Towards the Unknown Mountains: An Autobiography from the Canadian Wilderness Frontier

Hans B. Neumann is a history lecturer at Scarborough College, University
of Toronto.

The mountaineering community has always been a very select, devoted, and
close-knit group of individuals imbued with a strong sense of sporting
ethics. It is a group to whom the much-abused label of “rugged
individualists” honestly applies. It is not given to many to find
enjoyment risking life and limb climbing some towering mountain peak,
let alone to seek such challenges in order to philosophize about them.
Hence the mainstream reading audience might not immediately warm to the
autobiographical text by Wood, an experienced mountaineer. But despite
considerable use of technical vocabulary and descriptions, most of the
text is readily accessible; it is laced with lucid reflections on the
nature of our modern society, and exhibits a strong emphasis on
environmental and ecological concerns.

Wood’s climbs are staggering in their variety and degree of
difficulty: ice-fall climbing (Takakkaw Falls in Yoho National Park),
rock climbing (El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in the U.S.), Alpine
mountain climbing (Mt. Killabuk on Baffin Island, Mt. Waddington on
Vancouver Island), and many more! A number of readers may well have seen
such mountains from the road or from hiking trails in their travels and
shuddered at the thought of actually scaling one of these awesome
giants. Wood relates exactly what such an experience is really like.

Throughout the slim book, many beautiful color photographs (as well as
a number of black-and-white ones, and many helpful maps of climb sites)
taken by the author or his fellow expedition members handsomely serve to
illustrate technical aspects such as chosen ascent routes. But more
often the photographs just document the exhilarating scenery encountered
in climbing “into the clouds.”

Overall, the book successfully transmits to the general reader, at
least in some small measure, what attracted Wood to mountaineering. He
writes that it is “freedom—experiencing reality with an open mind,
fully alert and tuned into what is actually happening, as opposed to the
‘normal’ tunnel vision conditioned by the illusions and
categorizations of everyday life.” The 9–to–5 crowd may indeed eat
its heart out.