🗣 Speaker Series: Michael Peake | George Douglas & the Coppermine River — Thurs, May 28, 2026

Join photographer and writer Michael Peake as he retraces explorer George Douglas’ 1911–1912 route to the Coppermine River, pairing Douglas’ historic photographs with his own experiences travelling in the North.

🗓️ Date: Thursday, May 28, 2026
🕘 Time: Doors open at 5:30 PM | Talk begins at 6:30 PM
🎟 Price: $15
🪪 Members save 10%! (Use the discount code in your welcome email to receive your discount)

Retracing George Douglas’ Journey to the Coppermine River

In 1911, Lakefield, Ontario explorer George Douglas set out on a two-year expedition to the mouth of the Coppermine River in what is now Nunavut. Decades later, Michael Peake retraced that same route. In this talk, he shares Douglas’ historic photographs alongside his own experiences travelling in the north, offering a look at how northern travel has changed — and what has not.

Douglas travelled north with his brother Lionel and geologist August Sanberg, moving by train, stagecoach, barge, steamer, and canoe to reach Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. There, they built a cabin to overwinter before continuing their journey that fall and the following spring to survey the Coppermine River to the Arctic Ocean in search of minerals.

Armed with what was then a modern camera, Douglas documented life in the North during a period of rapid change, capturing landscapes, travel routes, and Inuit families living on the land as they had for millennia. His book, Lands Forlorn, is a unique and quintessentially Canadian story of travel in the far north more than a century ago.

Drawing on decades of northern canoe travel and research, Peake reflects on what Douglas witnessed, how the north has changed, and what these journeys can still teach us.

LEARN MORE about Michael Peake and this event.

This event is part of The Canadian Canoe Museum’s Speaker Series.