Acknowledgements
I am indebted to many people for help with this book, notably Lillian Evanoff, who shared her memories of her husband, gave permission to include parts of George’s “Dall Rams” story, provided access to files, journals, and photographs, and most importantly, granted me the freedom to make of it what I would.
I am grateful also to George and Lillian’s son, Craig Evanoff, and to Craig’s partner, Bonnie Hooge, for their contributions; to George’s daughter, Delia Christianson, for sharing her first and later remembrances of her dad; to his granddaughters, Dana and Talia Christianson, for providing their poems of remembrance; to George’s siblings, Mary Nixon and John Evanoff; to his cousin, Robert “Bob” Evanoff; and to George’s outdoor friend and associate as a young man in Edmonton and Edson, Paul Kindiak. I especially wish to thank one of George’s principal hunting partners and long-time neighbour, Bob Wiseman, whose recounting of their adventures in northern British Columbia gave impetus to my early writing. I appreciate contributions to the book by George’s friends and associates, including Bob Buchanan, Don Buchanan, Jeff Burrows, Don Doern, Bill Floyd, Dayle Gilliatt, Gailand Hann, Dave King, Michael Kutyn, Brian Livsey, Rick Lowcay, Leslie Rodgers, Peter Schaerer, Bob Stowell, Jim Weed, and Val Weed.
I acknowledge the information about George Evanoff that was provided by the Alpine Club of Canada, the Applied Science Technologists and Technicians of British Columbia (ASTTBC), the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG), the Canadian Avalanche Association, and the Canadian Ski Patrol System. I received unexpected bonuses from two of these organizations when the ASTTBC and the ACMG provided me with George Evanoff’s original applications for professional standing in the respective associations; one detailed his academic and work accomplishments and the other his outdoor achievements.
Early in the process, University of Northern British Columbia professor Dr. Dee Horne provided helpful thoughts on biographical styles, and University of Victoria professor Dr. Lynne Van Luven read part of a very early manuscript and offered words of encouragement during a writer’s workshop in Prince George. I thank Dr. Bob Nelson for his assistance in scanning old photographs, negatives, and slides for the book.
I received timely encouragement to write this book during a conversation with Dr. Peter Steele, biographer and author of Eric Shipton: Everest and Beyond, following his presentation of that book at the 1998 Banff International Mountain Book Festival, just twelve days after George’s death. I had travelled to Banff several times with George to attend the related mountain film festival and to help out with his North Rockies Ski Tours booth, and the 1998 Banff event, coming just days after George Evanoff’s death, boosted my resolve to undertake this project.
Most importantly, I am grateful to the book’s publisher, Barry Penhale, and editor, Jane Gibson, of Natural Heritage Books, a member of The Dundurn Group, who saw in George Evanoff’s story a tale worth telling, and who capably guided me through the editing process to bring his story to fruition.
Path of a Hero
Prologue
This book began as an idea while hiking with George Evanoff in Canada’s Northern Rocky Mountains on a Saturday morning at the beginning of the Thanksgiving weekend in 1998. Exactly two weeks later, on Saturday, October 24, George Evanoff died on a nearby mountain ridge after an encounter with a grizzly bear.
I mentioned the book idea to George Evanoff during that October 1998 trip — the last of many that we had taken together over a nearly twenty-year period. Then, before we had time to digest what we might be getting into, he was gone. The idea did not go away, however, and a few months later I met with George’s wife, Lillian Evanoff, his son, Craig Evanoff, and Craig’s partner, Bonnie Hooge, to talk about writing his story posthumously. Our first conversation took place after dinner in Lillian and George’s home where we reminisced over tea and a tape recorder about an individual who had inspired many outdoor enthusiasts in north-central British Columbia. Ten years on, the result is a book that tells the story of a man who began his time on earth with the free spirit of a first-generation rural Albertan, born of Macedonian immigrants in the 1930s, who went on to become synonymous with the outdoors in British Columbia. George Evanoff never lost his youthful spirit, and gave back to society in his later years for the inspirations and opportunities that he had received.
George Evanoff grew up in the small town of Edson in west-central Alberta, east of the Rocky Mountains and Jasper National Park. The North Rockies were central to George Evanoff’s being, as he spent the first half of his life living about a hundred kilometres to the east of them, and the latter part a similar distance to the west. These mountains provided him with a constant source of inspiration and fulfillment.
George’s story is also about role models and mentors, and their lasting impact on successive generations.1 Several individuals helped shape the teenage George Evanoff in Edson. Among them was the Honourable Norman Willmore,2 after whom Alberta’s Willmore Wilderness Provincial Park was named, and who first introduced George Evanoff to skiing in the mountains. During our first meeting in early 1999, Lillian Evanoff explained that “Willmore definitely had a very big influence on George; he took any kids from the town of Edson who were showing sign of interest in skiing to hike up Whistlers, and later Marmot Basin in Jasper, before those areas were developed. George was amazed that this man would take the time to take him there.” The greatest influence on young George Evanoff was his cousin, Bob Evanoff, who introduced George to fishing, hunting, and canoeing at an early age.
I knew George Evanoff during the last twenty years of his life, the period when he had the most impact on the outdoors people of north-central British Columbia. I met him at the tail end of the big-game hunting trips that he used to take in the mountainous wilds of northern British Columbia, adventures that honed his outdoor skills and backcountry ethic before he exchanged his rifle for binoculars and a camera. Years later, I retraced his steps to some of the remote places that he had been, on extended backpacking trips of my own, where I gained a deep appreciation of his exploits. You will experience some of these quests through anecdotes from George’s journals and hunting partners; and in George’s own words in the chapter, “Dall Rams the Hard Way.”
In the early 1980s, George turned his focus to introducing others to north-central British Columbia’s backcountry, just as Willmore had done for him. Notable in this respect were several week-long trips that he organized and led to the area known as Kakwa, which he later championed and helped to become a world-class Rocky Mountain park.
George Evanoff spent the first half of his life living a hundred kilometres to the east of the Rockies, and the latter part a similar distance to the west.
George Evanoff’s meticulousness and attention to detail were evident in everything he did. In going back through some of George’s files, Lillian commented that he planned every detail on paper, right down to the specifics of getting people in and out of the helicopter during a ski trip. I first encountered George Evanoff on such a trip in February 1979, when I participated in an avalanche course that he was teaching to backcountry skiers and search and rescue volunteers. I later assisted him with some of the avalanche and outdoor safety courses that he taught every year to increasing numbers of recreational and industrial backcountry users. Twice I found myself high on mountain ridges in arctic-like conditions, helping him to set dynamite charges to remove threatening snow cornices.
George had his fingers in many pies outside of his profession as an electrical coordinator for a pipeline company, but the one that stood out was avalanche safety. During the period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, public appreciation of the risks posed by avalanches in British Columbia’s backcountry was not as high as it is today, and there were few avalanche-savvy people in north-central British Columbia. It is impossible to know how many lives George Evanoff saved through the know-how that he passed on, because you