The “modern explorer” who traveled alone to the Hudson Bay lowlands to collect data on a series of previously undocumented waterfalls returned home last week to the applause of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, which has celebrated Adam Shoalts for his rare accomplishment of changing the Canadian map.
But since news of his discovery catapulted him into the national spotlight late last month, a small chorus of aboriginal leaders and elderly canoe enthusiasts have been dissecting his claim, suggesting they had traversed the 107-kilometre Again River that straddles the northern border between Ontario and Quebec long before Mr. Shoalts was born.
The 27-year-old had expected as much.
“Every single explorer I’ve studied in history faces claims that someone else found it first,” said Mr. Shoalts, a PhD candidate in history at McMaster University. “That’s why, to me, documentation is so crucial that I was willing to do the river twice.”
Last summer, Mr. Shoalts travelled to the Again River after extensive research into historical records show that it had never been properly documented, outside of aerial photographs taken in the post-war period. And that gap in geographic knowledge sent him tumbling over a 12-metre waterfall he didn’t know existed.
After discovering a total of seven waterfalls on the August 2012 expedition, Mr. Shoalts reported his findings to the RCGS, which offered funding to send him back to the river this summer to take proper measurements and photographs of the unknown landmarks.
Shortly before he left earlier this month, reports on his new expedition caused a steady flow of emails to the geographical society claiming the Again had been previously discovered.
John Turner, a former researcher with the Moose Cree First Nation, says he conducted a series of interviews with elders in the 1990s and early 2000s, which confirms the Again River was traditionally a major transportation route for Moose Cree ancestors.
“I’ve been in that area, in 1979 and 1980 we spent the winter trapping on that river,” said Mr. Turner, adding that transcripts of the interviews with elders were not readily available to the public and could not be provided to the National Post on Tuesday.
A map on the Moose Cree website shows the First Nation’s traditional territory, an expansive area south of Hudson Bay including the Again River.
In a letter to the RCGS, the daughter of a government surveyor detailed a story told by her father from his time in the Hudson Bay lowlands sometime in the 1920s. According to the letter, an aboriginal man told Shelagh M’Gonigle’s father that he would have to cross the river “again and again” as they surveyed the Ontario-Quebec border.
When afforded the opportunity to name the geographical features he came across, Ms. M’Gonigle wrote that her father chose to name the river the Again.
While interesting, Mr. Shoalts and the RCGS say the claims have little bearing on the recent expedition — which set out to add clarity to topographic maps.
“I have great respect for traditional aboriginal knowledge, but the individuals I spoke with in Moose Factory and Moosonee could not tell me anything about the Again River or its waterfalls,” said Mr. Shoalts, who scoured through archival records, newspaper clippings, explorers’ journals and geographical survey reports before the expedition.
“Ultimately, I deal in records … The fact is, the waterfalls are not on the map.”
Mr. Shoalts returned to his Fenwick, Ont., home on Friday after two weeks measuring the exact longitude, latitude and height of each waterfall — strenuous work that, at one point, saw his canoe submerged in water, forcing Mr. Shoalts to swim to shore with one arm draped over his food supply and backpack, while the other dragged his canoe.
The work will likely result in a few small waterfall symbols being added to topographic maps — “an extraordinary” feat in an era when maps are rarely changed, unless to denote a new subdivision, says Mr. Shoalts.