It was in 2012 that explorer Adam Shoalts plunged over a yet-to-becharted northern Ontario waterfall and into the limelight. On that expedition, he became the first person to complete an end-to-end navigation of the 107-kilometre Again River, which runs through the Hudson Bay Lowlands. With funding from The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Shoalts returned to the Again in 2013, to map the waterfall and four other previously uncharted falls.

He set out alone on the Kattawagami River, dragging his canoe up an unnamed tributary to a nameless lake, portaging about 30 kilometres through muskeg and boreal forest to the Again’s headwaters. From there, he followed the river north to its confluence with the Harricanaw River and ultimately to James Bay.

In a Canadian Geographic exclusive online feature, Brian Banks writes, “It had been about six years since Adam Shoalts, at the behest of others, took to calling himself an ‘explorer.’” Read the whirlwind account of everything that’s happened to the young adventurer since.