You aren't as tough as a voyageur. No, not even if you run marathons. Not even if you run ultramarathons.
The York Factory Express is a non-fiction book based on the journals kept by Hudson's Bay Company 'gentleman' (company administrators). It documents their annual trip from the HBC post at modern-day Vancouver, Washington to the main HBC depot at York Factory Manitoba on the shores of Hudson Bay. Remarkably, they made this 2,700 mile (4300 km) trip by paddle, sail, horseback, snowshoes, and foot without benefit of railroads, roads, or engines of any kind. The main motive power was the voyageurs who paddled and rowed the boats upstream, except when the current was so strong that they needed to 'line' the boats through rapids with ropes or carry them across portages. To cross the Rockies they left the boats behind and snowshoed up and across Athabasca Pass (https://www.alltrails.com/trail/canada/alberta/athabasca-pass-from-jasper claims total elevation gain of 2500m), carrying packs of up to 70 pounds. Days were long too: the journals document daily start times ranging from 2:30am to 4:30am, with days ending at 8 or 9pm -- except when they travelled all night to find better conditions for snowshoeing of course.
The trip typically took 3.5 months each way.
Why? Well, I also don't want to hear anyone complain about their work meetings again. Sure, maybe that meeting could have been an email, but at least you didn't have to travel across the continent to attend. It took sailing ships from England two years to reach Fort Vancouver. By travelling overland to to the annual HBC administrator meeting at Norway House (or the Red River colony), central administrators could get an annual accounting of the activities of Western fur traders, and the Western fur traders could make more timely requests for the right amounts and varieties of trade goods (which were delivered by those annual ships from England).
The York Factory Express tells a remarkable story.
How about the book itself? The author quotes extensively from fur trade journals, and the book has a number of helpful maps to illustrate the path taken by the Express. However, I have to sympathize slightly with the reviewer on Goodreads who says "Like the voyageurs, my main feeling on finishing was relief that the journey was finally over." The book would have been much improved if the author had added more analysis and context. I found myself turning to the internet repeatedly to understand where locations mentioned in the book are in terms of modern landmarks, a task made more difficult by the fact that most of the rivers the Express travelled have since been extensively altered by Hydro developments. I also struggled sometimes with fur trade terminology and history -- when there are explanations, they often appear well after the terms, events, or people in question are first mentioned.
Who should read this book? Anyone interested in the history of the land we all now share, or who wants to understand why Cumberland House (1774) is the earliest European settlement in the province of Saskatchewan. But it would help if you already knew something about the history of Western Canada and the role of the Hudson's Bay Company in that history, as the author assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of her readers.
