People & Peaks:
Women of Willmore Wilderness
Following the lead of historic women who challenged the traditions
of the day, blazing trails into a man’s world on horseback in the Canadian
Rockies, modern generations of women face their own challenges to
travel these same trails.
Traveling as horseback people was a way of life for Native and Métis
women living nomadically with their families in the Rocky Mountains. Later, and prior to World War I, a small number of affluent women afforded
the services of packhorse outfitters to guide them into unexplored areas
of the Canadian Rockies. With the advent of the Second World War, there
was a birth of feminism, and women began participating in non-traditional
roles, including careers in the mountain wilderness. Many were trying to survive the post depression era, etching a living off the land; while others were adventurers seeking a sense of freedom. Most of these women lived “outside the box” and were visionaries of their time. These explorers shed society’s expectations and followed their dreams, becoming more of “who they were” in a landscape they loved.
Women of Willmore Wilderness shares the stories of women past and present as they reveal how their experiences in mountain culture deeply inspired them. Meet free thinking individuals who blazed trails into a man’s rugged world. Share the humour and deep emotion of these souls who find the essence of their lives’ work on trails rarely traveled.
People & Peaks of
the Panther River & Eastern Slopes
Author: Susan Feddema-Leonard
Editor: Estella Cheverie
People & Peaks of the Panther River & Eastern Slopes is an exposé of twenty colourful mountain men and women, whose stories are woven into the very fabric of the Canadian Rockies. Experience the first person accounts of mountain men like Bud Brewster, Rex Logan, Dewy Browning, Phil Temple, Ray Legace, Stan Burrell, Glen Kilgour, Bob Kjos, and more.
The tales of mountain women are revealed as well. Linda Rose is one of the trail hands that will inspire ladies who have a passion to be one with the land. Her frank, matter-of-fact account leaves the readers enthralled and laughing.
Share in the history of some of the biggest Bighorn Sheep taken on Alberta’s eastern slopes. This publication outlines the saga of some of the Wardens, Rangers, early outfitters, trappers, mountain men and women. It describes the early geological survey expeditions on horseback, which opened the oil and gas sector. This book will open the reader’s eyes on how our mountain regions were first explored by rugged, tenacious people. This untold story of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains will be a hard book to put down. The publication is illustrated with stunning images and supplemented with archival photos.
People & Peaks of
Willmore Wilderness Park
Author: Susan Feddema-Leonard
Editor: Estella Cheverie
We know that Canada, especially western Canada, was pioneered by hunters, trappers and mountain people
and, of course, by Canada’s First Nations peoples. But seldom are we provided with a modern-day, close-
up view of the day-to-day lives and activities of these people, whose courage, resourcefulness and humour
(often in the face of, what would be for lesser stock, overwhelming calamity) is captured here in the pages
of the
People and Peaks of Willmore Wilderness Park.
In private correspondence, author Susan Feddema-Leonard wrote to me: “You birth your story—then
begins the work of chiseling and shaping the initial thoughts, finally refining them into a work of art.”
That’s exactly what Leonard has achieved, a work of art that not only brings to life in words and fine
photography (much of it by Leonard herself) one of Canada’s most beautiful and little-known wilderness
areas, but pays tribute to the brave folk who opened up, and now fight to preserve, the Willmore
Wilderness.
Roger Brunt,
Salt Spring Island,
award-winning journalist/columnist and director of
The North American School of Outdoor Writing
(March 25, 2007)
http://www.linksnorth.com/outdoorwriting/index.html
COST: $60.00 plus $15.00 shipping & handling.
Visa MasterCard, Amex and Cheques accepted.
To obtain a book please contact:
Willmore Wilderness Preservation & Historical Foundation
Box 93, Grande Cache, Alberta T0E 0Y0 Canada
1-780-827-2696 (phone); 1-780-827-4799 (fax)