When former Jasper National Park warden Rob Kaye sat down to write his memoirs a few years ago, he didn’t even know if he was going to publish them let alone that they would win an award at an international competition.
In the spring of 2015, Kaye self-published and released Born to the Wild—Journals of a National Park Warden in the Canadian Rockies. The non-fiction book recounts Kaye’s boyhood adventures growing up in JNP and his experiences patrolling the vast mountain wilderness that he called home. Reflecting on his career with the warden service, Kaye illustrated how the park’s remaining wild spaces are threatened by overuse, commercial development, habitat loss and climate change.
Since the book’s release, Kaye said he’s received nothing but positive feedback and fruitful sales. Adding to his success, Kaye recently found out his work earned him a bronze medal award for the best regional non-fiction book at the 2016 Independent Publisher Book awards, an international competition that recognizes thousands of independent and self-published titles each year.
“I’m overjoyed. I never thought when I started writing this book that it would be winning awards and it would be received as well as it has,” Kaye said. “I knew it would be popular among tourists but I never dreamed it would go beyond that.
“Self-publishing can be daunting but it all comes together in the end and starts to pay off.”
After deciding he would share his stories, Kaye said he ultimately chose to self-publish his book in order to retain full creative control of his work.
“It’s probably the best thing I could have done. It’s my book, it’s my copyright and my creative license,” Kaye said. “I wrote this book and I wanted it to remain mine. When you give it to a publisher they end up getting a lot of control over the book.”
Like many writers, when Kaye first embarked on his publishing quest he didn’t know the first thing about self-publishing. Determined to overcome that, he found a solution.
“I picked up a couple of self-publishing books and read some information on the Internet and just did it all myself,” Kaye said. “It was a fulfilling and challenging process. I think you’re going to see more and more people taking this route with their books.
Looking ahead, he said he would like to write another book.
“I still have lots of my own stories and stories from other wardens that could be put into another book,” Kaye said.
Born to the Wild—Journals of a National Park Warden in the Canadian Rockies can be purchased at stores throughout Canada and on Amazon.
Kayla Byrne [email protected]
