Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Sports & Recreation Canoeing

Deep Waters

by (author) James Raffan

Publisher
HarperCollins
Initial publish date
May 2003
Category
Canoeing
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780006385745
    Publish Date
    May 2003
    List Price
    $21.00
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780002000376
    Publish Date
    Apr 2002
    List Price
    $34.95

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

There are few writers who can take the facts of an actual event and transform them into a compelling story that captures the mind and the heart. James Raffan is that rare author, proving with Deep Waters that he is a masterful storyteller who has not only penned a story that is by turns harrowing and poignant, but is also a powerful investigative work that sensitively explores the nature of courage, risk and loss.

On the morning of June 11, 1978, 27 boys and four leaders from St. John’s School in Ontario set out on a canoeing expedition on Lake Timiskaming. By the end of the day, 12 boys and one leader were dead, with all four canoes overturned and floating aimlessly in the wind. This tragedy, which was first deemed to be an “accident,” was actually, as James Raffan explains, a shocking tale of a school’s survival philosophy gone terribly wrong, unsafe canoes and equipment, and a total lack of emergency preparedness training. Deep Waters is a remarkable story of endurance, courage and unspeakable pain, a book that also explores the nature of risk-taking and the resilience of the human spirit.

About the author

James Raffan is a prolific writer, speaker, and geographer, and the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Circling The Midnight SunEmperor Of The NorthBark, Skin And Cedar; and Fire In The Bones. He has written for a variety of media outlets, including National GeographicCanadian GeographicUp HereExplore and The Globe and Mail, and produced radio and television documentaries for CBC Radio and the Discovery Channel. His work has taken him all over the world. He is an international fellow of the Explorers Club, a past chair of the Arctic Institute of North America, and a fellow and past governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, service for which he was awarded many medals, including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. From 2010 to 2013, he traveled through the Arctic Circle, spending time in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Alaska, Canada, and Greenland, as he researched and wrote on culture and climate change in the North. He lives in Seeley’s Bay, Ontario. Visit him at JamesRaffan.ca or follow him on Twitter @raffjam.

James Raffan's profile page