On the thirtieth anniversary of “The War in the Woods,” a new memoir recalls Clayoquot Sound tree faller Bruce Hornidge’s point of view.

 

On the thirtieth anniversary of  “The War in the Woods,”

a new memoir recalls events from a Clayoquot Sound tree faller’s point of view

 

Thirty years after the War in the Woods in Clayoquot Sound, career tree faller Bruce Hornidge’s memoir of events, Loggerheads, will be published on October  17, 2023, by Regina’s, Saskatchewan’s Endless Sky Books. Book-launch events are planned for Port Alberni, Ucluelet, and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island from October 25 to 30. 

After more than two decades harvesting in the beauty of the forest, Hornidge was “loggershamed” as a “tree-killer” and faced soul-searing losses of identity and livelihood, part of the human fallout of the inevitable move away from a resource-based economy. Loggerheads is written from the unique, sometimes humorous, and even irreverent point of view of one of the many loggers in Ucluelet and Tofino whose forestry careers were cut short on the other side of the demonstrators’ picket lines and government and company doublespeak. 

“In a three-week window, decades ago, I produced the bulk of this book in the form of a paper called ‘The Nightmare.’ My goal was a story that is truthful, personal, and encompasses many of the issues in this complex problem,” Hornidge says. “Three decades after The War of the Woods, we know what happened, and we’ve been told why. There’s a lot we were never told.” 

Hornidge adds that the logging industry isn’t the only resource-based industry that has been subjected to shaming. “By sharing my story as an ex-Clayoquot Sound forest worker, I hope to help people understand the issues surrounding resource-based industries from a broader perspective than that spun by the media, where those opposed to logging are painted as the brave biblical David versus the Goliath of us ‘evil tree-killers,’” he said.

Hornidge acknowledges the logging industry wasn’t blameless. “A careless approach was adopted by many as the forestry industry picked up speed during what was considered an era of largely unrestricted logging. Some of those true stories can be found in this book’s pages. 

“For a decade, the issue of forestland use in British Columbia raged like a forest fire. Starting small, it generated smoke and mirrors and a world media hype that came to hang like a stalled hurricane over a tiny, beautiful corner of the world known as Clayoquot Sound—and the largest act of civil disobedience in Canada to that date. It was a storm that just wouldn’t quit,” Hornidge writes in the opening pages of Loggerheads. “In that brief, tangled era, with my livelihood hanging in the balance, the pressures of life built to such a point that I believed either I’d have a mental breakdown or my emotions would break loose and lash out, with real consequences.” 

Raw emotions of distrust and abandonment welled up, and, in his distress, Hornidge even toyed briefly with twisted ideas of how he could give the cause its “fifteen minutes of fame” on the world stage. “Thank goodness cooler heads prevailed.” 

Hornidge concludes there is hypocrisy evident in both the anti-resource utilization camp and those in favour of resource-based industry. “Those who live in wood houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he says with a smile. 

Loggerheads received a warm review from Bill Arnott, author of the Gone Viking series and A Season on Vancouver Island. “Part treatise, part manual, part eco-memoir, Bruce Hornidge’s Loggerheads is a timely, timeless read for lovers of trees. Richly shared in crisp prose, this book stands as a sentinel evergreen to the nature and industry our forests provide,” Arnott says.

 Loggerheads is available from most bookstores, online and off. It can also be purchased directly from Endless Sky Books at www.endless-sky-books.com or Shadowpaw Press at www.shadowpawpress.com.

About the Author 

Bruce Edward Hornidge was born in 1948 in Belleville, Ontario, an Air Force brat growing up where his father was stationed in Gimli, Manitoba, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Bruce finished school in 1967, joining his brother Brian at MacMillan Bloedel’s Kennedy Lake logging division at Ucluelet on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. He was married on a very unusual snowy day in March 1973 and, with his wife, Minnie, raised two boys and a girl. He felled trees for twenty-six years. After losing his job in 1997, he became a security guard in Campbell River, Vancouver, and Vanderhoof, British Columbia. Bruce and his wife, now the Rev. Minnie Hornidge, live in Glen Williams, Ontario. There, Bruce gardens and knits. And writes. 

About the Publisher

Endless Sky Books was founded by award-winning author and editor Edward Willett in 2023. For more information, contact publisher@endless-sky-books.com or visit www.endless-sky-books.com.

Bruce Hornidge is available for interviews, media appearances, and speaking engagements. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925

The School of the Haunted River by the late Colleen Gerwing is a moving novel set in northern-Saskatchewan.

 

The School of the Haunted River by the late Colleen Gerwing is a luminous and moving semi-autobigraphical novel set in northern-Saskatchewan wilderness she loved. 

