Colin and Julie Angus have written five books detailing their expeditions. Amazon Extreme, Lost in Mongolia, Beyond the Horizon, Rowboat in a Hurricane and Rowed Trip are available in bookstores and our online store.
Rowed Trip
From Scotland to Syria by Oar
By Colin Angus and Julie Angus
|
|
Category: Travel - Adventure
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Pub Date: September 29, 2009
Price: $29.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-66633-6 (0-385-66633-0)
|
|
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Two bestselling authors combine their strengths in a travelogue, a search for roots, a romance — and a seat-of-your-pants adventure.
One sunny day in 2006, Julie and Colin Angus were talking about the future, as newly engaged couples do. More unusually, they were at the time travelling together from Moscow to Vancouver by human power — boat, bike, and foot.
That day, they were examining a road atlas and in particular the labyrinth of European inland waterways it revealed. Julie traced a route of interconnected canals, rivers, and coastlines that led from Colin’s parents’ homeland of Scotland past her mother’s homeland, Germany, and on to her father’s, Syria. She said, half-seriously: We could row (yes, row, as in propelling a tippy little boat on a pond) all the way from Scotland to Syria to visit our relatives. It was a reckless sort of joke to make, given the couple’s addiction to adventure. The result is Rowed Trip, an odyssey by oar (and bike) from Caithness, Scotland, across the English Channel, through France, across the Rhine, the Main-Donau Canal to the Danube, the Black Sea, the Bosphorous Straits, and the Mediterranean. Julie and Colin each describe how the trip allowed them to test their relationship, to explore their roots, and to indulge to the max their shared taste for adventure.
REVIEW QUOTES
“... a delightful and stirring account of their 7,200-kilometre, seven-month rowboat-and-bicycle journey from Scotland to Syria.”
- Ottawa Citizen, Nov 18, 2009
“An incredible way to experience two continents, and a solid read..”
- Mountain Life, Fall 2009
Rowboat in a Hurricane
My Amazing Journey Across a Changing Atlantic Ocean
By Julie Angus
National Bestseller
|
|
Category: Travel - Adventure
Publisher: Greystone Books
Format: Paperback, 272 pages
Pub Date: October 2008
Price: $22.00
ISBN: 978-1-55365-337-0
|
|
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In 2005-06, Julie Angus rowed 10,000 kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, becoming the first woman in the world to travel from mainland to mainland in a rowboat. She was accompanied by her fiancé at the time,
Colin Angus, who was completing a round-the-world expedition using human power only.
The 145 days they spent rowing across the Atlantic offered Julie Angus, a trained scientist, a rare perspective on the ocean. The slowmoving boat attracted barnacles, fish, turtles, sharks, whales, and birds, which Angus was able to document. Despite this abundance of life, she also saw signs of the devastation of the sea. The sharks that she should have seen most abundantly, oceanic whitetips, were not in evidence at all.
During the journey, the couple was hit by four cyclones, including two hurricanes. The boat was hammered by ten-meter waves, and Angus likens the experience to riding a barrel down never-ending waterfalls for four days. Rowboat in a Hurricane is a gripping adventure story of a woman's difficult and courageous journey with her partner in a cramped vessel. More important, it is a unique record of an amazing ecosystem, its fascinating inhabitants, and the many threats they face.
REVIEW QUOTES AND AWARDS
National Outdoor Book Awards
Honorable Mention in Outdoor Literature Category
"..riveting true story.."
“Telling a classic survival story from a feminine perspective, Angus’s narrative is a first-hand account of waters most people will never visit.”
- Toronto Star, Nov 7, 2008
"Her book, Rowboat in a Hurricane… is an absorbing and inspirational read about their cramped and bone-wearying self-funded sojourn…Like many other adventurers before her, Angus bravely sacrificed a host of human comforts to give us a glimpse into an experience most of us wouldn’t dare dream of. At the same time, she humbly inspires us to make a small effort to reverse the tide."
- The Ottawa Citizen, May 8, 2009
“[Rowboat in a Hurricane] is filled with engaging and insightful personal, historical and scientific anecdotes. …Like many other adventurers before her, Angus bravely sacrificed a host of human comforts to give us a glimpse into an experience most of us wouldn’t dare dream of. At the same time, she humbly inspires us to make a small effort to reverse the tide.”
