Cultures at Risk Presenter Biographies

Frances Klatzel

Preserving Sherpa culture

Frances is at home in the Canadian Rockies and the Himalaya as a writer and naturalist. She first worked as an interpretive naturalist for the Canadian Parks Service for 7 years, but has since spent 17 of the past 25 years working in Nepal, mostly in the Everest and Makalu areas. All of this work has utilized her skills in writing, photography, and interviewing for oral history, and her knowledge of natural history and Himalayan cultures.

In 1980, she first lived in Khumbu doing volunteer work for Sagarmatha National Park. From 1983 to 1989, she created a museum and Sherpa Cultural Centre at Tengboche Monastery near Mount Everest. As part of this work, Frances helped the abbot of Tengboche write a small book on the Sherpa people, Stories and Customs of the Sherpas. In 2000, she published the fourth edition of the book through her company, Mera Publications. She has had several exhibitions of her photographs on Sherpa culture.

Frances worked with a project of the Mountain Institute, the Makalu-Barun Conservation Project, on a staff-training manual about natural history, interpretive displays for a visitor center, and a craft exhibition. She also worked the marketing of the traditional crafts of the Rai culture to try to help improve the livelihoods of local people and interviewed locals and shamans to gather information on the culture and significance of the crafts.

In 2004, she was a co-author and publisher of Stories and Customs of Manang, which compiled information on the culture of a high mountain valley north of the Annapurnas.