After accelerating their studies and graduating high school early, two teenagers set off from their hometown in Minnesota to embark on a 2200-mile canoe journey up the heart of North America. Their destination: the permafrost shores of Hudson Bay. Inspired by a passion for the simple life, where gadgets and schedules are replaced by nature and its harsh beauty, the duo found something that many believe is lost--a true adventure.

Follow the pair up the flooding Minnesota River and through the prairie plains of North Dakota, across man-sized waves on Lake Winnipeg, and down the...