Bert Riggall's Greater Waterton,

Authors' Biographies

Don Bourdon has been involved in the archives and museum world for more than 40 years at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives, City of Vancouver Archives, and the Calgary’s Glenbow Museum and Archives. While head archivist at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies (1983–2006), he was responsible for acquiring, preserving, and providing access to the professional, business and personal papers, photographs, motion pictures, and artifacts of Andy Russell; diaries of Kay Russell; extensive papers, photographs and artifacts of Bert Riggall and the Riggall family; the warden diaries of Bo Holroyd, as well as records of many other mountain people and organizations. For the last 10 years he has served at the Royal BC Museum and Archives in Victoria, most recently as curator of images.

 Harvey Locke is a conservationist, writer, and photographer based in Banff, Alberta. Internationally recognized for his work on parks, wilderness, and large landscape conservation, Locke is co-founder and strategic adviser of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, a co-founder and leader of the Flathead Wild campaign, and a co–founder and leader of the global Nature Needs Half Movement. His writing and photography have been published in many countries and he has appeared in and helped shape many films about conservation. He received the Fred M. Packard Award from IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas for his outstanding service to the world’s protected areas and the J. B. Harkin Medal for Conservation from CPAWS for his lifetime commitment to conservation in Canada. Backpacker magazine called him Glacier’s Gladiator for his work to protect the Flathead upstream of Glacier National Park. Locke has spent many years rediscovering the trails that Bert Riggall and Andy Russell built in and around the Flathead Valley of British Columbia.

Suzanne Lorinczi is a producer, writer, researcher, and filmmaker. Her documentaries include Focus on Bert Riggall, The Hutterites, A Christian Way of Life, A Question of Power, a three-part series on the Piikani, The 1st World Festival of Aboriginal Motion Pictures, and When Two Worlds Collide—a documentary highlighting the effects of urban development on wetlands. Lorinczi is also former executive director of the Napi Friendship Association in Pincher Creek, Alberta, and co-produced the First World Aboriginal Film Festival of Motion Pictures presented by the Pincher Creek Film Society. She co-produced the documentary that followed, supported by Rogers Cable. As a photojournalist, Lorinczi’s work appeared in the Pincher Creek Echo, Golden West , Alberta Views and Breaking Ground news magazines. She lives in Cochrane, Alberta, and directed CEAC’s first Wildlife Film Festival.

Sid Marty, a fourth generation Albertan, is an author, poet, and musician. Marty has published five books of non-fiction, five books of verse, and numerous feature articles in magazines such as Canadian Geographic and Alberta Views. His poetry and prose are strongly associated with the Rocky Mountains. His poems appear in anthologies such as The Oxford Book of Canadian Verse and Colombo’s Poets of Canada. In 2008, his book The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek made the Globe and Mail’s annual top 100 list and won both the Grand Prize and the Canadian Rockies Award at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. The book also made the shortlist for the prestigious Governor General’s Literary Awards. For his career achievements to date, Marty received one of Canada’s most generous literary prizes—the Grant MacEwan Literary Arts Award. Sid and Myrna Marty live at the foot of the Livingstone Range in southwestern Alberta.

Bruce Morrison is a retired professor of anthropology who lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. He has written one book and edited six others including Wild Country: The Best of Andy Russell. He writes and edits for the Loop, the journal of the International Federation of Fly Fishers. He also teaches fly-fishing.

Chris Morrison has been writing about and photographing Waterton and Glacier National Parks for 30 years. She has written hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles on park-related events, interviewed countless locals on a variety of subjects, conducted research in Alberta, Montana, and Minnesota, and been involved in the writing, design, and production of eight books on the parks including View with a Room and Waterton Chronicles.

Andy Russell was a bestselling author of articles and books including Grizzly Country, Horns in the High Country, The High West, The Rockies, Memoirs of a Mountain Man, Life of a River, The Canadian Cowboy, and Andy Russell’s Campfire Stories. Andy was a member of the Order of Canada, the Explorers Club, and the recipient of three honorary degrees.

 

Nature is our greatest teacher. Charlie Russell learned this over a lifetime, as a child on his family’s ranch just outside of Waterton Lakes National Park, as a rancher himself, an eco-tourism leader in British Columbia and, most famously, living among grizzly bears in Russia. He is the author of four books about bears including Grizzly Heart and Spirit Bear and is a well-known documentary film-maker.

