In the spring of 1912, Anishinaabe guide Billy Magee received a letter from future conservationist Ernest Oberholtzer asking Magee to accompany him on a journey. Soon after the two set off on a five-month canoe expedition following the old way north, a largely unmapped territory that would test both their endurance and their friendship.

Tracing the route of the Oberholtzer-Magee expedition, The Old Way North transports readers through the history of this challenging wilderness and introduces them to the mapmakers, fur traders and trappers, missionaries, and Native peoples who relied on this corridor for trade and travel. Through Oberholtzer's journals along with historical records, personal interviews with Dene and Inuit, and present-day canoeing accounts, wilderness and conservation writer David Pelly reconstructs the many tales hidden in this land.