Today’s #unwrapALU picks are for our outdoor enthusiasts, city-livers who romanticize camping trips, and anyone whose ever attempted to go off-grid. In Susanna Pfisterer’s Fifty Percent of Mountaineering is Uphill (NeWest Press), we meet mountaineer extraordinaire Will Pfisterer, who makes mountain climbing seem like a breeze; and in Amber McMillan’s The Woods (Nightwood Editions), we get to know the people and way of life in the small community of Protection Island. Now go on and get geared up for these recommendations!
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Everyone has one – that tricky booklover on your list for whom you’re stymied on what to buy. Fret no longer: we’ve rounded up twenty books for hyper-specific people. Check our recommendations, and buy on. BONUS: get a set of our holiday gift cards FREE when you buy any of our featured books.
Fifty Percent of Mountaineering is Uphill: The Life of Canadian Mountain Rescue Pioneer Willi Pfisterer tells the story of Willi Pfisterer, mountaineer, mountain guide, mountain safety expert, mountain father. The book is presented in Willi’s voice, though it is written by Willi’s daughter, Susanna “Susi” Pfisterer, who took her father’s speeches and stories and turned them into one heck of an alpine yarn. This is a book written out of a daughter’s love and respect for her father, and that feeling radiates from the first page to the last, making the book a great gift choice for dads, especially outdoor-loving ones.Throughout the book we get stories of Willi’s childhood in Austria, his ski jumping, his coming to Canada and falling in love with our mountains, of which he climbed over 1600. He was even a member of the first “all-Canadian team” to climb Mt. Logan, Canada’s tallest mountain. Willi was also one of the creators of mountain safety techniques that make the Canadian Rockies a safer place for everyone, including two Prime Ministers who he guided up peaks. The book also describes many rescues that Willi participated in, using procedures he helped create and modify.And the pictures! Fifty Percent of Mountaineering has over 100 archival photos that perfectly combine with Willi’s story to create a book that is as stunning to the eyes as the vistas of Jasper or Banff.***
What happens when an outsider moves into a community in which its people and families sought refuge for varying reasons and with different outcomes, and exposes the unique, and sometimes difficult way of life? A personal memoir of life on Protection Island, told from an outsider’s perspective, The Woods digs deep into the unsettling tenor of life on one of BC’s smallest gulf islands. The measure of one’s success on the island, as the author discovers, doesn’t rely on status or income, but on the ability to adapt both the rigorous outdoors of the Pacific Northwest and equally challenging human community of need, trade, and negotiated civility. The Woods is an honest reflection and exploration of life on a tiny island with all its pros and cons, its people, the difficulties of not fitting in and maybe never fitting in.***If you still haven’t found the perfect book to gift, visit us again tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day until Friday) when we choose more super specific books for your picky pals. And if you missed our other #unwrapALU recommendations, take a peek at last week’s hyper-specific picks.Oh and did we mention, if you purchase any of our recommended #unwrapALU titles, we’ll throw in a free holiday gift card set?
