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From the Chilcotin to the Chilkoot (Caitlin Press $24.95)
There is a bit of the gypsy in Vivien Lougheed, who traces her heritage,through her father, to the nomadic clans in Romania. Born in Winnipeg in 1943 and partially raised in northern Saskatchewan, she has visited more than 50 countries and written guidebooks about Mexico, Bolivia, Belize and Central America, plus stories about Tibet and Iran. When her grandfather bought her a bicycle at age nine, she was gone. "My mom would say don't go off our street,"; she says, "and I'd be on the other side of the city."; At 16, Lougheed quit school and left home, hooked on travel. At 18, she took the Greyhound to the Rockies and decided she would one day have to live in the mountains.
Lougheed moved to Prince George in 1970 and co-wrote the Kluane National Park hiking guide with her husband John Harris in 1997. Together they have hiked in the Tatshenshini River area just below the Yukon border, as well as in the wilderness parks, Mount Edziza and Spatzizi, and they spent years exploring Nahanni National Park (during which time she and John Harris co-wrote Tungsten John: Being an Account of Some Inconclusive but Nonetheless Informative Attempts to Reach the South Nahanni River by Foot and Bicycle). Now a travel columnist for the Prince George Citizen, Lougheed has restricted her wanderlust to home turf for From the Chilcotin to the Chilkoot (Caitlin Press $24.95), a guide to the mountains and hiking trails of Northern B.C. With a bright photo of children on her cover, Lougheed hopes From the Chilcotin to the Chilkoot will encourage Mr. and Mrs. Motor Home that they, too, can do the trails in places like Tumbler Ridge, Mackenzie and Haida Gwaii. "I want to get them out of their vehicles at 100 Mile House and walk around their 45-minute trail,"; she says. "Too many American motor homes on their way to Alaska barrel past my favourite spots without taking the time to stop and look around. It want to entice the guy from Alabama who is going to Alaska to stay a little longer."; Lougheed got her start in the travel writing game during the mid-1980s with a self-published title, Central America by Chicken Bus, which she says has sold over 10,000 copies in three editions. As a lab technician on vacation in 1986, she crossed from Mexico into Guatemala, then into El Salvador. She and her traveling companion Joanne Armstrong coined the term chicken bus to describe the converted school buses in Latin America that transport passengers and livestock. "I used to travel as cheaply as I could,"; she says, "so I could afford to do more. I don't like the beach scene. I like to get into the mountains. I like to do the hiking and learn some of the language. And try and get off the beaten path."; Lougheed says she doesn't travel to change the world. During a recent lecture to a secondary school class, she advised, "You have no power, you don't know the culture, you are a foreigner. What you can do is learn there without judgment and come home and make sure the things you don't like don't happen in your own country."; She is currently working on a novel that takes place in Winnipeg and Cuba. 1-894759-03-8
by Heather Ramsay
[BCBW 2005]
Lougheed moved to Prince George in 1970 and co-wrote the Kluane National Park hiking guide with her husband John Harris in 1997. Together they have hiked in the Tatshenshini River area just below the Yukon border, as well as in the wilderness parks, Mount Edziza and Spatzizi, and they spent years exploring Nahanni National Park (during which time she and John Harris co-wrote Tungsten John: Being an Account of Some Inconclusive but Nonetheless Informative Attempts to Reach the South Nahanni River by Foot and Bicycle). Now a travel columnist for the Prince George Citizen, Lougheed has restricted her wanderlust to home turf for From the Chilcotin to the Chilkoot (Caitlin Press $24.95), a guide to the mountains and hiking trails of Northern B.C. With a bright photo of children on her cover, Lougheed hopes From the Chilcotin to the Chilkoot will encourage Mr. and Mrs. Motor Home that they, too, can do the trails in places like Tumbler Ridge, Mackenzie and Haida Gwaii. "I want to get them out of their vehicles at 100 Mile House and walk around their 45-minute trail,"; she says. "Too many American motor homes on their way to Alaska barrel past my favourite spots without taking the time to stop and look around. It want to entice the guy from Alabama who is going to Alaska to stay a little longer."; Lougheed got her start in the travel writing game during the mid-1980s with a self-published title, Central America by Chicken Bus, which she says has sold over 10,000 copies in three editions. As a lab technician on vacation in 1986, she crossed from Mexico into Guatemala, then into El Salvador. She and her traveling companion Joanne Armstrong coined the term chicken bus to describe the converted school buses in Latin America that transport passengers and livestock. "I used to travel as cheaply as I could,"; she says, "so I could afford to do more. I don't like the beach scene. I like to get into the mountains. I like to do the hiking and learn some of the language. And try and get off the beaten path."; Lougheed says she doesn't travel to change the world. During a recent lecture to a secondary school class, she advised, "You have no power, you don't know the culture, you are a foreigner. What you can do is learn there without judgment and come home and make sure the things you don't like don't happen in your own country."; She is currently working on a novel that takes place in Winnipeg and Cuba. 1-894759-03-8
by Heather Ramsay
[BCBW 2005]
Submitted on April 28, 2005 in By David.
