No comments about Camp Free in B.C..

1 comments about Guiding Lights: BC' S Lighthouses and Their Keepers.

1. The photography is Very good and the documentation, on the B.C. Lighthouses is very Informative i highly recomend this book, if you are a light house Buff

1 comments about Stranger Wycott s Place (Transmontanus) (Transmontanus).

1. Fair disclosure: I always was a sucker for a good travel yarn. Bruce Chatwin's aphorism, that "a man's real home is not a house but the road and life itself is a journey to be walked on foot" is copied out on my office door. I enjoyed "The Snow Leopard" so much I followed Matthiessen's footsteps around Dolpo in Nepal some years ago, and it remains one of my favorite books. The author of these travel/history stories has made the back roads of the interior of BC, Canada, his home and he shares Matthiessen's attempt to bring together the physical beauty of the wild and the spirit of those who walk and have walked on the land. John Schreiber worked in logging camps, in an iron ore mine, in a seine boat, and as a teacher-counsellor. Although he now lives in the capital of BC, Victoria, he was raised in the interior. His father attempted to make a living for a while as a guide/hunter and John grew up there in the wilderness.
   
   I enjoyed the stories, and have ordered several copies to give away to friends. As one can't yet look inside this book to sample it on the Amazon web site, perhaps the best I can do for a prospective reader is offer two quite different paragraphs from the book.
   
   On the second page of the book Schreiber describes his youth.
   
   "So I imprinted to my own walking, to wildness, and most especially to those classic markers of the southern BC interior: dry air, redolent `bee-loud' wild-rose hillsides, open woods, dry-belt fir trees, cool nights and clear night skies, golden autumns, and the heart-shaped leaves of quaking aspens fluttering in the slightest breezes. I learned in my early growing up to be quite at ease with my alone self, with the untamed shadowy woods, the dark and the usually sudden sightings or sounds of creatures, mostly wild: coyotes, owls, deer, porcupines, quick weasels in the woodpile; a snake with a toad feet-first down its distended throat; a tiny pugnacious sharp-toothed shew crossing the road; a startled hawk on a branch over the outhouse in the dim light of evening; Mr. Janning's cattle as I walked through them on the way to school; a wounded black bear up the train to Frog Lake; our turned-out horses moving around in the night; our gone-wild cats returning to be fed in winter; a moose under my window; wolves howling twilight in the bright snowly hills above the lodge. All this left a mark on me. Those knowledgeable about child development tell us we attach to where we live and play when we are seven and eight years of age....
   
   About 50 pages on, after stories of native Americans and the early contacts, he occasionally becomes philosophical/spiritual, in a way that reminds me of Jim Harrison, in his later writings, rambling with his dogs and only pretending to hunt. Schreiber writes:
   
   `There seems to me to be wild at the heart of all things: in valleys little visited, in earth, in growing trees, in old places once lived in, in our backyards, in our bodies, in our unconscious minds, in all decay. Wild is that which is beyond our control. The more I watch and see, the more I conclude that, despite all our efforts at domestication of the outer world and of ourselves, we remain as much wild as tame. The line between culture and chaos is paper thin. Read the news. Watch TV. Look at the creases on your hands and on your neck and face; listen to your heart. Even our efforts to define the word `wild' are tricky, as if the word itself resists taming. We define `wild' by what it is not, but what at its core is it? Is not a mountain, a volcano, an ocean or a robin inherently wild? Must we conclude that the essence of all existence is wild? Is there anything in our world that is not ultimately beyond our means to control? Death feels like wild to me.
   "The trees are closing in, you know" my mother in the intermediate care home would say in her dementia-driven way several times a day. I could never disagree...'

5 comments about Moon Handbooks Alberta and the Northwest Territories, Fourth Edition: Including Banff, Jasper, and the Canadian Rockies.

1. This handbook was packed with great spots to stop. There were many places listed that the AAA guidebook missed, and all were fantastic. The book was sectioned well, breaking up different areas into day-trips. If you are going to Alberta for the first time, this is a MUST BUY!



2. I couldn't believe all the information that this book contained. It told us of all the great spots in Banff and we didn't miss a one. This was our first time there, but because this book was top notch, we're planning our return within a few months. I would highly recommend this book to anyone traveling in the Canadian Rockies. It's better than the best!!



