Tales from the Great Divide: Second Edition

The Second Edition of Tales from the Great Divide (416 pages, 300+ images)

Tales from the Great Divide (Second Edition) brings to life the memories of many of the ‘originals’ whose vision, idealism, dedication, and hard work over five decades made Canada’s Great Divide Trail a reality. Transcripts of interviews and storytelling sessions, combined with excerpts from letters and other documents and more than 300 photographs and illustrations, reveal the adventurous, heartbreaking, and hilarious moments that characterized the early history of the Great Divide Trail. Devising and establishing a route for this wilderness long-distance trail along the crest of the Canadian Rocky Mountains demonstrated naive courage and optimism. These pathfinders faced personal hardships and their trail work took place at a time before lightweight gear existed and without technological aids such as GPS, inReach, cell phones or satellite phones. In their quest to establish the Great Divide Trail with a protected corridor, they confronted threats from resource extraction industries and ATVs, bureaucratic obstacles, fluctuating political support and financial challenges.

Published in July 2021, this Second Edition of Tales from the Great Divide corrects numerous errors found in the first edition after it was printed. It also includes more than 100 pages of new material and over 100 additional images. These include five segments from the storytelling sessions that were inadvertently left out of the first edition as well as additional information from people involved in the GDTA’s history and historical documents. Besides additional maps and photographs, this edition contains a Preface and various guides to orient the reader and aid the reading experience, an expanded detailed timeline, a bibliography, a list of past GDTA volunteers, and an Afterword on the effects on the GDT and the GDTA of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and the rescinding of the 1976 prohibitions on coal mining on the Eastern Slopes of the Rockies.