Constance Helmericks

Memoir 1969/ 303 pages

I kept thinking it was coming, but when I turned to page 124 and started chapter 8, all the air left me and I collapsed like a spent balloon and realized I could not go on.  I SO wanted to like this book, recommended by a friend.  The author talks extensively about the geography, the river, their camps, all the mud from big floods, people they meet along the way.  This is a memoir.  The author, Constance Hemericks, took her daughters, Ann (12) and Jean (14) up the Peace River to the Arctic Ocean and the North Pole (yes, the Peace River flows north) in summer, 1964.  Such an adventure!

However I ended my journey because ALL she writes about is the geography and writes very little about the three women.  I don't read about their personalities, their emotions.  I wanted to know what happened when the hair curlers floated to the top of the canoe.  I wanted to know about their periods and if they synced.  I wanted to know how they dealt with trash.  I wanted to know what was in the mail when they received a bundle.   I wanted to know how Constance dealt with loosing her shoe in the mud and if she really wet barefoot. Or what they ate for breakfast.  Or how they bear-proofed their food stash.  Or any teenage angst.  These sort of daily acts of living were not included in the writing.  How disappointing!  For me, she misses a very important part of the story.  In some ways, the essence of her memoir.

Unfortunately, I do not recommend Down the Wild River North.

And so I am moving on to whatever is next on my shelf.

July 2026