RMB: New Books for Fall 2015

Winner of the 2016 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize and the inaugural Mack Laing Literary Prize. Shortlisted for the 2016 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prizes.

The Real Thing is the first official biography of Ian McTaggart Cowan (1910–2010), the “father of Canadian ecology.” Authorized by his family and with the research support and participation of the University of Victoria Libraries, Briony Penn provides an unprecedented and accessible window into the story of this remarkable naturalist. …

The inspiring true story of how one organization has tried to alleviate the struggles faced by indigenous peoples in Canada by building houses and developing livable communities for those in desperate need.

The people who were living here on Turtle Island (North America) before us have been pushed aside from their own land for decades. Mining companies, lumber companies, railways, governments and fisheries have all taken away First People’s land and resources while dishonouring the treaties th …

Secure supplies of water, food and energy are essential to human dignity and well-being around the globe. In turn, the vitality of these three depends on a thriving biodiversity supported by healthy ecosystems. The complex interdependence among these four factors is known as the Nexus.

Global demand for the first three elements is increasing due to population growth and rising per capita incomes in developing countries, with steadily worsening consequences for the fourth of these elements.

The f …

Human beings and industrial-based society are changing the composition of our planet’s atmosphere and causing it to warm at an unnatural and oftentimes astonishingly rapid rate. Much of that warmth is being absorbed by water, which as a result is moving through the global hydrological cycle faster and in unprecedented ways. A warmer atmosphere carries more water vapour, which means that as temperatures continue to rise, storms will become more intense, last longer and cause more damage to our …

Winner of the 2015 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival award for Mountaineering History

After the Second World War a period of relative calm began in Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia. During the next thirty years citizens could travel freely if they had the money. Most did not, but alpinists did.

Through elaborate training régimes and state-supported expeditions abroad, Yugoslavian alpinists began making impressive climbs in the Himalaya as early as 1960. By the ’70s, they were ascending the …

Hans Gmoser (1932–2006) was the most influential mountaineer in Canada of the last fifty years. Through innovation, hard work, perseverance and an appetite for adventure, Gmoser evolved from penniless immigrant to mountain guide for kings, queens and prime ministers. He also played a major role in creating what is now western Canada’s dynamic mountain adventure community.

Known primarily as the inventor of heli-skiing and the founder of Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH), Gmoser also garnered …

Shortlisted for the 2016 Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival award for Mountain & Wilderness Literature. Winner of a Special Jury Mention.

Over the past 100 years, climbers have been pushing standards in the Canadian Rockies. From long alpine ridges to steep north faces, the Rockies are synonymous with cutting-edge ascents. Peaks such as Robson, Chephren, Kitchener, the Twins and Alberta elude the many and reward the few. Many of the big faces were climbed between the 1960s and 1990, the golde …

In 2010, at age 55, Martin Parnell began what eventually came to be known as “Quests for Kids,” an extreme sporting challenge designed to help 20,000 children by raising $1,000,000 for the international children’s charity Right To Play. In the end, over $1,390,000 was raised and 27,800 children were given hope for the future.

Martin successfully completed “Marathon Quest 250” (250 marathons in one year); “Netball Quest 61” (playing netball for 61 hours); “Lacrosse Quest 24” (pl …