Canadian explorer, best-selling author and public speaker Adam Shoalts is in Owen Sound Thursday.
Presented by the Owen Sound Field Naturalists, Shoalts is speaking at the Bayshore Community Centre about his expeditions and will have his latest book available.
It’s called Vanished Beyond the Map: The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell. Using old letters, news clippings and his own exploration expertise, Shoalts tells the story of the expert guide and trapper Hubert Darrell who disappeared in November 1910.
Shoalts tells Bayshore Broadcasting News, “He disappeared more than a century ago in the Arctic. No one knew what happened to him. There was never any rescue party sent. There was never any expedition mounted because he was a lone man, a solitary wanderer who’d vanished and his name had faded in the years after his disappearance until the point where he was forgotten by history. No one had ever written a book about him. He didn’t even have a Wikipedia page, but I thought, his story is maybe the greatest adventure saga I have ever heard.”
He explains, “His skills were truly legendary. He would journey through the dead of winter in all kinds of conditions, covering thousands of miles. He was credited with saving the lives of sailors trapped in the Arctic ice. Even the Mounties turned to Darrell and said ‘We want to hire you as a trail breaker to guide us and lead our sled dog patrols,’ and then he simply disappeared almost as if into thin air.
Shoalts says, “I was able to get a hold of his original letters which he had written to a brother in Manitoba and using those as the basis, the breadcrumbs, I launched an expedition, several of them in fact, of my own to travel by canoe across the Arctic and to search for artifacts or traces of his old camps and ultimately, to try to unravel his mystery which is what the book vanished beyond the map is all about.”
This latest book by Shoalts has been voted by the Canadian Independent Booksellers Association (over 200 independent bookstores) as one of the ‘must read’ books of this year.)
Indigo calls it ‘one of the best books of the year,’ it’s ranked as a national bestseller by the Globe and Mail, CBC and the Toronto Star.
Shoalts is the author of several best-selling books including Alone Against the North, Beyond The Trees, Whisper On The Night Wind, Where the Falcon Flies, and A History of Canada In Ten Maps. His expeditions tend to involve him canoeing, sometimes alone, across the Arctic and other remote, northern parts of Canada.
Shoalts will talk about his expeditions and new book at the Bayshore from 7-9 p.m. November 13th. The Owen Sound Field Naturalists say admission is by donation.
You can hear Shoalts talk about his latest book and upcoming appearance in Owen Sound on 89.3 CFOS FM here: https://www.893cfos.ca/2025/11/06/the-open-line-with-claire-mccormack-188/