David Finch - R.M. Patterson: A Life of Great Adventure

IT TAKES many people to write a book, and even more to convince the author to get it done. Glenn Finch, my father, telephoned one day and said something like, You better go and see that Nahanni country; otherwise, how will you ever write that book?! Of course, I never had enough money to go North, but that never stopped anyone else from adventure. So north I went and I found the Nahanni as strange, enticing and unpredictable in the mid-1990s as Patterson found it in the late 1920s.

But the story of this book began several years before I headed for the largest tributary of the Liard River. While out canoeing one day, I saw a strange apparition, standing up in his canoe and poling up the Bow River in the city of Calgary. Mike McBryan became a good friend and not only introduced me to upstream travel, but to Patterson. You should really read The Dangerous River, about this guy who...

Another paddler got me hooked on canoes. Why not build a cedar stripper this winter? said Bill Anderson, an adventurer and photographer when other duties can be avoided. And so every spare moment of the dark days of the end of one year and the early part of the next became filled with the hundreds of little details that go into making a cedar-strip canoe. Not just any canoe, mind you, but a Prospectorthe workhorse of the trapper in the North. And it was through this canoe that I became part of the paddling fraternity in southern Alberta as well as other parts of Canada and the United States.

Three people pointed out the incredible resources that archives and libraries contain. Bill McKee and Doug Cass, archivists at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, egged me on to do historical research through means both helpful and devious. Lindsay Moir of the Glenbow Library has assisted the research process for this book and countless other projects with limitless enthusiasm, creativity, good humour and professionalism. Archivists at the British Columbia Archives and Records Service were also helpful, as were their peers at the Edmonton City Archives, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, the National Archives of Canada, the Royal Opera House in London and many other research centres.

Documents alone cannot provide enough information for a biography of an avid lover of the outdoors, and so the research process also took me into the field. Canoeing the South Nahanni was important, and for the chance to join their guided tours on that wilderness river, I thank Dave Hibbard of Nahanni Wilderness Adventures and his guides Steve McGrath, Miles Davis and Eric Dumont, as well as Wendy Grater of Black Feather Wilderness Adventures and her guides Patrick Henry and Matt Bender. The clients on these trips provided important insights into the experience of canoeing Pattersons river, and some of them, Blaine and Ron Dalby, have become good friends. Neil Hartling of Nahanni River Adventures has also been an important contact in the research process, and his book, Nahanni: River of Gold... River of Dreams, is an important resource for anyone considering a trip on this river. Peter Jowetts book, Nahanni: the River Guide, is the best single source of information. Trips to the Nahanni typically do not provide the visitor much time to get to know the people of the North, but it is hard to pass through Yellowknife, Fort Simpson, Nahanni Butte and Lindberg Landing without interacting with the special people who live in a land that is challenging most of the year. The way they share a part of their lives during the short summer with visitors is both gracious and sacrificial. Many thanks to pilot Jacques Harvey and his workhorse, a turbo-charged Twin Otter, for safe, reliable and relatively quiet shuttles into the Bunny Bar on the South Nahanni upstream of the park reserve.

Thanks to the people of the stores, shops and the pizza place in Fort Simpson, as well as the children and adults who chat shyly, but willingly, with interlopers. Stephen I was born in England and have never recovered from that Rowan guided us through the history of the village with knowledge and insight.

Margaret and Paul Jones and their daughter, Anne-Marie, of Lindberg Landing make each visit special. Edwin and Sue Lindberg, who share their surname with the Landing, are some of the best hosts in the world. Edwins mother Anna still remembered the day Patterson staggered in on that cold January 1929 day from his cabin up the South Nahanni. She showed us the little sled she and her husband Ole lent Patterson for his snowshoe trip to Fort Simpson. And she still recoiled in terror as she recalled the huge sled dogs Matthews and Patterson returned with a few weeks later, animals that towered over the slight woman when they jumped up on her to play.

The interpreters and staff at the museums in Yellowknife, Fort Simpson and Blackstone Landing all provide additional information on the history, culture, context and current issues in this special part of the North.

In an attempt to ride some of Pattersons trails in Southern Alberta, I spent time with Jean, Kent and Luree Williamson at Elkana Ranch near Bragg Creek, learning to pay attention to horses and to make time in the saddle a harmonious experience for rider and mount alike. Later came the chance to join a cattle drive from the Buffalo Head Ranch up Flat Creek to the high country. The denizens of the Highwood River allowed me into their lives and homes, under various pretexts, and I attended brandings, helped repair fences, ride herd, put out chemical and drink Scotch with some of the men and women who keep alive a tradition of feeding stock on natural grassnot in a feedlot. Although I interviewed Bert Sheppard several times in the last years of his life, it was the generation of cowboys and partners that followed his horseliterally and figurativelythat I came to know better: Gaile, Kerri, Trevor and Lisa-Marie Gallup, Larry Gallup and Marlane Cotter, Steve Hoar and Barb Binkley, Bob Spaith, Rich and Jan Roenish, Josephine Bews, Tommy and Rosemarie Bews, Billy Bews, and Joey and Margaret Bews, as well as Lenore and Roy Maclean and Tim and Julie Maclean, and many more fine folk from this special valley.

Louis and Betty DePaoli moved into the Buffalo Head Ranch in the cold and snowy days of January 1950, and with their son Don and his wife Suzanne keep Pocaterras matchless property successful as a working ranch, though they have kept plenty busy without the added adventure of taking in dudes.

My first overnight trail ride was with Walter Morris and his wranglers up Evan-Thomas Creek into Pocaterras coal mining territory as part of Rick and Denise Guinns operations at Boundary Stables in the Kananaskis Valley. Later, Janet Blanchet and I had the chance to join Dewy and Jan Matthews Anchor D outfit for a few days in the high country near the headwaters of Sheep Creek. Heather Mills and Cleve Kidd of the Anchor D staff also provided important insights into the complexity of providing riding tours to the mountains of southwestern Alberta.

There are many other special people who contributed to this story with their recollections of the moments they bumped into either the person or the writings of R.M. Patterson: W.D. Addison, Merrily Aubrey, Adolf Baumgart, Dave Birrell, Wendy Bush, Gray and Eleanor Campbell and their son Dane Campbell, Craig and Sandra Cassidy, Paul, Elva, Michael, Tania and Mark Dennis, Marty Dewis, Betty Donaldson, Simon Evans, Jenny Feick, Alastair Ferries, Carol Fullerton, Donny and Joan Gardner, Ted Grant, Linda Hanley, Stan Harding, Marion Harrison, Ted Hart, Fenley Hunter, Verne Huser, Bill and Dorothy Jackson, John and Nicola Jennings, Norm Kagan, Arnor Larson, Joel Lipkind, Keith and Sandy Logan, George Luste, Kenzie and Faye MacLeod, Joyce Mason, Dick, Mike and Carol Matthews, Wayne McGonigle, the late Vern Millard, Keith Morton and Mary Enright, Ruthie Oltmann, P.K. Page, Ken and Laurie Powell, Jim Raffan, Phillipa Rispin, Brian Rusted, Wally Schaber, Mike and Glennys Schintz, George Scotter, Doc Seaman, Earl Shaw, Chuck Stormes, Anne Swiderski and Mark Dagenais, Ron and Elaine Tessolini, Alister Thomas, J.P. Thomas, Rob Toller and Heather Wattie, the late Pierre Trudeau, Bob Turner, Dick Turner, Linda Wiggins and Steve Herrero, Brian Young and many, many others who helped in important ways.