Judy Alsager's new book Trails End will put you on the back of a good Cariboo/Chilcotin horse as you ride this trail of life with BC Cowboy Hall of Fame inductee Mike Isnardy.

A cowboy in every sense of the word Isnardy was born to a family of 18 siblings where he learned the true spirit of the words "to share". The year was 1923 and times were hard for the settlers trying to make a living at the beginning of the century. The Isnardy family was no exception and this book will put you into their log cabin, sharing clothes, making food stretch working the land, and embracing the love and companionship to be found in a big family.

Mike's ranching career took him from work horse, to cow horse, to tractors. He even tried his hand at potato farming until the call of the saddle put him back where he belonged, with the horses. The trail of life for a cowboy offered no luxuries, no fancy beds, no TV. Days started well before first light and ended after dark—if you were lucky.

Judy Alsager brings the cold wind off the mountains, the loneliness of the trail, and the winter snows right up to your bedside table. Share the desperation that the men and women of the Cariboo/Chilcotin experienced while they fought to be able to feed stock through some of the coldest winters on record, and help them rejoice when they succeeded. Trails End will take the reader into a time of the past where life was simpler yet harder. Where friendship and cameraderie shared on the trail from the back of a good horse was all that a man required to make his life complete.

Judy Alsager now lives upriver from the Gang Ranch on her 130-acre farm on the bank of the Fraser River, halfway between Williams Lake and Quesnel. She has survived 10 years of court battles and bankruptcies, a divorce, and raising her four children, and has never once looked back on her association with the Gang Ranch with regret.

Judy Alsager's profile page