Charles Wilkins

Chronicles the author's experiences aboard an experimental rowboat on its way from Morocco to Barbados, a journey by sixteen misadventurers that had no support vessel, no stored water, and no means of power other than rowing.

Sixteen Rowers, One Improbable Boat, Seven Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic

Little Ship of Fools

Don Starkell

It was crazy. It was unthinkable. It was the adventure of a lifetime. When Don and Dana Starkell left Winnipeg in a tiny three-seater canoe, they had no idea of the dangers that lay ahead. Two years and 12,180 miles later, father and son had each paddled nearly twenty million strokes, slept on beaches, in jungles and fields, dined on tapir, shark, and heaps of roasted ants. They encountered piranhas, wild pigs, and hungry alligators. They were arrested, shot at, taken for spies and drug smugglers, and set upon by pirates. They had lived through terrifying hurricanes, food poisoning, and near starvation. And at the same time they had set a record for a thrilling, unforgettable voyage of discovery and old-fashioned adventure. "Courageous . . . Exciting and always immediate." -- The New York Times Book Review From the Paperback edition.

The Ultimate 12,000-Mile Canoe Adventure

Paddle to the Amazon

With Deseriptive Sketches of the Land and the People During the Great Industrial Era Under Review

The History of the Iron, Steel, Tin-plate, and Other Trades of Wales

During the hazy summer of 1969, Charles Wilkins, then a student at the University of Toronto, took a job as a gravedigger. The bizarre-but-true events of that time, including a midsummer gravediggers' strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal boneshifting, play out amongst a Barnumesque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir of mortality, materialism, and the gradual coming-of age of an impressionable young man.

a gravedigger's memoir

In the land of long fingernails

Dispatches from the Wild Heart of Canada

A Wilderness Called Home

The Red dragon, the national magazine of Wales. Ed. by C. Wilkins

The Red Dragon

Gordie Howe

Colleen Howe

Sharing the sometimes bittersweet, sometimes unexpected, always insightful accounts of the lives of some of the NHL's most famous players after retirement and the turns their lives have taken--often just as wild and crazy as their time on the ice--this collection of poignant stories details the hockey's greatest players after the last goal has been tended and the final buzzer sounds. Through in-depth one-on-one interviews, the book offers vivid and captivating portraits of nine hockey greats, profiling heroes such as Phil Esposito, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, and Eric Nesterenko, and it chronicles the struggles and triumphs that came after a life on the ice.

NHL Greats Share Their Stories of Hardship and Triumph

When the Final Buzzer Sounds

A portrait of the changing economic and industrial landscape of Wales told by one of its most enthusiastic local historians.

History of the Iron, Steel, Tinplate and Other Trades of Wales

The Wild Ride is a book like no other—an epic record of the opening of the Canadian west. It is the story of a force of untested young men, mounted policemen in crimson coats, sent west to do what they could to bring law and order to the land. The Wild Ride is history related in a bold way: as storytelling, as theatre, as art and exhibition, brought to life by an inspired collection of photos, artifacts, and ephemera.

A History of the North West Mounted Police, 1873-1904

The Wild Ride

The dramatic and hilarious story of sores and survival on a human-powered journey across the ocean. It was to be an expedition like no other—a run across the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados aboard an experimental rowboat. There would be no support vessel, no stored water, no sails, no motor. The boat's crew of sixteen included several veterans of U.S. college rowing, a number of triathletes, a woman who had rowed both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and a scrawny, bespectacled sexagenarian -- our chronicler, Charles Wilkins. When he joined the expedition, Wilkins had never swung an oar in earnest. In a tale both harrowing and hilarious, Wilkins takes the reader along for seven weeks of rationed food, festering sores, breathtaking sunrises, sleep deprivation, and mile-high waves alongside a devoted crew of misadventurers.Little Ship of Fools is a fascinating and funny story of courage, adventure and human spirit

High on the Big Stone Heart is a collection of vibrant and entertaining essays on the people and places of Canada’s Boreal North as seen through the eyes of one of the country’s most celebrated writers of non-fiction. Accompany Charles Wilkins as he ranges across the wilds of northern Quebec; ventures deep into the subarctic Yukon in search of caribou; and tracks the north coast of Lake Superior, the world’s most elegant and mysterious body of fresh water. Meet Murray Monk, trapper extraordinaire, and Barney Giesler, the king of the wooden boat builders. Trace the route of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Bill Barilko, star of the 1951 Stanley Cup Final, on his last and fatal fishing trip to James Bay. Join Maurice "Rocket" Richard on the backwoods adventures that sustained him throughout his troubled career. Follow Wilkins himself as he embarks on a wilderness survival test with nothing but the clothes on his back. This is a book for anyone drawn to the magic of the North, and by the characters who inhabit that epic terrain.

And Further Adventures in the Boreal Heartland

High on the Big Stone Heart

The first (1808) grammar of Sanskrit in English, written by a colonial official who had become fluent in the language.

Charles Wilkins

About

Books

Join the club