Prince George-based travel writer Vivien Lougheed has released her latest book Nahanni, Then & Now.
She was always an avid travel adventurer and has written numerous books about places like the Yucatan, Bolivia, Mexico and Cuba, Tibet, Belize,Central America and BC and also had a travel column in The Prince George Citizen many years ago.
Her latest book describes her remote travels into The Yukon to Nahanni as a hiker and paddler and delves into the history of the area that surrounds the newly expanded Nahanni National Park.
Lougheed started by researching maps of the abandoned mining town of Tungsten at the headwaters of the Flat River, to the Flat Lakes and the headwaters of the Little Nahanni.
“We looked at the map for the Nahanni and we saw this abandoned mining town with exploration roads going everywhere so we wouldn’t be bush wacking the whole time,” Lougheed said about her and writer husband John Harris's experience during the planning stages of the trip that resulted in the book. “We thought we should go and check it out with the hopes of getting to the Nahanni River.”
The more research they did, the more interesting it was for both of them.
To begin the trip, they drove as far as they could and then had to travel by bicycle for another 100 kilometres with front and back hangers loaded and backpacks filled to the brim.
“I look back at it now and think ‘there’s no way I was that strong!’” Lougheed laughed.
“The hike to Glacier Lake was the most incredible because it was in country that no one else had been. So we spent all winter looking at maps to get from Tungsten to Glacier Lake and we figured we had 18 days of hiking.”
There were six members on the team and they made it in 14 days.
“We loved it, we had so much fun,” Lougheed recalled. “And it’s beautiful. It’s really beautiful.”
For all the details and the rest of the story the book is available at https://www.chickenbustales.com.