In The School of the Haunted River, the late Saskatoon author and outdoorswoman Colleen Gerwing drew on her deep knowledge and love of the outdoors to craft the semi-autobiographical tale of a an aunt and her niece, Jay and Dilly, on a mid-winter snowshoe trek in northern Saskatchewan. During the trip, Jay recounts her experiences in an outdoor education school and her own epic solo canoe trip across the north many years previously. As Jay and Dilly grow closer, the older woman gains new understanding into her own life. 

Gerwing died in 2021, never seeing her work through to publication. Her final editor was noted Saskatchewan writer dee Hobsbawn-Smith, who as writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon public library worked extensively with Gerwing her original draft. 

“In her early manuscript, Colleen had drawn on her life’s experiences . . . a lifetime of canoeing, hiking, camping, backpacking, and outdoor adventure,” notes Hobsbawn-Smith in her introduction to the book. “In 2021, the draft Colleen presented me with for editing had, in the intervening years and work with other writers, undergone the same type of pressure that coal undergoes in transforming into gemstone. That is to say, Colleen found her story and how she wanted to tell it and set about polishing the rough edges until the clear and shining story that was her novel emerged . . . Here is her story, distilled from her own life and her own lived experience, recast as a novel, The School of the Haunted River. She left the world a better place.” 

Publication of the book was initiated and overseen by Gerwing’s partner, MaryAnne Roettger, who also contributed the preface. The cover art is a painting by Gerwing, who was also a talented artist. 

“I was thrilled to be asked to bring this wonderful book to publication,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Endless Sky Books. “I never met Colleen Gerwing in real life, but I feel I’ve gotten to know her through reading her novel—and gotten to know and understand our own province’s north in a way I never have before. I can’t wait for readers to experience The School of the Haunted River.” 

The School of the Haunted River can be ordered through most bookstores, online and off . It can also be purchased directly from Endless Sky Books at www.endless-sky-books.com. 

More about the book

We are all born of a river, and that in itself should be enough.

On a two-week outdoor winter snowshoeing trip in northern Saskatchewan with her niece Dilly, outdoor adventurer Jay tells stories as they hike and camp. Some are true – her outdoor training in Wyoming, her early life on the farm – and some are stories within stories within stories. A faux diamond necklace that mysteriously appears and disappears, Jay’s youthful encounters with the mysterious Cowboy, an inspiring series of books that she read on her long-ago canoe trip alone – all are underscored by Jay’s love and respect for the wild.

In The School of the Haunted River, the late Colleen Gerwing fashioned a novel based on her own life as an outdoorswoman, a novel about the natural world that will haunt and enchant even as it educates you. 

About the Author

Colleen Gerwing grew up on the family farm near Lake Lenore, Saskatchewan, a creative and adventurous child with a wonderful imagination. Her first job at Waskesiu began a life-long love of Prince Albert National Park. She studied recreation technology at Kelsey Institute of Technology in Saskatoon and worked in Rosetown and Hafford and then at the Saskatoon Boys and Girls Club for some years. 

In 1977, she attended the National Outdoor Leadership School in Wyoming. She worked as a guide at Algonquin Park, and in the 1970s, she had a small company called Wilderness Trips for Women. Canoeing, cross-country skiing, horseback riding, winter camping—she loved being out in the natural world, often by herself. 

Colleen began her work with Parks Canada at Fort Walsh near Cypress Hills and at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, but mostly worked at her favourite place, Prince Albert National Park. Grey Owl, the naturalist, was one of her heroes for all his flaws, and she became friends with his wife, Anahareo, and their daughter, Dawn. In winter, Colleen studied French in Quebec or German in Germany and Cree in Saskatoon. She was a wonderful painter and favoured painting paddles and rocks as well as canvases. Although Colleen survived her first bout with cancer, it came roaring back and took her quickly. She died peacefully at home on April 20, 2021, at the age of 58. 

