Romancing the Rockies:

Mountaineers, Missionaries, Marilyn and More

by Brian Brennan

$16.95

Whether you’re making a lightning tour of the Canadian Rockies for the first time or have been returning to Jasper for many years, there’s something in Brian Brennan’s impressive collection of historical tales for you.

The assortment of 30 stories, published in 2005, incorporates a broad range of memorable moments, in both chronological and geographical terms. As a Calgary-based author, Brennan can be pardoned for having a few more stories based largely in the mountains to the south of here, but the tales he tells of Jasper and its surroundings are among the most compelling in the collection.

From the early intrigue of David Douglas, the Scottish botanist who claimed to have discovered two towering peaks in the 1820s, to the more modern, but no less intrepid journeys of Philadelphian Mary Schaeffer, Brennan writes with certainty and completeness. While Douglas spent but a brief period in the Canadian Rockies, Brennan takes care to include the bizarre tale of his eventual demise in Hawaii, providing the reader with the real conclusion to the story. For all the gory details, you’ll have to pick up the book.

Although the author has a clear love for the mountains and the fascinating men and women who have made this region’s history, Brennan admits in his introduction that he doesn’t “spend any more time in the outdoors than it takes for me to carry home a chai tea latte from Central Blends.”

Rather than being impaired by this lack of a physical connection to the routes and rocks he describes, Brennan is instead capable of presenting his subjects, particularly the mountain climbers and hardy guides, in a style delightfully unencumbered by vapid hero-worship. In effect, the author’s relationship to the material is very similar to most of his readers, something that strengthens the clarity and digestibility of the prose.

Brennan is also a careful historian. Take the story of Anthony Henday, for example. The fur trade employee was, according to the textbook version of events, the first white man to lay eyes on the Rockies. In a thorough and engrossing chapter, Brennan explores why this might not be the case.

Another remarkable positive of Brennan’s work is found in his desire to discuss the under-appreciated and celebrate the lesser-known lights in the historical firmament of the mountains. In his small history of the Palliser Expedition, Metis guide Peter Erasmus is the star, not the Englishmen he led to their “discoveries” and eventual reknown. While Brennan does not neglect to tell the oft-repeated tales of Bill Peyto or Walter Wilcox, he also shines a light on Martin Nordegg and Chief Robert Smallboy.

“Romancing the Rockies” is far from a complete history of this area, and most of the figures profiled within it would (and have) merited entire volumes in their own right. 

Still, this tender collection of historical hors d’oeuvres should whet your appetite, and as a visitor, leave you salivating for a return to the romantic Rockies.