Wildlife in the Rockies

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

George Brybycin, the G B of G B Publishing, describes himself on the title page of this book and that of Jasper National Park (G B Publishing, 1981) as “one of Canada’s foremost mountain Photographers.” His photographs in both books are supplemented with text by Dorothy Dickson, “one of Alberta’s leading Environmentalists.” This is a most unusual method of promoting authors; such superlatives are usually confined to dust jackets or pages other than the title page.

This all-colour volume is simple and initially appealing. Descriptions of a variety of wildlife precede portraits of a variety of wildlife. The captions to the photos consist only of the animals’ names. The last page of the book is biographical information about the authors.

Given the large typeface used, the book seems destined for the tourist market of Banff and Jasper National Parks. The problems with the text are two-fold: the descriptions, intended to assist in identifying “the more common species,” are in random order covering eleven pages. The descriptions do not correlate at all with the photographs; thus, some of the animals described do not appear in the photos, many of the animals are photographed more than once, and some of the wildlife is inadequately described (birds are summarized in four sentences).

The quality of the reproductions is good, with a pleasing design. Since the binding is stitched, this volume should withstand repeated handling. An index would have alleviated the problem of not being able to locate specific images or descriptions.