3. This was an excellent guide for family travel. It provided first rate information on dinosaur adventures in the Red Deer region to Waterton NP to the Canadian Rockies including Banff and Jasper and all points in between. Includes tidbits of local history and written in such a user friendly manner that by the middle of our three week adventure we were fondly refering to it as Mr. Moon, as in, what does Mr. Moon reccommend for dinner. If you are traveling to the Canadian Rockies, the British Colombia guide by this publisher makes an indispensable companion to the Alberta Guide.



4. This book and its companion volume to British Columbia are undoubtedly the best travel books I have ever used. I just returned from a two-month trip that took me to the Calgary Stampede, through the Rockies, up to Yellowknife and through British Columbia to Vancouver. Alberta is an amazing place to visit and by buying this book I was able to enjoy it all the more. The author has obviously done his homework and describes the region in a colorful style but also with an incredible amount of detail. By using these books I managed to plan my trip before leaving home, even down to where I wanted to eat. The other guide I had with me was rarely used. I also found local information centers sending me along well worn tourist paths, and while this book covers all of that side of Alberta it also led me away from the masses to areas of equal beauty. I highly recommend this book to anyone planning a trip to Canada!!



5. This book was indispensible for my recent travels through Alberta. It contains detailed descriptions of all the best places to go, including some great small town festivals that I would of otherwise missed. The book also has many hikes included, mostly in the Canadian Rockies. I budgeted to spend around $50 a night for motels, and found that this book described many good choices in this price range but also includes campgrounds and more expensive places. Overall, I found it to be very current, not only for restaurants and the like but also coverage of issues such as overcrowding in the national parks, which I found an interesting addition.

No comments about Drive Around Canadian Rockies, 2nd: Your guide to great drives. Top 25 Tours. (Drive Around - Thomas Cook).

5 comments about The Same River Twice: A Boatman's Journey Home.

1. I read this book almost in one sitting. Micheal Burke tells a good story and gives the reader the feeling of being on the river and experiencing the beauty of situation while taking us along on his own personal journey. Very good read!



2. I guess I am lucky to be attending Univeristy of Maine at Farmington, where a lot of non fiction writing has come from recently (Gretchen Legler AND Michael Burke).
   I went to Professor Burkes reading last night and it was so fun. His book is full of humor, at least, the passages he read were. I haven't read the whole book (yet).
   But from what I heard, I am buying it and I would recommend it!



3. There is often a schism between our everyday life and our dreams of someday. Someday often stays out reach of us like an carrot on a stick until circumstances that would have allowed the dream no longer exist. Michael Burke gently opens the someday window and steps through. He takes you with him. He gives a balanced and real look at what is on the other side. He speaks with a fine voice that puts you in the raft, in his head, till you smell the wet stuff and feel the angst. He makes a case for making someday happen while you can. He tells a tale that made me look forward to the quiet part of the evening, after the kids were in bed, so I could be back on the river again. The Same River Twice is fertile ground to plant you own someday seeds in. I found it an inspriation.



4. What happens to white-water guides when they leave the rivers? Michael Burke gives us one answer: they never leave the rivers, and the rivers never leave them. Burke's story is part memoir, part "road trip," and part love story about the wild places that "can't be improved by changes." His tale of a 1991 trip down the wildest of British Columbia's rivers is one hundred percent enjoyment.
   
   Having guided seasonally since he was a college student, Burke at thirty-eight was married, a professor at a college in Maine, with a baby on the way. This ambitiously planned trip was a three-week-long pilgrimage to the places where a distant relative, Sid Barrington, had lived a life of legend on the wild rivers of long ago. Burke, along with a stranger named Max whose only qualification was availability, set out with an ancient rubber raft, a heavy load of gear, a rifle in case of bears, and jury-rigged arrangements with bush pilots. From this unpromising start, Mike and Max had a soul-stirring experience in this "humbling land."
   
   Putting in by plane to breathtaking Chutine Lake, they worked their way down glacier-fed rivers with wild names: the Chutine, the Stikine, the Sheslay, the Taku. Along the way they encountered black bears, grizzlies, moose, and on one memorable evening a wolf with two pups. Burke's deep love of the challenging terrain is evident throughout the book.
   
   Stories of the old river runner, Sid, are woven in, along with some hair-raising stories of Burke's younger days as a guide; a wild, adrenaline-saturated life that he remembers with affection at this settling-down time of life. Thoughts of his pregnant wife are with him always but he was unable to resist the pull of the river.
   
