Saddlebags for Suitcases or Canada Ride

[Katherine]

If anyone has read this book, I have a question I'd like to ask. I may have read this book about forty years ago--or one like it. I remember small snippets, but the one that most impressed me back then was that the woman in the novel took advantage of being very alone in the mountains to ride naked and described the experience as "picky". The horse she rode also developed horrific saddle sores. If these details aren't in the book, there's another book out there about another ride across Canada that I can't track down. Perhaps it is in Bosanquet's other book Canada Ride. Can anyone confirm these details are in this or Canada Ride?

[Mikey B.]

Yes indeed!!

from chapter VIII
"After that I bathed in the creek, and I can feel now the aching-cold water passing my naked body. Afterward I ran in the clearing to dry; then I caught Timothy [her horse] and put the bridle on him, leapt up and cantered round the edge of the forest. Never have I ridden a horse like this, with nothing, not even a layer of cloth, between me and him, with his salt hairs pricking my naked thighs and the smooth muscles rippling under my naked skin."

And in Chapter XIX she swims naked across a small river - only to be reluctant to walk naked on the other side - and returns to her clothes.

So there is some wilderness erotica in the book!
These were the days way before "selfies", so sadly no pics of her naked wanderings!

Incidentally my edition is the original 1942 one of Saddlebags for Suitcases. Not sure if there is any difference between this and "Canada Ride"?