- Calgary Herald, Apr 17, 2009
“Julie Angus offers the female perspective and draws on her background as a molecular biologist to infuse her tale with statistics about the changing ocean environment. …Angus writes with such good humour and honesty… that any overlap is soon forgotten. …and you can’t help but admire her candour.”
- Outpost Magazine, Nov 4, 2008
“Rowboat in a Hurricane… describes with dismay and alarm the amount of trash floating in the water, most of it plastic. …The voyage reinforced Angus’s sense of the interconnection of land and sea, of how the health of life on land depends on the vitality of the oceans. …This book is a testament both to human courage and to human destructiveness. Angus deftly weaves personal detail into the story, fleshing out her small cast of characters.”
- BC Bookworld, Nov 18, 2008
“While I’m on the subject of impressive women… Julie [Angus] became the first woman to row (with Colin) across the Atlantic Ocean from mainland to mainland… The Vancouver-Island resident has written about that trip in her new book, Rowboat in a Hurricane. It’s a fascinating read from a woman who didn’t discover the outdoors until she was 21, and who still claims that she’s ‘not an adventurer.’”
- explore Magazine, Nov 26, 2008
“When Julie Angus… takes to the sea, she dives in deep, as evidenced by her 145-day journey by rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean. Angus’s slow-boat venture enabled her to explore the ocean ecosystem up close and chronicle the once-abundant species that are now faced with the threat of devastation.”
- Granville Magazine, Feb 17, 2009
Beyond the Horizon
The Great Race to Finish the First Human Powered Circumnavigation of the Earth
National Bestseller
ABOUT THIS BOOK
In June, 2004, Colin Angus left Vancouver on his bicycle. Nearly two years later, he rolled back in, looking like a castaway, and having completed the first human-powered circumnavigation of the globe.
Angus cycled, skiied, and rowed a route that took him to Alaska, across the Bering Sea and the Siberian winter, across Europe from Moscow to Portugal, then across the Atlantic to Costa Rica–a 156-day rowing odyssey. From there it was a short 8,300 kilometre ride back to Vancouver. Along the way he burned through 4,000 chocolate bars, 72 inner tubes, 250 kgs of freeze-dried foods, 31 dorado fish (caught from the sea), 2 offshore rowboats, 4 bicycles, 80 kgs of clothing. And he showed the world that if he can travel 43,000 kilometres without polluting the planet, then the rest of us can get off our butts, and clean up our own acts.
“We lay in the rowboat cabin as the seas swelled and the sky boiled like a devil’s cauldron. Slanting yellow sun beams cut between black squalls, and corrugated cirrus clouds interlaced the remaining areas of blue. Huge anvil heads roiled and billowed, like slow-moving atomic explosions. Flashes of lightning illuminated the IMAX screen of the horizon. Such energy and volatility would have been breathtakingly beautiful, if we had been watching from nearly anywhere else, and if it weren’t for the fact that it was all just a prelude to a killer storm.
It was hard to believe that yet another tropical cyclone was heading our way. We had chosen the worst hurricane season in recorded history to make our five-month, 10,000 km unsupported rowboat crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Now, two months into our voyage, it looked very likely our expedition might come to an abrupt end.
Our voyage across the Atlantic was only a part of a much larger expedition: an attempt to complete the first human-powered circumnavigation of the planet. So far we had trekked, skied, cycled, canoed, and rowed non-stop across three continents and were half-way across our second ocean. Now, as I huddled in the dog-house sized cabin with my fiancée waiting for the Hurricane Epsilon to reach us, I cursed myself for ever believing I could achieve such an impossible quest.”
—From Beyond the Horizon
REVIEW QUOTES
"Angus writes fluently, especially about the excruciating hardships he suffered. He gives good hurricane, too. His book is a great read. ... It's good to know that we have young compatriots of this calibre."
- National Post
"Imagination and originality have long been Angus trademarks..the same incidents that have always made Angus so loveable and funny continue to occur. Descriptions of wicked storms and delightful marine creatures encountered along the way brim with enthusiasm...it is livened by his fiendish sense of humour, and provides a fair view of modern adventure, with all its sponsorship struggles, internal feuds, endless planning and, thank goodness, thrills of the open road."
