God's Paddlers (Paperback)

Paperback. In 1958, an earnest group of amateurs started a school which spawned Anglican-affiliated schools in Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario. Hoping to radically reform Canada's education system in their 5O-year existence, they sent over 5,000 boys on arduous snowshoe treks and 600-mile canoe expeditions throughout Canada. Their masters taught poetry, history, and voyageur French amidst frequent beatings, all aimed at building character. They left casualties in their wake - 13 dead in a 1978 canoeing disaster alone. Backed by dozens of original interviews and a horde of internal school documents, God's Paddlers exposes a bizarre world run by zealots who thought they knew better. In a 45-year international career, journalist Stephen Riley produced stories in print and broadcast media for daily newspapers, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and UTV, a popular Irish station. Raised in northern Canadian mining towns, he knows the bush, but now lives at the edge of a small village in Northern Ireland with his patient wife Mavis. This tells the tale of radical Canadian wilderness boarding school that subjected boys to arduous canoe expeditions, brutal physical punishments, and systemic abuse, ultimately ending in a 1978 canoeing disaster that left 13 dead. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…