Back to the Barrens: On the Wing with da Vinci & Friends

As in the author's best seller, True North: Exploring the Great Wilderness by Bush Plane, which won praise from reviewers all across the U.S. and Canada, Erickson again flies his readers into the far north on a magic carpet called the Tundra Cub II. On this journey through a remote region of North America, Erickson introduces readers to an area that is home to unique wildlife, great history and hardy people, many of whom make their living mining the north's treasure trove of gold, uranium, oil and diamonds. Back to the Barrens: On the Wing with da Vinci & Friends begins at the author's lake home in northern of Minnesota. Following stops at Red Lake, Ontario, which has gold in its basement and at York Factory, Manitoba, which was once the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company-but is still a home to polar bears-Erickson takes the reader farther north to Churchill, then up the west coast of Hudson Bay to Marble Island. There he spends a foggy night on the desolate hump of pale, white stone on which Captain James Knight and his men needlessly starved to death. Heading west, he visits the Natives of Baker Lake, reviews their traditional beliefs and then heads for the Arctic Circle. Thwarted by weather, not to mention a close encounter with a grizzly, he heads for Yellowknife, telling frontier tales along the way before moving on to Lake Athabasca and the oil-rich tar sands of Fort McMurray. From there the journey back to its place of origin commences. The route home includes stops in Ennadai Lake and Thompson, Manitoba, and offers glimpses of unique geological features, reminiscences of visits with a well-read hermit and a swim with a porcupine.