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Daytime Seminars
Our daytime book seminars offer you an opportunity to meet writers
and adventurers in an intimate, interactive setting. This
year’s guests included:
THURSDAY,
October 31
Max Bell Auditorium
 9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
Jerry Kobalenko: "The Horizontal Everest"
Ellesmere Island lies a mere 450 miles from the North Pole.
This mountainous jewel — it has the highest peaks in the
western hemisphere east of the Rockies — offers stunning
scenery, enchanting wildlife and some of the worst weather
and most difficult terrain on the planet. Jerry Kobalenko
has made more visits to and walked more miles on Ellesmere
Island than anyone, past or present. Part travelogue, part
historical research, part natural science, "The Horizontal Everest"
brings to life one man's total involvement with a forbidding but
romantic island.10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
Yvon Chouinard: Voices of Adventure Series
Founder of Patagonia Inc. Yvon Chouinard started his
career in the outdoor business as a transient climber and
surfer, making climbing gear on a small forge and selling it
from the back of his car while making many notable first
ascents. He has built a personal and a corporate reputation
based on his commitment to reducing our society's
environmental impact. Geoff Powter talked with Yvon Chouinard
about a lifetime of lessons learned from rock and water.
Noon - 1:15 p.m. Literary Lunch Break
Banff Centre Dining Room, Donald Cameron Hall
Dermot Somers
reads.
1:30 - 2:45 P.M.
"Alp Fiction: The Slippery Slope of Mountain Journalism"
It gets said in every essay on mountain sport ethics: with no
judging bodies and no final authorities, the historical record
is completely dependent on honest reporting of personal
accomplishments by the players. That faith is one of the
beauties of the sport, but it has also led to some great
problems — particularly for the mountain writer, who sometimes
has to sort through contrary accounts, national hubris, nuances
of style, and even patently fraudulent claims, to discover the
"truth" of a climb. This panel asked several mountain
writers, including Greg Child, Maria Coffey, Ed Douglas and Linda Wylie, to
share how they sort through these complexities in their search
for a story.
3:00 - 4:30 p.m.
Mountain Poetry
Poetry has always been at home
in the mountains. The Greek muses lived on Mount Parnassus. The
English Romantics haunted the peaks of the Alps and the Lake
District. Black Mountain poets Charles Olson and Robert Creeley
helped shape modern verse. Canadian poets Jon Whyte, Sid Marty and
Ken Belford
tell stories of the Rockies, while writers such as Gary Snyder
develop ancient connections between mountains, mind and spirit.
Joining Sid Marty was Ken Belford and Terry Gifford, Director of England's
International Festival of Mountaineering Literature, as they
explored mountain verse.
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FRIDAY,
November 1
Max Bell Auditorium
9:00 - 10:15 a.m.
Kathryn Bridge: "Phyllis Munday, Mountaineer"
In 1924 Phyllis Munday did what no other woman had done
before — she reached the summit of Mt. Robson. She climbed close
to 100 mountains in her lifetime, many of those first ascents.
Throughout the '20s and '30s, Phyllis and her husband Don
pioneered exploration into the heart of the Coast Mountains as
they undertook an 11-year quest for “Mystery Mountain,” a
majestic peak Phyllis had glimpsed rising above all the others in
the Range. It was Mt. Waddington, the highest mountain
wholly within British Columbia. We learned from biographer Kathryn Bridge
about one of Canada's early mountaineers.
10:30 - 11:45 a.m
Eric Simonson: "Detectives on Everest"
When Eric Simonson’s research team found George Mallory’s
body high on Everest in 1999, the discovery ignited an intense
debate. Did Mallory and his partner, Sandy Irvine, reach the
summit in 1924? Was the search for their bodies historical
research or high-altitude grave robbing? "Detectives on Everest"
was the story of Simonson’s return to Everest in 2001 and of
new evidence he uncovered about Mallory’s expeditions.
Noon - 1:15 p.m. Literary Lunch Break
Banff Centre Dining Room, Donald Cameron Hall
Roger Hubank
reads
1:30 - 2:45 p.m.
Writing the Arctic
The Arctic has always lured the eccentric and the damned. It
also lures writers. Lonnie Dupre, author of "Greenland
Expedition — Where Ice is Born" has travelled some 19,000
kilometres through the North by dog team, ski and kayak. Larry
Millman, author of "Lost in the Arctic" and "Last Places", has
visited — and written about — the Arctic for decades and says he
always sleeps with his head pointed north. Jerry Kobalenko's
self-confessed obsession with Ellesmere Island inspired him to
write "The Horizontal Everest". These three writers, each held
in thrall by northern landscapes and peoples, explored the
roots of their polar passion and how that passion is expressed
through their work.
 3:00 - 4:40 p.m.
Greg Mortenson: Where Spirits Soar - From Adventure to
Action in the Karakoram
Greg Mortenson is the founder of the
Central Asia
Institute,
a non-profit organization devoted to community-based education
projects in the remote mountain villages of Pakistan,
Afghanistan and Mongolia. A former climber, Mortenson has worked
in the region since a 1993 climb of K2 and brought us a
first-hand view of the devastation wrought by decades of war on
the fragile lands and resilient peoples of Central Asia.
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