   Why do this crazy, dangerous thing? Burke writes about the meaning of memory as a defining concept; about freedom and control. But mostly it's because he loves the rivers. "Rivers," he writes, "are an experience of time. The river is more human than the ocean, limited like humans are, yet sweeping forward in its implacable way, like time itself sweeping past. We are proportioned to rivers..."
   
   Have you ever stood on the slope of a mountain and felt its age and power? Looked up into the weird blue ice of a glacier and heard its deep voice? Or even felt the edge of a river on your ankles and known that it flowed according to forces older than time? Then you should read this book. The geography is bewildering but just put in at the beginning and let the current take you to the end, rapids and all. You're sure to feel the awe and beauty of the planet's wild places. Go there, even if it's just in a book.
   
   Linda Bulger, 2008



5. This work is a delightful memoir that is a pleasure reading, starting from the first page, right along to the last word of the last page. This is the story of a man; a middle aged man at the time the story takes place, and at the same time is a history lesson, a journey of enlightenment, and a tour into one of the truly wild areas left in North America. It is also, and most importantly, a very insightful look at human nature.
   
   The author, Michael Burke, dropped out of the University of California-Berkeley, and became, through faking his lack of experience, a white water river guide. Burke has apparently been guiding now for over thirty five years. The author obviously continued his education, as he now teaches at a University, and beyond a doubt, the guy can certainly write. In 1991, when the author was 38, he found himself with a pregnant wife, two step-children, an academic career, living in Maine and driving a station wagon. Now, although the author does not admit to the fact, it is pretty obvious he is probably losing some of his hair, getting less muscle tone than he had when he was twenty, and, most importantly,(again, not really stated)is feeling rather trapped. Gosh, it does not take much of a creative leap to figure out that a gigantic mid-life crises is about to descend on this poor guy. This is okay though, at least Burke faced his crises with class, like a man, and did not go the route of gold chains around his neck, a little sports car, a poor comb-over and chase twenty year old undergrads around campus; something we see all too frequently. Rather, he returned to the roots of his youth, the river!
   
   The Same River Twice is the story of Michael Burke's journey down three rivers in the Canadian Wilderness of British Columbia. Using his old river raft, a left over from his youth, and in the company of a relative stranger, a fellow adventurer, who was chasing his own demons, the author starts on a very poorly planned adventure. The premise of the trip is to find and trace the territory traveled by distant relative of the author's, who himself was a famous river man during the Klondike glory days at the turn of the century. The author feels a connection with this long dead river man and wants to strengthen this connection with information. The story Michael tells of his trip is interwoven with stories of this old river man mixed with tales of the author's own glory days as a professional guide on some of the most famous white water rivers in North America. This three section story is wonderfully intertwined and the author has the ability to make you feel you are in all three eras with him, as he physically and mentally journeys through them.
   
   Burke's ability as a descriptive writer is truly wonderful. His true love for the wilderness, for the wild places in our planet, for wildlife, solitude and yes, danger, comes shinning through on every page. You can actually squint in your mind's eye, as you read his prose and picture what he is seeing as he writes. The author makes a point that this sort of thing, once experienced, never quite leaves your blood. Great bodies of water have been apart of our souls throughout time...once you are hooked, you are hooked for life.
   
   This work is truly a satisfying read, one of the better reads I have had in sometime now. I will quite likely give this one a second going over down the road. I must admit that I would love for this author to give us another book, telling of his adventures on the other rivers that he ran while learning his trade. The author can be quite humorous at times and I suspect was and is quite good at camp fire stories. It would be a delight to read some of them. NOTE: There seems to be a great deal of nonfiction writing coming out of Maine right now, and has been over the past few years. To be quite frank, the only thing I really knew about Maine was that they had Moose, potatoes, had a good store to order clothes from, and made good canoes...now I find the place is full of good writers...go figure.

1 comments about Frommers Vancouver & Victoria for Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)).

1. i referenced this book throughout my stay in vancouver. it came in very very handy during my stay there. before making any decisions, we checked to see what this book had to say

No comments about North America's Greatest Whitetail Lodges & Outfitters: More Than 250 Prine Destinations in the U.S. & Canada (Willow Creek Guides).

No comments about The Wild Coast: Volume 2: A Kayaking, Hiking and Recreational Guide for the North and Central B.C. Coast (The Wild Coast).

1 comments about Trails Illustrated Glacier, Waterton Lakes National Parks: Montana, Usa/Alberta, Canada (Trails Illustrated - Topo Maps USA).

1. This map is fantastic. Durable, easy to read, comprehensive. A must have for any serious back country enthusiasts into Glacier and Waterton.