- Globe and Mail
"The journey featured more than its share of hair-raising experiences. If it wasn't enough that the trans-Atlantic portion corresponded with the most active hurricane season in history, the couple's craft came inches from being rammed by a freighter.... While Angus doesn't expect anyone to follow directly in his tracks, the publication of Beyond the Horizon aims to promote modes of transportation that produce no carbon emissions."
- Toronto Star
"Condensing this two-year expedition down into one book was a huge endeavour in itself, but Angus does an admirable job, focusing on the most interesting anecdotes and skipping through the less exciting intervals. .. In addition to adventure, drama, and romance, there is also humour to be found here."
- Times Colonist
"The achievement is a remarkable testament to a tenacious will, extraordinary endurance and pure obstinacy.... He makes Winnipeggers feel like wimps, complaining as we do when it's a mere -50º C with the windchill...There's no shortage of agony and near-death experiences in Angus's narrative. Forest fires, drowning, freezing, drunken Siberian truck drivers, Mexican banditos... are all well-documented. "
- Winnipeg Free Press
"Colin Angus of Vancouver Island showed remarkable perseverance in dealing with both danger and monotony during 720 days of adventure. He paints vivid pictures of obscure places and cultures while slowly travelling through vast landscapes.... Encounters with locals bring the armchair adventurer around the world. It feels like you're with Angus as he cycles past Russian mafia who are hanging a petrified man over an overpass by his ankles, or when he stays with friendly Siberians who spend a week's wages to feed him, or makes nice with strangers who fix his bike for free after reading about his expedition on the Internet."
- Calgary Herald
Lost in Mongolia
Rafting the World's Last Unchallenged River
National Bestseller
 |
|
Category: Travel - Adventure
Publisher: Anchor Canada
Format: Trade Paperback, 288 pages
Pub Date: September 2003
Price: $19.95
ISBN: 978-0-385-66014-3 (0-385-66014-6)
Also available as an eBook. |
|
ABOUT THIS BOOK
From the Yenisey’s headwaters in the wild heart of central Asia to its mouth on the Arctic Ocean, Colin Angus and his fellow adventurers travel 5,500 kilometres of one of the world’s most dangerous rivers through remotest Mongolia and Siberia, and live to tell about it.
Exploration is Colin Angus’ calling. It is not only the tug of excitement and challenge that keeps sending him on death-defying journeys down some of the world’s most powerful waterways, it is a desire to know a place more intimately than you could from the window of a train, to feel the soul of a place. Angus emphasizes that rivers have always been key to the development of complex societies and the rise of civilizations, offering as they do irrigation, transportation, hydroelectric power, and food. But, as Lost in Mongolia captures with breathtaking detail, while they giveth plenty, the great rivers also taketh away in an instant. In Lost in Mongolia, Colin Angus takes readers through never-before-seen territory and his wonderful sense of adventure and humour come through on every page.
REVIEW QUOTES
You'd think he would have learned from his Amazon misadventure, but humorously intrepid river runner Angus (Amazon Extreme, 2002) is back on the wildwater, this time following the mighty Yenisey… Godspeed, Colin Angus, and may there soon be another river to fire your hapless exuberance and your readers' good fortune.
- Kirkus Reviews (Assigned a star for unusual merit)
It's a priceless event made palpable with streamlined prose that deftly magnifies the wonder of his half-year quest from Beijing to the Arctic. The Canadian's bio calls him ''a full-time adventurer.'' But if Angus ever tires of navigating a rickety skiff through icy channels, nightclubbing with Siberian mafiosi, or snorting snuff beside a yak-dung-fueled fire, he's got an awfully good career to fall back on. Grade: A
- Entertainment Weekly
Huckleberry Finn is alive and well in the 21st century, and going by the name of Colin Angus…What follows is an adventure wild and woolly enough to inspire Mark Twain.…. A good river adventure isn't so much about the river itself, but about its characters and the lives they lead. Angus has this aspect nailed, and indeed, he dedicates his book to the men and women of the Yenisey.…. Angus is an engaging writer, and the book is full of humour while going refreshingly light on rafting minutiae.…Despite being a quick read, Lost in Mongolia still has the power to stir the spirit of adventure residing in any reader.
- Globe and Mail
|
