Adam Shoalts Presentation

Declared one of the “greatest living explorers” by Canadian Geographic, and named “Canada’s Indiana Jones” by the Toronto Star, Adam Shoalts is a professional adventurer and the author of five national bestselling books.

His career has included mapping rivers, leading expeditions for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and Mountain Equipment Co-op, archaeological digs, tracking endangered species, and completing a nearly 4,000 km solo journey across Canada’s Arctic. On his expeditions he sometimes goes months without seeing another person. 

In 2022, he canoed and hiked from southern Canada to the Arctic.Adam Shoalts is a professional explorer and national bestselling author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society for “extraordinary contributions to geography” and in 2017 completed a nearly 4,000 km solo journey across Canada’s Arctic.

A geographer and historian, he holds a Ph.D. from McMaster University, has participated in numerous archaeological digs, and undertakes solo expeditions in the most remote wilderness areas. He is the Westaway Explorer-in-Residence of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and in 2016 was named a national champion of the Trans-Canada Trail.

Looking out his porch window one spring morning, Adam Shoalts spotted a majestic peregrine falcon flying across the neighbouring fields near Lake Erie. Each spring, falcons migrate from southernmost Canada to remote arctic mountains. Grabbing his backpack and canoe, Shoalts resolved to follow the falcon’s route north on an astonishing 3,400-kilometre journey to the Arctic.

Along the way, he faces a huge variety of challenges and obstacles, including storms on the Great Lakes, finding campsites in the urban wilderness of Toronto and Montreal, avoiding busy commercial freighter traffic, gale force winds, massive hydroelectric dams, bushwhacking without trails, dealing with hunger, multiple bear encounters, and navigating white-water rapids on icy northern rivers far from any help.

In his signature style, Shoalts roams as much across space as he does time, winding his way through a stunning diversity of landscapes ranging from lush Carolinian forests to lonely windswept mountains, salty seas to trackless swamps, pristine lakes to glittering mega-cities, as well as the sites of long ago battles, shipwrecks, forgotten forts, and abandoned trading posts. Through his travels, he reveals how interconnected wild places are, from the loneliest depths of the northern wilderness to busy urban parks, and the vital importance of these connections.