At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson's Bay Company -- the company of Gentleman Adventurers -- and ended up at an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where there was no communication with the outside world and only one ship arrived each year. But he was not alone. The Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, and survive ferocious winter storms. He learned their language and became completely immersed in their culture, earning the name Issumatak, meaning “he who thinks.”
In The Last Gentleman Adventurer, Edward Beauclerk Maurice relates his story of coming of age in the Arctic and transports the reader to a time and a way of life now lost forever.
What was it like to leave everything behind for a life of adventure at the edge of the world?
- A True Coming of Age Story: Follow a naive sixteen-year-old English boy as he impulsively joins the legendary Hudson’s Bay Company and finds his place in a world few have ever seen.
- Deep Cultural Immersion: Go beyond a simple travelogue as Maurice learns the Inuktitut language and ancient traditions of the Inuit, who honor him with the name Issumatak—“he who thinks.”
- Arctic Survival Skills: Discover the authentic, time-honored techniques for tracking polar bears, building igloos, and enduring ferocious winter storms, taught by the true masters of the North.
- A Lost World Preserved: Step back in time to the 1930s Canadian Arctic, a period of profound isolation and unique culture captured in vivid detail before it vanished forever.
