The age of exploration isn’t over. Adventurer and author Adam Shoalts is proof of that. The 29-year-old Brock University history grad (BA ’09) chronicles his explorations in his new book Alone Against the North: An Expedition into the Unknown, published by Viking.

At the heart of the story is Shoalts’ expedition to one of Canada’s harshest landscapes – the Hudson Bay Lowlands – where he journeyed to map the little-known Again River.

“We don’t know the world half as well as we think we do,” Shoalts says. “It’s still possible to be an explorer and see things for the first time. You can change the map.”

Shoalts, who often ventures into the wilderness alone, has had many close calls.

While canoeing on an unnamed river in the far north, Shoalts faced off against a polar bear. The tense confrontation is chronicled in the book.

It’s the closest thing I know to a religious experience. It’s almost magical – it’s raw, untamed nature.

But, it isn’t the wildlife that challenges the explorer most when he sets off on his quests.

It’s the cold. The wet. The hordes of blood-sucking insects. The constant hunger.

Sometimes it’s also the solitude, that feeling of being completely alone in the world. He can travel for hundreds of miles without crossing a road or seeing another human.

But, that’s also the best part.

He says his deep love for wilderness and the natural world is its most poignant in Canada’s remote, pristine landscapes.

“It’s the closest thing I know to a religious experience. It’s almost magical – it’s raw, untamed nature,” he says. “It speaks to your soul.”

Shoalts keeps detailed notes on his trips and documents everything with pictures and video. He works extensively with the Canadian Geographical Society and much of what he finds is used in mapping.

Many of the rivers, marshes and forests he traverses have only been seen using satellites, which don’t show features like rapids and waterfalls.

“The only way to explore these places is to go there,” he says.

Shoalts said his degree in history comes in handy in his work as an explorer, much of which involves researching archives, books and old record logs. This plays a role in the book as he tries to uncover the history of the Again River, which he found while cross-referencing 172 Canadian rivers. The Again River was one he could find no information about, with the exception of its naming in 1946.

“It was the sort of place you couldn’t learn about in a book,” he says.

Shoalts said he uncovered the mystery behind the naming, a central part of the story in the book.

Shoalts’ next big adventure is a solo trip across the Canadian arctic. The 4,000-kilometre trek is expected to take five months in 2017.

“It is going to be the most extreme adventure of my career,” he said.

The book is available at The Campus Store.