Destined to become a classic photography collection capturing the natural beauty of Alberta’s foothills and grasslands, On the Road with Mike Drew brings together – for the first time – some of Drew’s best work from the past twenty years.

Photojournalist Mike Drew has been touring the backroads of central and southern Alberta since 1991, taking photographs and writing stories for the Calgary Sun that have been enjoyed and shared by hundreds of thousands of readers.

His travels take him out of the city to the wide Alberta skies where the foothills are sparsely treed and the prairie vista takes precedence over just about everything. Whether driving lonesome highways, hiking along coulees, tramping through sagebrush or fly-fishing bright streams, Drew patiently documents this enormous landscape and becomes one with its unique and varied environments. The resulting stories and images are always infused with Mike's characteristic sense of joy, wonder and excitement.

Drew’s adventures cover a variety of regions along the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, including the upper Oldman River valley, Waterton, Kananaskis, the Porcupine Hills, the wild-horse country west of Sundre and on up through the Ya-Ha-Tinda, as well as more prairie-tinged locales such as Dry Island Buffalo Jump, Dinosaur Provincial Park, the Red Deer River valley, Milk River Ridge, the Pinhorn grazing reserve, the Cypress Hills and the windswept grasslands between Lethbridge and Medicine Hat.

Mike Drew was born in Chilliwack, BC, but his parents had the good sense to move to Alberta before he was 6 months old. He grew up in small towns in southern Alberta and graduated from high school in Milk River, one of a class of just 17. He attended Lethbridge Community College and worked briefly as a parts man for an International Harvester dealership, an irrigation system technician, a mechanic, and a delivery driver for the Lethbridge Herald before becoming a photographer on June 1, 1978. Mike has a weekly nature photography spread that runs in the Calgary Sun every weekend. He lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Mike Drew's profile page