It was a different time. In 1970, the hippie culture was still going strong, and young people were ready to take on the world. It was a time of getting back to the land, jumping in a VW van to tour the country-without wearing seatbelts, and listening to songs like Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" on a transistor radio. Against this backdrop, Lee Moldenhauer, a twenty-one-year-old geology student jumps at the chance to do some prospecting in the wilds of the Northwest Territories with three friends under conditions that are almost unimaginable today. After taking a floatplane into the bush, the four are left to fend for themselves with food supplies, basic camping equipment, and some geological maps. Without a two-way radio or even lifejackets, they set about canoeing and portaging their way back to Yellowknife while staking claims and looking for mineral deposits over the summer.

Prospecting in the Northwest Territories is the entertaining and engaging true story of the author and his friends' adventures that summer. These include tackling terrifying rapids, losing half of their equipment in a canoe accident, and the author getting lost without any food or warm clothing. Yet despite these hardships, Lee Moldenhauer looks back fondly on these adventures with his friends, the beauty of the North, and the thrill of living rough in the bush and being able to survive by counting on their wits and each other. Part memoir, part travel story, and part adventure story, this fascinating read will leave you asking yourself, "Could I have done that?"

Prospecting in the Northwest Territories: 1970, A Season Remembered