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Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga
Living alone in the remote wilderness, Chris Czajkowski has given her dogs a rich life, although not without its difficulties. Often residing in areas accessible only by float plane, the dogs have encountered grizzlies and cougars, slept in the snow, hiked with packs of food and equipment, and occasionally gotten themselves into scrapes, such as becoming lost in the wild or falling through ice into a freezing river.
In A Wilderness Dog Saga , the gregarious and lovable Harry gives his account of their years together at Nuk Tessli and Ginty Creek. The story includes reminiscences about past dogs in Chris's life, including wise Badger, not-so-bright Sport, beautiful Ginger, and Lonesome, Harry's trail-blazing literary predecessor. Together, they trace Chris's off-the-grid life from a dog's-eye view as she established an ecotourism business, built cabins by hand and scratched out a living for herself and the pack.
The book captures the humour and wisdom of a canine perspective in a way that is instantly familiar to anyone who has known and loved dogs. Although Harry does not yearn for city comforts like Lonesome, he is often baffled by Chris's incomprehensible doings and illogical priorities. Full of the irrepressible exploits of Harry and his canine companions, A Wilderness Dog Saga is sure to be a new favourite of animal lovers and anyone who's ever dreamed of packing up and moving far away from city amenities with only a loyal dog for company.
In A Wilderness Dog Saga , the gregarious and lovable Harry gives his account of their years together at Nuk Tessli and Ginty Creek. The story includes reminiscences about past dogs in Chris's life, including wise Badger, not-so-bright Sport, beautiful Ginger, and Lonesome, Harry's trail-blazing literary predecessor. Together, they trace Chris's off-the-grid life from a dog's-eye view as she established an ecotourism business, built cabins by hand and scratched out a living for herself and the pack.
The book captures the humour and wisdom of a canine perspective in a way that is instantly familiar to anyone who has known and loved dogs. Although Harry does not yearn for city comforts like Lonesome, he is often baffled by Chris's incomprehensible doings and illogical priorities. Full of the irrepressible exploits of Harry and his canine companions, A Wilderness Dog Saga is sure to be a new favourite of animal lovers and anyone who's ever dreamed of packing up and moving far away from city amenities with only a loyal dog for company.
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 16, 2017
2 people are currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Chris Czajkowski
16 books25 followersChris Czajkowski is an accomplished writer and spokesperson for wilderness living. She is the author of ten books including Cabin at Singing River (Raincoast Books), Lonesome: Memoirs of a Wilderness Dog (Heritage House Publishing), Snowshoes and Spotted Dick: Letters from a Wilderness Dweller (Harbour Publishing), A Mountain Year: Nature Diary of a Wilderness Dweller
(Harbour Publishing), and Ginty’s Ghost: A Wilderness Dweller’s Dream (Harbour Publishing). Her newest book, And the River Still Sings, is available September 2014, and answers the question "How does one go from English villager to Wilderness Dweller?"
Chris Czajkowski was born and raised at the edge of a large village in England,
until she abandoned the company of others to roam the countryside in search of the natural world. As a young adult she studied dairy farming and travelled to Uganda to teach at a farm school. Returning to England she found nothing to hold her interest, so in 1971 she hitchhiked around the world spending as little time as possible in cities.
Arriving in Canada in 1979, Chris travelled to the West Chilcotin and settled deep in the woods of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. She called her new home Nuk Tessli and lived there for twenty-three years, turning her paradise into a thriving wilderness
resort and guiding business.
In 2012, after many happy years of living alone in the bush, Chris sold Nuk Tessli, closing a significant chapter of her life.
And the River Still Sings goes beyond the tales of wilderness living, exploring both the experiences that led Chris to a solitary lifestyle and her transition to a life closer to the grid. Her new book offers personal and honest insight into the “Wilderness Dweller.”
(Harbour Publishing), and Ginty’s Ghost: A Wilderness Dweller’s Dream (Harbour Publishing). Her newest book, And the River Still Sings, is available September 2014, and answers the question "How does one go from English villager to Wilderness Dweller?"
Chris Czajkowski was born and raised at the edge of a large village in England,
until she abandoned the company of others to roam the countryside in search of the natural world. As a young adult she studied dairy farming and travelled to Uganda to teach at a farm school. Returning to England she found nothing to hold her interest, so in 1971 she hitchhiked around the world spending as little time as possible in cities.
Arriving in Canada in 1979, Chris travelled to the West Chilcotin and settled deep in the woods of British Columbia’s Coast Mountains. She called her new home Nuk Tessli and lived there for twenty-three years, turning her paradise into a thriving wilderness
resort and guiding business.
In 2012, after many happy years of living alone in the bush, Chris sold Nuk Tessli, closing a significant chapter of her life.
And the River Still Sings goes beyond the tales of wilderness living, exploring both the experiences that led Chris to a solitary lifestyle and her transition to a life closer to the grid. Her new book offers personal and honest insight into the “Wilderness Dweller.”
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 14, 2017
October 17, 2017. Burnaby Library. The room is packed.
“Do you have a dog?” author Chris Czajkowski asks each person who queues to buy her latest book, Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga. She autographs a copy from her and her dogs, signs it to you and yours. Old friends appear; laughs and memories are shared. Four decades of her life in the Canadian wilderness is neatly laid out in piles across tables at the front of the room. Before she begins her slideshow, Chris introduces each of the eleven books, always leaving us with a smile and a chuckle.
Chris’s latest book is narrated by Harry, a street urchin, who arrived in 2009 at the age of two. It begins like this: “The first time I met Chris I was wearing a diaper.” Many of Chris’s dogs are rescues destined for the needle or a bullet, but after a week or two at one of her cabins in the B.C. wilderness, their lives are resurrected.
