Beyond the End of the Road

Join Kathleen and Michael Pitt as they leave the comfort and temperate climate of suburban Vancouver to spend an isolated winter north of the Arctic Circle. With neither power nor running water, over 40 kilometres from the nearest community of 75 people, this middle-aged couple learns to embrace temperatures that regularly fall below minus 40 degrees. From their home base in a small, one-room cabin, they seek the challenge of winter camping and the adventure of expeditions across the ice.

In January 1999, the Pitts flew by Twin Otter to Colville Lake to pursue Michael's life-long dream of living beyond the reach of roads and concrete. By the time the ice went out of the lakes and rivers in mid-June, their lives had been changed forever.

Michael and Kathleen Pitt had been paddling the rivers of Northern Canada for ten years. Yet their experience seemed incomplete. Summer is for visitors. Michael needed to spend a winter in the North, where rivers, lakes and muskeg remain frozen for 7 to 8 months of the year. Only by following the winter trail did Michael believe that he could truly know the character and soul of Canada's vast, seemingly limitless Northern landscape.

"A mesmerizing account of the North's beauty and the winter Michael and his wife Kathleen lived in a tiny cabin above the Arctic Circle. Well-written and insightful, this book will delight anyone who has explored the northern latitudes or dreams of doing so." -- Julie Angus, author of Rowboat in a Hurricane: My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean

"Personal, humorous and witty, Pitt has crafted an Ode to Winter, sharing with us practical tips of wintercraft, philosophical musings and personal observations on life, the North and the majesty of Winter." -- Alan Fehr, 21-year resident of Arctic Canada and Superintendent of Prince Albert and Elk Island National Parks

About the author, Michael D. Pitt Born and raised in California, Michael D. Pitt emigrated to Canada in 1975 to accept a position at the University of British Columbia as a professor of grassland ecology in the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, where he eventually served as associate dean for eight years. In 1981 he married Kathleen, who worked at the university as an administrator in Information Technology Services.

The lure of a rural lifestyle, however, with golden sun reflecting on winter snow, inevitably proved irresistible. Kathleen said goodbye to commute traffic, deadlines, memos and office walls in 2000. Michael escaped 18 months later. They now live on 565 acres in the Aspen Parkland near Preeceville, Saskatchewan, where sled dogs Brownie, Grey, Sailor and Slick help them operate Meadow's Edge Bed & Breakfast.

Kathleen and Michael Pitt are authors of Three Seasons in the Wind: 950 km by Canoe Down Northern Canada's Thelon River, published in 1999.