Deep Waters

Raffan, James

ISBN 10: 0006385745 / ISBN 13: 9780006385745

Published by HarperCollins, Toronto, 2003

About this Item

246 pp. Bibliography. Edgewear, corners rubbed. Light spine crease. Small coffee stain to the half-title page. The account of an adventure gone wrong, with 12 of 27 boys, and 1 of the 4 leaders dead, the rest waiting for rescue. ; 8vo 8" - 9" tall.

Seller Inventory # CAN2103

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Deep Waters
• Publisher: HarperCollins, Toronto
• Publication Date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0006385745
• ISBN 13: 9780006385745
• Binding: Softcover
• Condition: Good+

About this title

Synopsis

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 one of our foremost authorities on the North, the wilderness and the canoeing tradition. He is the author of Fire in the Bones, the acclaimed bestselling biography of Bill Mason; Bark, Skin and Cedar: Exploring the Canoe in Canadian Experience; and Deep Waters. He is also the editor of Rendezvous with the Wild: The Boreal Forest and The Lure of Faraway Places. Raffan is a fellow and former governor of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and has served as chair of the Arctic Institute of North America. A recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal, he is the curator of the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough. He lives in Seeley's Bay, Ontario.