Mountain Masculinity

We are lucky to have these snapshots of life on the trail before the trail became a highway. -- Ted Bishop, author of Riding with Rilke

A captivating portrait – in his own words – of Nello Vernon-Wood (1882-1978), who reinvented himself as a Banff hunting guide and writer of "yarns of the wilderness by a competent outdoorsman."In 1906, Nello Vernon-Wood (1882–1978) reinvented himself as TexWood, Banff hunting guide and writer of "yarns of the wildernessby a competent outdoorsman." His homespun stories of a vanishingworld, in such periodicals as The Sportsman, Hunting and Fishing, andthe Canadian Alpine Journal, have much to tell us about the west asenvisioned by those who wanted to leave the early 20th century behind– or at least read about others who had done so. In the writingsof his persona "Tex," Vernon-Wood created an image of thefrontier that blended the West of his guiding experiences with the Westas a literary object. Editors Gow and Rak guide the reader with aframing introduction to the work, as well as to each article.