 Wendy Ryan is an expert backcountry guide and leads equestrian rides and pack trips throughout Bert Riggall’s home range. A dedicated advocate of landscape restoration, Ryan is the outreach, stewardship, and reclamation manager for the Castle Crown Wilderness Coalition. She is on record for the identification of newfound rare plants and also pursues the management of invasive non-native plants by organizing weed pulls and restoring hiking trails and random campsites. Ryan is an advocate of backcountry equestrian history and curated the Horse for Hire travelling exhibit now touring Alberta.

 Dave Sheppard is a retired ecologist with a PhD in Animal Ecology from the University of Saskatchewan and an MSc in Conservation Biology and Wildlife Ecology from the University of Alberta. He has been active with the Alberta Wilderness Association and the Castle-Crown Wilderness Coalition and is the author of Why NOT Wilderness?— a comparison of wilderness and biodiversity protection in Canada and the United States. Andy Russell’s conservation ethics influenced Sheppard from an early age, and he has hiked many of the trails in the Castle and in Waterton. He and his artist wife, Jean, lived in the foothills of southwestern Alberta for 37 years. They currently reside in Lethbridge,  Alberta.

Larry Simpson is currently the associate regional vice-president and director of Strategic Philanthropy and Conservation, Alberta Region, for the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC). Simpson was raised on a farm in southwest Alberta and obtained his Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Alberta in 1979. Prior to joining NCC, he worked in the oil and gas sector negotiating oil and gas deals as a senior land negotiator with Amoco Canada Petroleum Limited. In 1988, he acted as chair of Wildlife Running into the Future, a conference at the University of Calgary about the future of wildlife conservation in North America. Simpson joined NCC in May 1990 as western regional director. During his tenure with NCC more than 2,500,000 acres of land have been conserved and more than $150 million raised to advance conservation. Simpson specializes in working with people who are interested in creating a conservation legacy as a part of their life’s work. In 2012, the Emerald Awards Foundation recognized him for his extraordinary commitment to conservation. In 2015, Venture magazine listed Larry as one of the top 50 most influential people in Alberta—something usually reserved for people who excel in business or community work.

Fred Stenson, an award winning novelist, nonfiction writer, and film writer, grew up near Waterton. Many of his 19 books relate to southwestern Alberta: The Trade, Lightning, The Great Karoo, and his most recent environmental novel, Who By Fire. Artist Brent Laycock and Stenson combined their respective talents in Waterton: Brush and Pen, a book of paintings and essays. Stenson’s film and video work reflect the history and landscapes of his home. He was a founding member of the Writers’ Guild of Alberta and for 15 years directed the Wired Writing Studio at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Stenson has been a columnist for Alberta Views magazine since its inception in 1999.

Beth Towe is an award-winning tourism product designer who calls Waterton Lakes National Park home. Her collaborative programs have garnered national and international acclaim including the prestigious Tourism for Tomorrow Award from British Airways. An early proponent of eco-tourism, Towe’s Trail of the Great Bear initiative was the first eco-system based tourism program, linking Yellowstone, Waterton/Glacier, and Banff National Parks. She has written and published numerous articles and travel guides expounding the values of tourism and conservation in partnership.

Kevin Van Tighem, a former Banff National Park superintendent, has written more than 200 articles, stories, and essays on conservation and wildlife. He has received numerous awards for his writing including Western Magazine awards, Outdoor Writers of Canada book and magazine awards, and the Journey Award for Fiction. He is the author of Bears Without Fear, The Homeward Wolf, and Heart Waters: Sources of the Bow River. His new book, Our Place/Changing the Nature of Alberta, is a series of essays reflecting on the ecology, conservation history, missed opportunities, and emerging possibilities of Alberta—a place that could have been about so much more than oil. Van Tighem lives with his wife, Gail, in Canmore, Alberta.

Waterton Biosphere Reserve Association is managed by a volunteer board of directors and by part-time staff. This dedicated group of individuals bring their unique skills and backgrounds together to create a well-rounded team of ranchers, biologists, wildlife experts and Parks Canada liaisons. All are committed local residents. For more information visit www.watertonbiosphere.com

Brittany Watson holds an MA in Art History from Carleton University. Watson resides in Banff, Alberta, and is employed as an archival assistant at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies. She most recently co-curated “Bert Riggall: I to the Hills will Lift Mine Eyes” at the Whyte Museum.