Titles by Imprint
Category: Travel and The Great Outdoors
The Canoe Boys
The First Epic Scottish Sea Journey by Kayak
By Alastair Dunnett"It's too late in the year!" they were advised, but they still did it. By canoe from Bowling to Kyle of Lochalsh with numerous stops along the way, Alastair Dunnett and Seamas Adam spent a heady Autumn in the 1934 meandering up the glorious West Coast of Scotland. On their way they sent reports back to the Daily Record informing the readers of their progress and the people they met along the way.
Their account makes fascinating reading as they were hailed by onlookers and bystanders wherever they went as 'The Canoe Boys'. Escapades as varied as running the infamous tide-rush of the Dorus Mhor to a balmy harvest working on Calve Island off Mull, quenching their thirst with a mug of drammach (oats and water) are related in superb, lyrical style by Dunnett.
This is an adventure story of youthful exuberance and of how life once was lived before the war changed everything for ever.
Fully illustrated with archival material and contemporary press cuttings, this cult travelogue will find a new market among the growing number of adventure kayakers taking to Scotland's coastal waters.
This new illustrated edition has an introduction by Dunnett's son, Ninian who has also supplied a full glossary and notes on each chapter.
Key Features
An entertaining account of the first recorded long-distance sea-kayak trip made along Scotland's West Coast in the Autumn of 1934. Fully illustrated.
Reviews
‘One of the most unusual travel books published in a long
time … Only those who have sailed among the Western Isles
in substantial craft can realise the full implication of a trip there
in a frail canoe. Such a method of voyaging in these waters seems
fantastic. Yet it was done … absorbing reading.’
Glasgow Herald
‘Adventure surely was part of the story, and that aspect of it is
given full prominence. But there was more to it than adventure;
there was a purposeful determination to discover personally the
causes contributing to the depopulation of the Highlands.’
Sunday Mail
‘The charm of the book as a record of experience does not
obscure the value inherent in its assessment of conditions and
potentialities in a beautiful but long neglected area.’
Scotsman
About the Author
About Alastair Dunnett
Alastair Dunnett was one of the foremost Scots of the 20th century and was a key public figure in the Scottish Office after WWII. He married novelist Dorothy Dunnett in 1946 and later edited The Daily Record and The Scotsman before being instrumental in the evolution of the oil industry in the North Sea in the 1970s. He died, aged 89, in 1998.All Titles by Alastair Dunnett
Alastair Dunnett has also written:
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