Heart of the Rockies

David Mattison is a librarian with the B.C. Provincial Archives and
Records Services Library.

Altitude Publishing has found a comfortable niche in the book world as the producer of fine mountain photography books. This book, while no exception to good production qualities, seems repetitious and almost hackneyed. True, the photographs, mostly by Carole Harmon and Stephen Hutchings, are magnificent, but their style and contents will be familiar to anyone who has other Altitude books.

Planned, it would appear from the sparse introduction, as yet another tribute to the National Parks system, the book depicts scenery in five of the parks that lie within the Canadian Rockies. A selection of early colour reproductions (primarily postcards and lantern-slides) taken in the Rockies begins the book. The transition from old to modern images is abrupt: on the left page we see some Alpine Club of Canada members on a snow slope in 1910 and on the right page the tongue of the Columbia Glacier from a dizzying perspective, perhaps from a helicopter.

Caption information is minimal. This is a book that will be enjoyed by those who have ventured to the mountains and who wish to renew their acquaintance and those who like to look at the mountains beside a roaring fire.