"The sight of the moon has awakened the wanderlust in me. Something tugging at my heart, something irritating at the back of my brain. I want to go out miles and miles beyond the ken of man, towards nature...I want to meet Nature in calm & in wrath & I want to write of her as no other man has ever written of her. I want the whole world to feel her moods as I shall have felt them."

   Excerpts from The Diaries of Roderick Haig-Brown, Volume 2

Roderick Haig-Brown, the great Canadian writer, conservationist and fly fisher, became known around the world for his writing about fly fishing and the environment. His knowledge and deep love of nature and British Columbia combined to create stories and essays that resonate powerfully today.

Excerpts from The Diaries of Roderick Haig-Brown, edited and annotated by the author's daughter, Valerie Haig-Brown, are published by The Beaverdam Press in a limited, tribute edition. This is the only printing of these very personal diaries.

Haig-Brown arrived in the Nimpkish Valley of Northern Vancouver Island as a young man, just in from England. The year was 1927. He logged, surveyed, beachcombed and set out to learn to fish the Pacific Northwest coast. It was here that Haig-Brown would mature as a writer. His five diaries of these early years in North America, from 1927-1929 and 1932-1933, reveal the freshness and immediacy of evolving genius that culminates in eloquent and classic works such as Pool and Rapid (1932) and A River Never Sleeps (1946), books deeply informed by the period of these diaries.

The format echoes that of the original diaries. Each set, bound by Sandy Tilcock, is comprised of five volumes quarter-bound in dark forest green Harmatan goat skin with paste paper over boards. The paste papers, co-designed by Richard Bunse and Sandy Tilcock and editioned by Sandy Tilcock, invoke the natural imagery of the Pacific Northwest.

The first five volumes of the set are text volumes with frontispieces, decorative initials and illustrations by Mr. Bunse. The decorative initials on the first page of each volume are hand colored by Marion Cluff and gold foil stamped at The Beaverdam Press.

The sixth volume contains twelve photo­graphs by (or of) Haig-Brown, as well as a folded reproduction of a map of the Nimpkish area drawn by him and printed on surveyor's blue oiled linen.

The monotype foundry of Harold Berliner set the text in Monotype Original Old Caslon; the text paper is Rives Heavyweight. Text pages measure 6" by 4½" and there are around 68 pages in each text volume.

The edition consists of one hundred and sixty four sets. One hundred and fifty are numbered and signed by the artist, the editor and the printer. The remaining fourteen lettered sets are for the use of the press.

In the introductory offer, the set was housed in a box with a pull out shelf and priced at U.S.$1,450. Sixty five of these sets have been sold. The remaining eighty five sets are offered in a slip case with chemise at the reduced price of U.S.$975, including shipping.

To order, please contact the distributor.

Sandy Tilcock, lone goose press

541-465-9079

lonegoose1@comcast.net