Vanished Beyond the Map

The Mystery of Lost Explorer Hubert Darrell

By: Adam Shoalts

Narrated by: Adam Shoalts

Canada’s greatest modern-day explorer sets out into the arctic wilderness to solve a mystery more than 100 years old.

In November 1910, explorer Hubert Darrell vanished in the uncharted wilds of the Northwest Territories. A prospector who had been swept up in the Klondike Gold Rush, Darrell later made his name as an expert guide, trapper, and restless wanderer who ventured where few others dared. At a time when travel by dogsled in the North was the norm, Darrell became legendary for traversing thousands of kilometres alone and on foot; ranging over mountains and across windswept tundra from Alaska to Hudson Bay. During his epic journeys, he helped rescue sailors trapped in sea ice, led Mounties on their patrols, and even guided some of the era’s most famous explorers. Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole, held Darrell in awe, remarking once that with men like him, he could go to the moon. Contemporaries regarded Darrell as the hardiest, most competent explorer of his day. Despite clues reported by Inuit trappers and Mounted Police inquiries, his fate remains a mystery. While his disappearance sparked headlines around the world, Darrell’s name would soon also vanish from the history books, ironically, just as surely as he had in the wild.


Yet Darrell left behind a trail of letters, journals, and hand-drawn maps. With these faded clues and his zeal for adventure, Adam Shoalts retraces Darrell’s forgotten routes through the wilderness, searching for cabin ruins and old campsites. He unearths water-stained records and tracks down elderly individuals in the hopes that they might remember someone who’d known Darrell. Part detective story, part biography, and part first-person adventure narrative, Vanished Beyond the Map combines expeditions with historical research to solve one of exploration history’s enduring cold cases—the mystery of Hubert Darrell.

never dissapointed

love shoalts. he needs the first hand knowledge to complete and adventure to share with us accurately

w Well written, amazing story.

I don't know how explorers can survive in such adverse weather! Especially in that time, early 1900s

Excellent Book

This is an interesting and amazing story. Darrell had the will and the strength to live a lifelong adventure like this. As in all lives, triumphs and regrets. Making choices to follow the dream he could make happen with the opportunities he had to pick from.
Well written.