Ken McGoogan is the author of a dozen books including four previous bestsellers on Arctic exploration – Fatal Passage, Ancient Mariner, Lady Franklin’s Revenge and Race to the Polar Sea. His latest book, “Dead Reckoning: The Untold Story of the Northwest Passage”, was the basis of his engaging talk to the Canadian Club of Halton. Ken proved his talent as a brilliant and humorous story teller as he illustrated the history of the various attempts at discovering a passage through the Arctic including the mysteries of the Franklin Voyages. He is a globe-trotting ex-journalist who survived shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, chased the ghost of Lady Franklin from England to Tasmania, and placed a commemorative plaque on Boothia Peninsula in the High Arctic.
Ken’s latest book “challenges the conventional narrative of the Northwest Passage which emerged out of Victorian England and focuses almost exclusively on Royal Navy officers. By integrating non-British and fur-trade explorers and, above all, Canada’s indigenous peoples, Dead Reckoning drags the story of Arctic discovery into the twenty-first century.” The audience all came away with a much better understanding of the events and hardships that shaped the history of our country in the Arctic.
The award-winning author’s other books include Celtic Lightning, 50 Canadians Who Changed the World, and How the Scots Invented Canada. He has won numerous awards for his books including the UBC Medal for Canadian Biography and the Pierre Berton Award for History.
Ken worked as a journalist for two decades, served as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission and is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the Explorers Club. He teaches narrative non-fiction at the University of Toronto and in the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of King’s College in Halifax. Every summer, he voyages in the Northwest Passage as a resource historian with Adventure Canada.
Article courtesy of Janet Bedford.
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