A retired teacher living in Forest Grove in the Cariboo, Marianne Van Osch's writings explore the experience of pioneers. She has also contributed stories of local and historical interest to the 100 Mile Free Press and various magazines.

Van Osch began writing books when she was commissioned to write Spar Trees and Mammoth Tales (2003) for the family of Harold Gangloff who was born on an Ontario homestead near the Manitoba border. Upon moving to B.C., Gangloff worked as a skyline logger, gold dredger (in the Yukon), and at an Ocean Falls sawmill. He was seriously injured during a mine cave-in at Mayo. Gangloff's biography was republished via First Choice Books in 2008.

Van Osch's next book was a biography of a local pioneer, The Homesteader's Daughter (2006). That was followed by A Mill Behind Every Stump (Heritage, 2018), the memoirs of Louis Judson who lived most of his life in the Ashcroft area. He tells stores about working at a gold mine in Bralorne, riding the rails, losing his foot in a milling accident, and of witching for gold and water. From the back cover, in addition to the Judsons family history, the book is more broadly about, "the unique culture and communities that developed, flourished and declined around the early sawmills of the Cariboo, in an era before chainsaws and skidders."

BOOKS:

Spar Trees and Mammoth Tales (2003)

The Homesteader's Daughter (2006)

A Mill Behind Every Stump (Heritage, 2018) $19.95 978-1-77203-116-4

[BCBW 2018] "Forestry"