Praise for The School of the Haunted River and Colleen Gerwing 

“With tender care and deep empirical knowledge gained over many years, Colleen Gerwing invites readers into the landscape she loves best: northern Saskatchewan. This autobiographical novel’s language, imagery, narrative flow, and characters all bring her story to vibrant and compelling life. Gerwing offers wise, helpful, and illuminating insight into the nature of life and death, into that fine line between ‘now’ and ‘then,’ and the enduring and essential connections between us and the natural world.”—J. Jill Robinson, award-winning author of More in Anger 

“Colleen Gerwing was a marvellous naturalist.  Whenever I went into the boreal forest with Colleen, I was prepared to learn something new, and often surprising, about the forest and its inhabitants. Colleen loved spending time in the forest in every season of the year. Each animal she saw and bird she heard added to her deep appreciation of the boreal environment, and she was always ready to share her insights with others.” —J. David Henry, author of Canada’s Boreal Forest 

“Colleen spent decades of her life on the land. She always sought to connect or reconnect others with nature. Her thoughtful words continue to impact all those who knew her or read her writing.”—Lauren Markewicz, Interpretation Officer, Prince Albert National Park 

About the Publisher 

Endless Sky Books is a book-publishing company founded by award-winning author and editor Edward Willett in 2023. For more information, contact publisher@endless-sky-books.com or visit www.endless-sky-books.com. 

Editor dee Hobsbawn-Smith is available for interviews, media appearances, and speaking engagements. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925

Introducing Simiakia the first novel by champion endurance rider Lori Windows.

 

Simiakia by Lori Windows, a champion endurance rider, is a modern western that combines adventure, romance, and the search for pride in oneself 

 Simiakia, the first novel by champion endurance rider Lori Windows, now available from Endless Sky Books, is a modern western (set in the 1980s in Idaho) that combines a deep love and understanding of horses (specifically Appaloosas) with adventure, Native American identity, the search for pride in oneself and one’s heritage, and a touch of romance.

“After fifty years of newspaper articles, magazine articles, and short stories, seeing my name in print attached to a work of my heart, a full novel, thrills me beyond belief. My friends say it is autobiographical,” says Lori Windows. “That may be true, but I am more related to the coydog in the story than I am the heroine.” 

“I’m delighted to be able to publish this exciting and ultimately life-affirming modern-day western,” says Edward Willett, editor and publisher of Endless Sky Books. “I can’t wait for readers to discover it. I hope they enjoy reading it as much as I did.” 

Simiakia can be ordered through most bookstores, online or off. It can also be purchased directly from Endless Sky Books at www.endless-sky-books.com. 

More about the book

It was not whimsy that had brought him together with this red horse to run this race. It was the justice of time. 

Raised without hope or pride in his heritage to what promises to be a short life of crime, alcohol, and drugs, Nez Perce teenager Al George gets an unexpected second chance. A heist gone wrong ends up with him working on probation at the very Idaho ranch he and his “friends” tried to rob, owned by Celia Bolt, who left her own rich-but-dysfunctional family to move West many years ago, and the taciturn Morgan Kyles, who has his own checkered past.

Over the course of the summer of 1986, Celia and Morgan work out the thorny details of their relationship, while Al regains his pride and his sense of self as he works with the ranch’s signature Appaloosas, finds love—and finally, through a deep bond with one very special horse, reconnects with his Nez Perce heritage and discovers the truth of his strange, recurring dreams of an Indian brave on a very special horse, striving to protect his people from the soldiers pursuing them. 

For everyone involved, one summer changes everything. 

Praise for Simiakia 

“Lori Windows brings horses and the special coy dog, Cantar, to life in her writing . . . as the plot develops, the growing self-confidence of the young and displaced Nez Perce character, Alicut George, is revealed. He learns to endurance ride on Folly and care for an orphan foal named Gambler's Hand. Interspersed throughout are Alicut's flashback dreams about his Nez Perce ancestors as they attempted to escape the US Calvary . . . The strength and endurance of the Appaloosa horse were instrumental in their arduous journey and connect Alicut to his past and his identity. Female characters are dynamic and strong . . . romance is sprinkled throughout, and the ending is satisfying. I love reading about horses, especially where animals are not just props, but are characters in the story!” - Gayle M. Smith, Award-Nominated Author of Thickwood 

Simiakia is a very good read. The character development is excellent. You really become invested in the outcome for each character. It even brings in some telling issues about prejudice among people rich and poor, dogs, and horses. All in all, it keeps your attention to the final words.” - Roberta Harms, champion endurance rider

 About the Author

Lori Windows grew up enamoured of the writings of Grey, Brand, Terhune, London, Burroughs, and Farley. Her father set her on a horse when she was two years old, and she has now ridden horses on six continents.

In 1982, she discovered the sport of distance racing. She and her variety of horses and mules have amassed multiple national titles and more than 63,000 sanctioned race miles. 

About the Publisher 

Endless Sky Books is a book-publishing company founded by award-winning author and editor Edward Willett in 2023. For more information, contact publisher@endless-sky-books.com or visit www.endless-sky-books.com. 

Lori Windows is available for interviews, media appearances, speaking engagements, and/or book review requests. Please contact mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com by email or by phone at 403.464.6925