Northern exposures Stikine, The Great River, Photographs by Gary Fiegehen, Douglas & Mcintyre, $50. Gur Trail Led Northwest, £E. Madge Mandy, Heritage House, $24.50. HOUGH WE'VE fallen into the American habit of thinking of this neck of the great woods as the Pacific Northwest, as Canadians and British Columbians we're actually southwesterners. The same mindset that makes us think of Prince George as “up north” when it’s only the belly- button of B.C. causes us to forget that our own real northwest is a vast relatively unpopulated and seldom visited wilderness; the 50,000 square kilometre water- shed of the least known of the province's great rivers, the Stikine. Rising in the high, isolated Spatsizi Plateau, the Stikine flows some 640 kilometres through the wildest remaining country in B.C. to emp- ty into the Pacific just north of Wrangell in the Alaska Panhandle. Capturing the soul of such a place is a daunting project, but Gary Fiegehen’s 81 stunning photographs will enthrall armchair _ explorers and inspire a new gen- eration of bootstrap tourists to take the road less followed north from Hazelton that bisects the regions On its way to the Yukon. There is little text; the infor- mative cutlines to the pictures are tucked in the back of the book, but the mute eloquence of John Moore BOOK REVIEW Fiegehen’s photographs is perhaps the best way to convey the inde- scribable majesty of this !ast great wild place. The book is prefaced by the brief, moving “‘Declara- tion of The Tahitan Tribe, 1910.” For a sense of the lives of daily adventure led by the widely scat- tered human inhabitants of the Stikine wilderness, turn to E. tMadge Mandy's Our Trail Led Northwest. An Indiana college teacher who realized a girlhood drearn of visiting the northwest in NEWS photo Paul McGrath AS A winner in the Freedom To Read contest (under 12 cat- egory) 11-year-old Daniel Bouller received a copy of Sarah Eis’ book Next-Door Neighbours from the author herself. Lower Mainland Ubraries offered book prizes for the best tetters written on the subject ‘“‘what freedom to read means to me.” - DEMONSTRATION How to put together a Rose Basket ; Questions Answers to Gardening Problems happily provided VISIT WITH THE TWELVE MONTH GARDENERS SATURDAY MAY 23 1:00-2:30 p.m. at Amber Bookshop 2460A Marine Drive, West Vancouver Downstairs 926-1133 1931, Madge met Dr. Joe Mandy, then resident mining engineer for the northwestern district of the B.C. Dept. of Mines, aboard the venerable Princess Louise over a plate of tough chicken, married kim two years later and spent the next decade travelling with him, step for step and saddlesore for saddlesore, through a wilderness as huge as the heart of darkness in Africa. Finally completed a couple of years ago when Madge was 88 years old, this is‘an old fashioned memoir, peppered with exclama- tion marks and inverted commas, but one that reveals a scrupulous memory and lasting enthusiasm for those early “honeymoon” years on the trail that half a century has left undimmed, as fresh as yester- day’s rose. Petite and pretty, Madge Mandy was an eagerly expected and often surprising gucst, but she had an intuitive sense of tact and under- standing for bcth the native pec- ple she encountered and the isolated white men whose marginal, often brutish existence could be suddenly transformed by the appearance of a lady to pro- duce peculiar poignant manifesta- tions of an almost-forgotten gallan- try. Madge Mandy is what we used to call in those pre-politically cor- rect days, ‘a man’s woman.” No hit with the Prince Rupert Ladies Bridge Club of 1932, a woman who wore pants because they were practical in the bush, she was Joe Mandy’s ‘best pal’’ and trail companion, beautiful, in- telligent and tougher than an old boot, the kind of ga! you’d fike to have along in grizzly country. Part travelogue, part history, part love-story, Our Trail Led Nor- thwest is a unique book and, sad- ly, probably one of the last of its kind. ; We've been serving th freshest Wednesday, May 20, 1992 -- North Shore News - 34 ‘PANDORA'S VOX Vocal Gasemble presents Ain evening of Ghoral Gems and Classic Delights Cincluding Madrigals, Ballads, and Folk) 8:00 pro Saturday, May 23 West Vancouver United Church Gat & Esquimalt) Tickets $10 Seniors, Students & Youths $6.00 far the doot, ar in ndvamee, 922-2147) Refrabments after with the Vow ANNUAL IE SALE MAY 14 - 30 40% off all in-stock picture frames. Choose from over 130. different frame styles, metal or wood, custom or do-it-yourself. _ rac seafood on the North Shore for 17 years. You’ve got to try ou: FAMOUS TIGER PRAWNS! Sea Maies Owner Pater Chiu Famous Tiger Prawns Broiled with or without garlic Served with rice vegetables and bread oniy i "@ os offer ends May 31/92 | Sea Mates Seafood Restaurant 998 Marine Drive, North Vancouver 980-1213 Closed Monday Dinner Tues.-Sun., Lunch Tues.-Fri.