Such is the demand for natural gas around Fort McMurray that a consortium of companies, including Shell Canada and Imperial Oil, has proposed building a seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile pipeline from the Arctic Ocean through the largely undisturbed wilderness of the Mackenzie River Valley and down into northern Alberta.

NEWYORKER: Unconventional Crude

Strel plans to swim across the Grand Canyon , along 1, 000 miles of the freezing Mackenzie River in Canada, and the length of the 2, 000-mile Volga .

BBC: What adventures are actually left?