Aloha Wanderwell

By Christian Fink-Jensen & Randolph Eustace-Walden

In 1922, a 15-year-old girl, fed up with life in a French convent school, answered an ad for a travelling secretary. Tall, blonde, and swaggering with confidence, she might have passed for twenty. She also knew what she wanted: to become the first female to drive around the ... Read more

Antarctic Pioneer

By Joanna Kafarowski

Jackie Ronne reclaims her rightful place in polar history as the first American woman in Antarctica.

Jackie was an ordinary American woman whose life changed after a blind date with rugged Antarctic explorer Finn Ronne. After marrying, they began planning the 1946–1948 Ronne ... Read more

Arctic Naturalist

By Anthony Dalton

Dewey Soper first travelled to the Arctic in 1923. During the next seven years he accepted three research postings on Baffin Island, each of which lasted between one and two years. In 1929 he discovered the breeding grounds of the blue goose in the southwest corner of Baffin ... Read more

Bush Runner

By Mark Bourrie

WINNER OF THE 2020 RBC TAYLOR PRIZE • "Readers might well wonder if Jonathan Swift at his edgiest has been at work. "—RBC Taylor Prize Jury Citation • "A remarkable biography of an even more remarkable 17th-century individual … Beautifully written and endlessly thought-provoking. ... Read more

Cataline

By Susan Smith-Josephy & Irene Bjerky

In the early days of British Columbia, pack trains of horses or mules were a lifeline for the early pioneer population. Explorers, trappers, traders, miners, merchants, workers and settlers and relied on them for the materials needed to live and work. Packers were also vital ... Read more

Fifty Percent of Mountaineering is Uphill

By Susanna Pfisterer

is the enthralling true story of Jasper's Willi Pfisterer, a legend in the field of mountaineering and safety in the Rocky Mountains. For more than thirty years, Willi was an integral part of Jasper's alpine landscape, guiding climbers up to the highest peaks, and rescuing them ... Read more

George Simpson

By D.T. Lahey

Born in Scotland and trained as a sugar broker in London, England, Sir George Simpson (1792-1860) was unexpectedly appointed in 1820 as governor of Rupert’s Land and the Indian territories, an area encompassing all of Canada from Hudson Bay to the Pacific Ocean. By his friendliness ... Read more

Kechika Chronicler

By Jay Sherwood

Willard Freer lived in remote areas of northern BC for most of his life. Born in Kamloops in 1910 and raised in the Peace River country, Freer came to the Kechika River valley in 1942, where he worked for a number of years with famed packer and guide Skook Davidson. He then ... Read more

Mountain Man

By Hiram Cody Tegart & Andrew Bruce Richards

Hiram Cody Tegart (Cody) was born in 1950 to a pioneering family in the Columbia Valley of British Columbia. He grew up on a ranch near Brisco where he learned to ride, shoot and work hard at a young age. Some of his earliest memories were of watching men ride off to his dad's ... Read more

Ootsa Lake Odyssey

By Jay Sherwood

From the 1920s to 1952, George and Else Seel lived about sixty kilometres south of Burns Lake near the small farming settlement of Wistaria on the western shore of Ootsa Lake. Like many early twentieth century settlers who migrated to BC's Central Interior, the Seels came in ... Read more