Winnipeg-born June Wood moved with her family to Vanderhoof, B.C., in 1953, when she was eight years old. Raised mainly in Vanderhood as the daughter of a trapper, Wood first fashioned a biographical tribute to her father as a wilderness homesteader, Nechako Country: In the Footsteps of Bert Irvine (Heritage, 2007). Having moved his young family from Barrhead in northwestern Alberta to Vanderhoof in the early 1930s, Irvine worked for decades as a guide-outfitter, trapper and jack-of-all-trades. Cathy Hobson, daughter of Rich Hobson, contributed the foreword.

Wood's second book, Home to the Nechako (Heritage, 2013), combines her personal story with the challenges faced by the impact of the Kenney Dam, the Kemano Completion Project and mountain pine beetle invasion. Wood is an advocate to protect the Nechako River as its flow has been weakened to a trickle.

June and her husband of over 40 years, Denis, lived in the northern BC communities of Smithers and Quesnel before moving back to the Upper Nechako country, where they run a small nature-based tourism operation.

BOOKS:

Nechako Country: In the Footsteps of Bert Irvine (Heritage, 2007) 978-1-894974-27-1

Home to the Nechako: The River and the Land (Heritage, 2013) $17.95 9781927527146. Foreword by Craig Hooper.

[BCBW 2013] "Cariboo"

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Nechako Country: In the Footsteps of Bert Irvine
Home to the Nechako: The River and the Land