This memoir documents the tremendous hardships that J. S. Nelles and his team of 25 men overcame as they chose the best route for the National Transcontinental Railway across virgin forests and uncharted rivers in the summer of 1908. It was an eight-month journey starting in Chapleau Ontario. Guided by experienced native paddlers as they travelled by canoe and portage some 270 miles to the Kapuskasing River, they spent the next seven months living in tents, dealing with blackflies and mosquitoes and extreme weather ever mindful of restrictions to grades and cost of water crossings. Reaching the Kabinakagami River in November. Then they then had to walk out to Grasset Station through winter conditions with temperatures reaching 40 below zero, pulling their equipment and supplies on home-made sleighs.