Winging It in the North

A 248-page treasure trove from this popular, peripatetic bundle of insatiable curiosity and wanderlust. It starts during her youth in Australia where she learned to get off the beaten tracks, and to travel on the cheap - tactics which served her well after branching out to Africa, Europe, the BC. Discovering the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon led to a continuing love affair with that enigmatic land, its people and wildlife. Hancock portrays the rigors and joys of traveling in a country where her unquenchable sense of adventure lands her in situations ranging from life-threatening (chased by a bear) to disgusting (eating rancid seal oil) to wildly funny (a grizzly and two cubs in the cab of her Datsun pickup). However, it is the people who highlight this account: the guides, trappers, prospectors, miners, homesteaders, biologists, stone carvers, truckers, hunters and bush pilots. A keen observer of human nature, Hancock describes their stoicism and humor; their love and reverence for the North; their concerns for the future. This is Hancock at her best, and illustrative of why she remains one of Canada's favorite authors. (Bob Jones in BC Outdoors)An entertaining and easy read. Winging from the Mackenzie to the High Arctic via Hancock's fresh, crisp writing is to meet Northerners in person, to share their heritage, to enjoy wildlife and the clean, cool air of pristine landscapes, and to confirm what you knew all along: yes, you can get around red tape, and "no, it can't be done." Just do it. (George Diveky in Up Here)The greatest thing I have ever read! I loved your descriptions of people and touches of humor. I will be forever in your debt (for writing it). (Ingrid via Ivy Pye, a reader)Winging it in the North is a collection of anecdotes: some amazing, some funny, some scarcely believable, but all entertaining. It is a difficult thing to hold a reader's interest for over 200 pages with personal anecdotes. Boredom is not a factor here. This is about the unusual, unlikely and lucky things that have happened to her through serendipity. It is about the out-of-the-way places she has ended up through a chance meeting with a trapper or a carver or a hunter who has invited her along.And she has ended up in some unusual places. She has been on seal hunts, fishing trips, soapstone carving expeditions, and trap lines. She has swum swollen rivers, bumped into bears and wolves, driven roads that hadn't been built yet, and flown to Canada's most northerly point to watch two men set off to walk to the pole. Through it all she has maintained a sense of humour and a sense of wonder at the places she has ended up, all of which has been greatly helped by the delightful people she has met. (John Wilson in Pier Magazine)Lyn Hancock is a woman with more letters after her name than in her name yet she has never been trained to be a writer or a photographer, she just does it. The 15 books she's had published attest to t