Those Earlier Hills: Reminiscences 1928 to 1961

by R.M. Patterson

Few men have been as set on isolated adventures and as passionate about the wild landscape of Canada as R.M. Patterson. He spent over 30 years in exploration, from northern rivers such as the Nahanni and the Liard, to the foothills of the Rockies, and he recorded his discoveries in vivid words and breathtaking photographs along the way. His memorable articles are presented as a collection by TouchWood Editions. Also available in paperback.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2008

Reviews

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

R. M. Patterson grew up in the north of England, studied at Oxford to be a banker, was a POW in World War One and then somehow emigrated to Canada and spent the rest of his life paddling, hiking, photographing and writing about the mountains and rivers of Alberta and British Columbia. This book is a collection of essays he wrote for the Hudson Bay Company's magazine, The Beaver: Magazine of the North, which is now published instead by the Canada History Society. The essays chronicle his trips, solo or with no more than a few companions, into the Canadian wilds from the 1920s through the 1950s. To us, this may seem like a distant and perhaps magical past when things were less developed and more pristine. Ironically, in reading his essays, one finds him expressing the same sentiment about and nostalgia for the times predaing those in which he lived and looking backward with awe and admiration at the people who had explored those lands 50-100 years before him.

Through Patternson's essays, one learns of explorations from the 1800s (from which he includeds significant journal entries from those who participated) as well as his own trips in the early to mid 20th centurty and the people he met along the way.

At times the writing is lyrically beautiful, conveying a sharp wit as well as a deep love for the nature around him. At others, it can tend to the tedious and overly-detailed, especially for those who do not know the specific river or mountain he is describing. Still, I loved journeying with him, first back to his time and then to the time before him. I loved feeling his awe at the power of a river or the quiet after a new snowfall, the clench in his gut when he is afraid he has drifted too close to the bottom of a waterfall, and the toil of some of his many portages or lining his canoe upriver.

"There were so many memories -- the sudden rush of white water in the riffles, the bobbing heads of of swimming caribou, the swirl and struggle of the Arctic grayling and those gigantic Dolly Vardens of the Flat River. We had felt the steel-blue chill of evening in the canyons, and we had seen the golden glow of the morning sun breaking through the mists and lighting pinnacle after glowing pinnacle on 3,000 feet of of canyon wall. And returning to camp at dusk, we had seen the fire twinkling down below there, on the beaches, with its trail of blue woodsmoke drifting out onto the river. Comfortably weary and very hungry, how one blessed the fellow that had got home first!"

Or "Meanwhile, the others had taken the canoe up the Flat River, fishing and geologizing. At Faille's old cabin site they came across a wonderful stand of raspberries and were well stuck into this when Curtis heard a noise like a sneeze and Frank distinctly heard the hiss of a snake. They turned and looked towards each other and were surprised to see, right in line between them, a grizzly standing on his hind legs, equally surprised and looking from one to the other. The grizzly was the first to crack. He gave one more sneeze and then dropped on all fours and beat it out of the raspberry thicket. As he ran he bashed into a tall, slender, fire-killed spruce with his shoulder. The dry top whipped forward and snapped, and came down on his rump, and with a startled roar the bear bounded forward and disappeared. Taking it all around, things may be said to have gone off very smoothly on this occasion. The grizzly must have been asleep in the berry patch when Curtis and Frank got there, and it was just a piece of luck that neither of them walked right onto him."

In just 160 pages Patterson succeeds in introducing us to a world he loved and knew intimately but that most of us, if we have seen it at all, have only scratched the surface of. While at times the book dragged and I struggled with the odd syntax used in some of the old journals he quotes, my overall impression in reading this book was gratitude to Patterson for his ability through words and pictures to bring this very special world he inhabited alive to me.

[Dan Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love anything by RMP - a rare and little known jewel who captured life in the Rockies in AB and BC, with incredible journeys along wild rivers by canoe in summer and dog sled in winter. His historical references to key players in the fur trade were fascinating.