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Aerial photographs from the 1950s didn’t prepare Adam Shoalts for what he was about to encounter. The self-dubbed “modern explorer” was canoeing a stretch of little-known whitewater rapids just south of Hudson Bay when the river started to disappear in front of him.

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“I’ve discovered a waterfall and now I’m about to go straight over it,” Mr. Shoalts thought. “This is not good.”

He tried to back paddle, but the current was too swift. And then, “It’s past the point of no return.”

The current pivoted his canoe sideways, sending him down the 12-metre waterfall. As he fought against the undertow and swam to shore, Mr. Shoalts couldn’t help congratulating himself for making a discovery that “just doesn’t happen in the 21st century.”

The August 2012 trip marked the first time on record that anyone had traversed the Again River, a 100-kilometre tributary straddling the Northern Ontario-Quebec border that was too likely too marginal to sustain ancient aboriginal populations and too rocky for fur traders.