Kevin Van Tighem

A deeply personal and evocative journey into the complexities of nature, grief, and the search for meaning in the autumn of life. Drawing on a lifetime spent in the wilds of western Canada's national parks and years of conservation work, Van Tighem reflects on a career spent protecting the natural world and the emotional toll of witnessing its decline. Freed from bureaucratic constraints after retirement, he turned to writing, activism, and politics, driven by a sense of duty to the landscapes and species he loves. But alongside his commitment to action came profound grief and the pressing question: how do we find hope amid environmental loss? Van Tighem's reflections are anchored in the "understory" of his life--the hidden, tangled layers beneath the surface of his experiences. Like the shadowed depths of a forest, these memories and insights are both beautiful and unsettling, revealing the challenges and rewards of engaging fully with the world around us. With unflinching honesty, he examines the joys of connection, the pain of loss, and the enduring value of caring deeply, even when the odds feel insurmountable. Written with the lyricism of a naturalist and the candour of a seasoned storyteller, Understory invites readers to confront their own relationships with nature and consider how they, too, can find purpose and hope in uncertain times. For anyone who cherishes the wild, grapples with environmental grief, or seeks inspiration to keep moving forward, this memoir is both a solace and a call to action.

Featuring a new introduction from the author, Wild Roses Are Worth It remains a timely collection of provocative, personal, and thoughtful essays for an Alberta in transition. This selection of works by naturalist, hunter, conservation activist, and outdoors journalist Kevin Van Tighem will both inspire and provoke because it offers an unflinching challenge to cherished myths and conventional wisdom in a troubled province beset with profound questions about its future. Even at their most provocative, however, these writings remind us of what is best about the Alberta spirit, and offer the possibility of a more sustaining relationship with our place and with one another. The rich imagery in these writings is drawn from the author's intimate relationship with the streams, forests, grasslands, and mountains of the Canadian West. There may be no sacred cows in Van Tighem's prose, but even the most unblinkingly critical of his writings resonate with a love of place and an abiding respect for the people whose lives he shares. He reminds us that Alberta's stories were always meant to be about much more than oil. At a time when social, economic, and environmental changes confront and confound what is still one of Canada's greatest provinces, we need better ways of remembering our past, knowing our present, and imagining our future. That's what this inspiring body of work offers - just in time for tomorrow.

A collection of essays and articles that reflect upon the ecology, conservation history, missed opportunities and emerging possibilities of a place that could have been about so much more than oil. Naturalist, hunter, conservation activist and recovering bureaucrat Kevin Van Tighem explores the landscapes and wildlife of one of Canada's most diverse and beautiful provinces and the ways in which Albertans have often failed - and sometimes succeeded - at the challenge of sustaining their home place. Previously published writings are mixed with current reflections on the streams, forests, grasslands and mountains of a Canadian province whose ambivalence about the nature of place, the responsibilities of citizens and the temptations of resource-based prosperity continues to mar the landscape and raise questions about the future. Challenging, eye-opening, instructive and soul-searching, this collection nonetheless delivers an overriding message of hope and possibilities. Alberta is our place now; we can still sustain the best of it, and bring out the best in ourselves, if we choose to know it well and care for it better.

Water does not come from the river. It comes to the river. "Heart Waters" takes us to the sources of that water - and into the living beauty, human stories and future possibilities that also arise from the green slopes and valleys of Alberta's Eastern Slopes where the Bow River is born. For more than a century ago the foothills and Front Range mountains of western Alberta have been recognized vital to the future water supply for Canada's prairies. Virtually all the water that sustains communities, ecosystems and the economy of prairie Canada comes from this narrow strip of land arrayed along the Continental Divide. For all its importance, however, water management decisions have ignored the importance of land health and focused almost exclusively on building dams.The result, as the author points out, is that the Bow River's annual flows have decreased by more than a tenth, even while spring floods become more frequent and more destructive. The solutions to prairie Canada's water challenges lie in healing the wounded landscapes of our headwaters. "Heart Waters" delves deeply into the history and ecology of a landscape whose critical value as a watershed is matched by its sheer beauty and diversity. A rich array of stunning photographic imagery by Jasper-based photographer Brian Van Tighem complements the author's well-researched explorations of the stories whispered by the living waters that drain from Banff National Park, Kananaskis Country and the famous ranchlands of the Bow River watershed. "Heart Waters" is a deep exploration of place, and an invitation to recognize that our water future depends upon knowing our headwaters better and caring for them more passionately - as our heart waters. "We could belong here too," the book concludes. "We could be like the bull trout, the willows, the wary horses: like the river that continually arises from these fine green places where the waters are born. We could find our best selves in the stories of those living waters and the river that gathers them together."