Available for the first time in one volume, Trees Are Lonely Company is a collection of Howard O’Hagan’s short stories previously published to critical acclaim in The Woman Who Got on at Jasper Station & Other Stories and Wilderness Men.

spanning decades of O’Hagan’s experience—as mountain guide, gentleman adventurer and storyteller—this collection of tales include A Mountain Journey, The Man Who Walked Naked Across Montana, Grey Owl, The Warning and The Little Bear That Climbs Trees. The title story, Trees Are Lonely Company, was awarded the President’s Medal of the University of Western Ontario in 1959 for best short story of the year.

As in his classic novel, Tay John, O’Hagan’s characters in these stories are formed by and emerge from the life-force of the landscapes they inhabit—emblematic of a continent emerging into history.

This collection serves to commemorate the life’s work of one of Canada’s most passionately imaginative writers.

Howard O’Hagan was born and raised in the Canadian Rockies. He received a Law Degree from McGill University, articled, was called to the bar, and then practised law for one day. Deciding that the world of formal law was not for him, he returned to the Rockies to become probably the most interesting mountain guide ever known. He was a writer for a series of gentlemen’s magazines, including Esquire, in the 1940s and ‘50s. He was hired by the British Railway as a publicist for the railway they were building through the area O’Hagan called the Argentine. After its completion, he settled down to a career of writing. Howard O’Hagan is one of the classic figures of Canadian Literature. He is best known for his novel Tay John. The School-Marm Tree (1977) and Trees Are Lonely Company (1993) are available from Talonbooks.

Howard O’Hagan's profile page