The Wind River Variations is a collection of poems and prose-poems given birth by Brian Brett's participation in one of a series of river expeditions in the summer of 2003, introducing artists, environmentalists, writers, photographers, and Native elders to the hard-to-access glories of the three rivers — the Wind River, the Bonnet Plume River, and the Snake River that feed the Peel River which eventually flows into the Mackenzie River and the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. These three rivers and their spectacular and delicate watersheds are nearly untouched, and are all under threat from a multitude of development proposals.

Brian Brett was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1950 and studied literature at Simon Fraser University. He has been associated with several firms as an editor and publisher and has been a reviewer for many publications and newspapers.In the early seventies, he began working as a freelance journalist and critic for various publications and newspapers, including The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the Vancouver Sun, The New Reader, Books in Canada, the Victoria Times-Colonist and theVancouver Province — where he was the poetry critic for two years, and had his own column. His journalism has appeared in almost every major newspaper in Canada, and his essays in most of the major magazines. Brett inaugurated the BC Poetry-in-the-Schools program, introducing children in schools to world poetry for a period of several years, and has taught or given workshops on writing across Canada. He has been a member of organizations ranging from P.E.N. International, the League of Canadian Poets, the Federation of BC Writers, to the Writers' Union of Canada. While a member of the League of Canadian Poets he performed a national reading tour under their auspices. He has also given readings on CBC Radio and various other media as well as public performances funded by private organizations, universities, Harbourfront, Vancouver International Writers Festival, Saltwater Festival, Sechelt Writers’ Festival, Wordfest: Banff Calgary International Writers Festival, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, National Book Festival, and the Canada Council. Brett is the author of several books of fiction and poetry, including, Tanganyika (Thistledown Press, 1991), The Fungus Garden (Thistledown Press, 1988) Coyote (Thistledown 2003), and Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life (2009) for which he won the Writers Trust Non-Fiction Prize. He lives on a farm on Salt Spring Island.

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Fritz Mueller grew up on a rural homestead in British Columbia's Coast Mountains. Biology was a natural career path for a kid raised in wild country filled with mountain goats and grizzlies. He completed two degrees at University of British Columbia, doing his master's fieldwork near Kluane National Park in the Yukon. For a decade Mueller worked in northern Canada as a zoologist and environmental assessment scientist. In 2003 he quit his government job to take photographs full-time. He does a mix of editorial assignment, stock and commercial photography, but his main focus continues to be telling compelling stories about science, conservation and the interface between people and nature. An award-winning photographer, he's published in National Wildlife, Nature's Best, Ranger Rick, Natural History, Canadian Geographic, Up Here, Defenders of Wildlife, explore, The New Yorker, the Globe & Mail, The Guardian and more.

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