contributor Richard
Harrington accompanied a series of photos from the six journeys he made to the Arctic,
beginning in 1948. Those images, first published in the magazine and now reprinted in Harrington’s
stunning limited-edition book, Padlei Diary, 1950, are haunting portraits of a people on
the brink of starvation. They helped alert the country to the tragedy then unfolding in
the District of Keewatin.
Harrington began his career as an X-ray technician and went on to become one of the world’s
greatest documentary photographers, shooting close to 50 features for CG. His
photography embodies the
Society’s spirit of Canadian discovery. With intense renewed interest in his work,
the 90-year-old Toronto-based photographer says he is busier than ever.
 Taking
up the challenge
The questions keep on coming, and they just keep on answering them. Robin Bates (left)
and Cameron Barr were the third- and first-place finishers in the Society’s first
Great Canadian Geography Challenge in 1995 and third-place winners at that year’s
international competition. Now the two test their knowledge as co-presidents of Queen’s
University’s Trivia Club.
For Barr, a life-sciences student from St. Albert, Alta., squeezing in time for competitions
is tough with the 25 hours a week he spends in class. But he and Bates, a history major,
still take joy in their Challenge victories — not to mention the scholarships they
won — and the passport the competition has given them to understanding the global
village. “We are all living in a great big world here, and you have to know what’s
out there,” says Bates, who hails from Wolfville, N.S. “And I think geography
is one of the best ways to get a handle on that.”
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