Disappointment River: Finding and Losing the Northwest Passage

In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie traveled the 1125 miles of the immense river in Canada that now bears his name, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, only to confront impassable pack ice. In 2016, the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey -- and discovered the Passage he could not find. Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of energy extraction and climate change. Eleven years before Lewis and Clark, the Scottish explorer Alexander Mackenzie actually crossed the North American continent with a team of voyageurs and Indian guides. Before that he was the first to discover a route to the Arctic Ocean from the Great Lakes, along the river he named "Disappointment" because he believed he'd failed in his mission to find a trade route to the riches of the East. In fact he had -- he was just two-plus centuries early. In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels in an 1125-mile canoe voyage down the river that bears his name, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white water rapids and the threat of bears. He transports readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote Native American villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that is quickly becoming a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.

About the Author :
BRIAN CASTNER is an electrical engineering graduate of Marquette University who received a Bronze Star for his bomb disposal service in the Iraq War as an officer in the Air Force. He is the author of two books, The Long Walk (2012) and All the Ways We Kill and Die (2016). His journalism and commentary has appeared in Vice, The Daily Beast, The New York Times, GQ, The Washington Post, Outside, LitHub, Atlantic and other publications. The Long Walk was adapted into an opera that has been performed at prestigious venues nationwide.

Review :
"Discovering history, and not just new landscapes around the next bend in the river, is one of the delights of Disappointment River. And, during a time when so many American descendants of foreign extraction rail against immigration, it's useful to recall that all of us originated in a diaspora."
--Rinker Buck, Wall Street Journal

"Whether recounting the historic search for the Northwest Passage or his own epic journey on the Mackenzie River, Castner is an able guide, a steady hand, a voice of reason. You'll want to sit in his canoe and ride this out. I couldn't put Disappointment River down."
--Dean King, author of Skeletons on the Zahara and The Feud

"...[Castner] provides a lively biography of Mackenzie, the youngest principal in the Northwest Company, contending not just with the rigors of exploration, but also with early corporate politics...A vital addition to the library of the far north and of exploration."
--Kirkus, starred review

"An exhilerating historical narrative...Castner evokes vivid personalities and drama from the archives ... Historians and armchair travelers alike will be equally pleased with this volume."
--Publishers Weekly

"Vividly described, in well-wrought scenes that alternate from inspiring to humorous to stomach-clenching... Castner is a highly skilled writer and engaging companion."
--Anchorage Daily News

"Appealing on both historical and contemporary levels, Castner's work will please readers fascinated by tales of discovery."
--Booklist

"...Intriguing and enlightening...For anyone concerned with the global effects of climate change, the meaning behind Disappointment River becomes alarmingly clear."
--BookPage