Born in 1947, Gary Fiegehen is one British Columbia's foremost photographers. He spent five years in all seasons finding images to convey the splendour of the 640-kilometre Stikine River in Stikine: The Great River (D&M, 1991), with an introduction by Hugh Brody. The river rises in northwestern B.C.'s Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park and flows for 640 kilometers to the Pacific Ocean near Wrangell, Alaska, draining a watershed of some 50,000 square kilometres. Eighty images reveal threats posed by logging, mining and plans to generate hydroelectricity. Tahltan guide Willie Williams helped Fiegehen explore the immense watershed of the Stikine.

Fiegehen studied photography at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. He has worked in China and the Soviet Union, and his photographs have appeared in Equinox, Harrowsmith, Borealis and Beautiful British Columbia magazines. He contributed the photographs for the coffee table book Nisga'a which received a B.C. Book Prize in 1994. His photos have appeared in numerous other B.C. books such as Robin Fisher's Vancouver's Voyage: Charting the Northwest Coast (Douglas & McIntyre, 1992) which recounts and celebrates Captain George Vancouver's mapmaking journey from 1791 to 1795.

Gary Fiegehen died in Vancouver on August 22, 2022.

C0-AUTHOR OF:

Stikine: The Great River (Douglas & McIntyre, 1991)
Vancouver's Voyage: Charting the Northwest Coast (Douglas & McIntyre, 1992)
Nemiah: The Unconquered Country (New Star Books, 1992)
Nisga'a: People of the Nass River (Douglas & McIntyre, 1993)
Riders of the West (Greystone, 1999)
Cowboy: The Legend and the Legacy (Greystone, Sterling, Paragon, 2000)

[BCBW 2005] "Photography" "Outdoors"