Stories Of Ice Adventure Commerce And Creativity On Canada S Glaciers

With the state of global ice constantly in the news, one mountain journalist examines Canadian glaciers to uncover their secrets and their future. From a mother/daughter duo who spent five months skiing across icefields from Vancouver to Alaska, to scientists discovering biofilms deep inside glacier caverns, to protesters camping for weeks to protect their beloved local glacier, western Canada's glaciers are dynamic, enigmatic, exquisitely beautiful, sometimes dangerous environments where people play, work, run businesses, explore, and create art every single day. Author Lynn Martel is one of them. With gorgeous images by some of the country's best outdoor photographers, Stories of Ice shares the excitement, the mystery, and the wonder of Canada's glaciers and poses questions about their future.

With the state of global ice constantly in the news, one mountain journalist examines Canadian glaciers to uncover their secrets and their future.From a mother/daughter duo who spent five months skiing across icefields from Vancouver to Alaska, to scientists discovering biofilms deep inside glacier caverns, to protesters camping for weeks to protect their beloved local glacier, western Canada's glaciers are dynamic, enigmatic, exquisitely beautiful, sometimes dangerous environments where people play, work, run businesses, explore, and create art every single day.Author Lynn Martel is one of them. With gorgeous images by some of the country's best outdoor photographers, Stories of Iceshares the excitement, the mystery, and the wonder of Canada's glaciers and poses questions about their future.

From skilled weekend warriors to internationally recognized stars of the professional adventure game, Lynn Martel has interviewed dozens of the most dynamic, creative and accomplished self-propelled adventurers of our time. In Expedition to the Edge: Stories of Worldwide Adventure, Martel has assembled 59 compelling and entertaining stories that uniquely capture the exploits, the hardships, the fears and the personal insights of a virtual who's who of contemporary adventurers as they explore remote mountain landscapes from the Rockies to Pakistan to Antarctica. Through candid and revealing conversations, Martel captures the joys, the motivations and the revelations of top climbers Sonnie Trotter, Sean Isaac, Raphael Slawinski and Steph Davis; Himalayan alpinists Carlos Buhler, Marko Prezelj and Barry Blanchard; record-setting paraglider Will Gadd; Everest skier Kit Deslauriers; the conservationist duo Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison as they follow a caribou herd for five months on foot across the Yukon; and Colin Angus on his two-year quest to become the first person to circumnavigate the world by human power.

Since moving to the Rockies of western Canada in 1984, Lynn Martel has spent countless hours and days exploring the mountain wilderness with her many experienced friends as well as some of the best known and well-informed professional guides in the outdoor adventure business. Waking up in tents and backcountry huts; hiking and skiing up valleys, over passes and across glaciers; rock climbing; mountain biking; caving; paddling and horseback riding have all become integral parts of Martel's life in the Mountain West. Since the mid-1990s, Martel has shared the beauty and the magic of the region's inspiring wilderness destinations through finely crafted tales of her own adventures and also those of the Rockies' most colourful and iconic adventure personalities. Her vast amount of experience and insight into the most popular activities available to tourists, locals and the most skilled and competent weekend warriors infuse this collection of 20 of her best adventure stories. Complete with colour photographs and maps, difficulty ratings, seasonal details and general information, these stories will inspire those seeking to experience adventures at their own level in and around Kananaskis Country, Canmore, Lake Louise and Banff, Yoho and Jasper national parks.

"I am drawn to the empty quarter, to open country, to the place on the map where there are dragons and giants, and the vast open spaces of mountains, canyons, rivers, prairies, and oceans. However, as the subtitle of this book declares, I am merely an ordinary adventurer in search of extraordinary places." In this series of fascinating and beautifully written essays about his deep desire for meaningful connection with the natural world , his steadfast commitment to protecting the wilderness, and his life on this vast and precious planet, Legault invites us to explore the intricate relationships that develop between people and place when we immerse ourselves in wild nature. Whether comfortably ensconced in a favourite easy chair or bedded down by a raging river under a canopy of stars, readers will slip between sheer canyon walls, walk a wind-torn ridge high in the mountains, meet Blondie the grizzly bear, and perhaps discover their feral selves and the possibilities for a better future that this awakening might bring.

An exciting and heart-pounding look at one of Western Canada's most adventurous individuals, known as a pioneer pilot of the heli-ski industry and as the first mountain-rescue pilot in the Canadian National Parks system. Jim Davies is an icon of competence and courage as the first heli-skiing pilot in Canada. But it is his groundbreaking work as a helicopter rescue pilot for Parks Canada that made him a legend to all who worked with him. His stellar career as a pilot overshadowed his other talents as a ski racer and artist. Jim received several awards for his work in mountain rescue, including the Helicopter Association International - Pilot Safety Award of Excellence, the Alberta Achievement Award for excellence in helicopter flying, the Summit of Excellence Award at the Banff Film and Book Festival, and the Robert E. Trimble Memorial Award for "distinguished performance in helicopter mountain flying." He is now retired and living in Banff, pursuing his love of painting and photography.

A dual biography of two of the most compelling elements in the narrative of wild America, John Muir and Alaska. John Muir was a fascinating man who was many things: inventor, scientist, revolutionary, druid (a modern day Celtic priest), husband, son, father and friend, and a shining son of the Scottish Enlightenment -- both in temperament and intellect. Kim Heacox, author of The Only Kayak, bring us a story that evolves as Muir’s life did, from one of outdoor adventure into one of ecological guardianship---Muir went from impassioned author to leading activist. The book is not just an engaging and dramatic profile of Muir, but an expose on glaciers, and their importance in the world today. Muir shows us how one person changed America, helped it embrace its wilderness, and in turn, gave us a better world. December 2014 will mark the 100th anniversary of Muir’s death. Muir died of a broken heart, some say, when Congress voted to approve the building of Hetch Hetchy Dam in Yosemite National Park. Perhaps in the greatest piece of environmental symbolism in the U.S. in a long time, on the California ballot this November is a measure to dismantle the Hetch Hetchy Dam. Muir’s legacy is that he reordered our priorities and contributed to a new scientific revolution that was picked up a generation later by Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, and is championed today by influential writers like E.O. Wilson and Jared Diamond. Heacox will take us into how Muir changed our world, advanced the science of glaciology and popularized geology. How he got people out there. How he gave America a new vision of Alaska, and of itself.