‘Paper Trails’: Roy MacGregor’s Quintessentially Canadian Memoir

In the ongoing, remarkable life and career of Roy MacGregor, the man’s most defining quality may be his ability to seem at home no matter what the situation. Put him in any small town in Canada, and Roy’s voice – still touched with the twang and occasional dropped g’s of his Huntsville, Ontario roots – immediately tells locals they are with one of their own. Send him, at the other extreme, for private sessions with prime ministers Jean Chrétien or Stephen Harper and he is equally at ease. Roy is also the person you want at your table in any social situation: not only does he tell the best stories, he’s equally keen to listen to those of everyone else.

Above all, MacGregor — from his reverence for nature to his lifelong infatuation with hockey to that canoe in the cover shot — is so quintessentially Canadian, it’s impossible to imagine a version of him existing elsewhere. The notion of a French, British or Mexican Roy MacGregor doppelgänger is simply impossible to conjure. [MORE]