Manitoba's Hayes River runs over 600 kilometres from near Norway House to Hudson Bay. On its rush to the sea, the Hayes races over 45 rapids and waterfalls as it drops from the Precambrian Shield to the Hudson Bay Lowlands. This great waterway, the largest naturally flowing river in Manitoba, served as the highway for settlers bound for the Red River colony, ferrying their worldly goods in York boats and canoes, struggling against the mighty currents.

Traditionally used for transport and hunting by the indigenous Cree, the Hayes became a major fur-trade route in the 17th to 19th centuries, being explored by such luminaries as Pierre Radisson (1682), Henry Kelsey (1690), David Thompson (1784), Sir John Franklin (1819) and J.B. Tyrrell (1892). This is the author's account of his invitational journey on the Hayes River from Norway House to Oxford House by traditional York boat with a crew of Cree and, later, from Oxford House to York factory by canoe in the company of other intrepid canoeists -- modern-day voyageurs reliving the past.