Her canine characters are archetypal. Badger (who is now twelve and accompanied Harry and Chris on this book tour) is the wise old man, the Dumbledore of dogs. Taya is a poet. Sport, a chicken-chomping hunter. Nahanni, a princess:
“Nahanni was a very pretty girl—snow white with a long pink nose that she kept quite firmly in the air. She was a purebred, she immediately had me know—a designer white Husky born in the Arctic. She really could not be expected to associate with anyone of lesser ilk.”
The book is sweet, charming, poetic, and practical, told in the viewpoints of many dogs who’ve lived with Chris, some for briefer times than others. There are moments of tears, terror, and laughter. For example, Taya, a bearish husky, leaves an eccentric smoking spinster who trains packs of sled-dogs in the Arctic, to join Chris and Sport when Lonesome must retire. (Chris always keeps a pair of dogs, sews them large backpacks, and trains them to carry her hiking supplies.) They arrive at the cabin by floatplane and will winter there alone for three months, occasionally hiking through the snowy mountainous terrain. Taya seems poetic in these moments: “Our enormously elongated shadows stretched smoke-blue in front of us on the pinkish ice. Our legs were like enormous trees tapering to a vast distance; our heads were no bigger than pieces of dog kibble.”
Chris jokes that there will be special guests this evening, but not until the end of the show. “When they come in, everyone stops listening to me.” And, this is exactly what happens when the door opens. Harry walks calmly down the centre aisle through the tangle of outstretched hands; while, Badger collapses on the floor to have his belly rubbed.
In this historic moment, when there seems to be no place unknown to man, Chris Czajkowski and her canine pack, explore a barren and beautiful world, threatened only by the forces of nature. Fire is the worst threat. Prompted by lightning strikes and weather change, summer fires have threatened her cabins since 2004.
I will admit, Chris is one of my heroes. She built her cabins. “It was the only way to get what I wanted,” she says. And, because she suffers with food sensitivities, she grows her own food. “You can’t get organic food there.” She shops in bulk two or three times a year; the first item on her list being dog kibble. How did she manage to build cabins, raise dogs, run an eco-tourism business, and become a published author? The answer is in her books.
Harry is a charming book. Chris has included a hand drawn map (she loves to sketch), several black and white photographs (she is a wonderful photographer), and a canine timeline that reflects the building of her six cabins in the West Chilcotin. Chris’s life is not measured by clocks or jobs; her moments sync with nature and survival.
Visit her website: http://www.wildernessdweller.ca/
Harbour Publishing , 2017
Published https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com (December 2017)
“Do you have a dog?” author Chris Czajkowski asks each person who queues to buy her latest book, Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga. She autographs a copy from her and her dogs, signs it to you and yours. Old friends appear; laughs and memories are shared. Four decades of her life in the Canadian wilderness is neatly laid out in piles across tables at the front of the room. Before she begins her slideshow, Chris introduces each of the eleven books, always leaving us with a smile and a chuckle.
Chris’s latest book is narrated by Harry, a street urchin, who arrived in 2009 at the age of two. It begins like this: “The first time I met Chris I was wearing a diaper.” Many of Chris’s dogs are rescues destined for the needle or a bullet, but after a week or two at one of her cabins in the B.C. wilderness, their lives are resurrected.
Her canine characters are archetypal. Badger (who is now twelve and accompanied Harry and Chris on this book tour) is the wise old man, the Dumbledore of dogs. Taya is a poet. Sport, a chicken-chomping hunter. Nahanni, a princess:
“Nahanni was a very pretty girl—snow white with a long pink nose that she kept quite firmly in the air. She was a purebred, she immediately had me know—a designer white Husky born in the Arctic. She really could not be expected to associate with anyone of lesser ilk.”
The book is sweet, charming, poetic, and practical, told in the viewpoints of many dogs who’ve lived with Chris, some for briefer times than others. There are moments of tears, terror, and laughter. For example, Taya, a bearish husky, leaves an eccentric smoking spinster who trains packs of sled-dogs in the Arctic, to join Chris and Sport when Lonesome must retire. (Chris always keeps a pair of dogs, sews them large backpacks, and trains them to carry her hiking supplies.) They arrive at the cabin by floatplane and will winter there alone for three months, occasionally hiking through the snowy mountainous terrain. Taya seems poetic in these moments: “Our enormously elongated shadows stretched smoke-blue in front of us on the pinkish ice. Our legs were like enormous trees tapering to a vast distance; our heads were no bigger than pieces of dog kibble.”
Chris jokes that there will be special guests this evening, but not until the end of the show. “When they come in, everyone stops listening to me.” And, this is exactly what happens when the door opens. Harry walks calmly down the centre aisle through the tangle of outstretched hands; while, Badger collapses on the floor to have his belly rubbed.
In this historic moment, when there seems to be no place unknown to man, Chris Czajkowski and her canine pack, explore a barren and beautiful world, threatened only by the forces of nature. Fire is the worst threat. Prompted by lightning strikes and weather change, summer fires have threatened her cabins since 2004.
I will admit, Chris is one of my heroes. She built her cabins. “It was the only way to get what I wanted,” she says. And, because she suffers with food sensitivities, she grows her own food. “You can’t get organic food there.” She shops in bulk two or three times a year; the first item on her list being dog kibble. How did she manage to build cabins, raise dogs, run an eco-tourism business, and become a published author? The answer is in her books.
Harry is a charming book. Chris has included a hand drawn map (she loves to sketch), several black and white photographs (she is a wonderful photographer), and a canine timeline that reflects the building of her six cabins in the West Chilcotin. Chris’s life is not measured by clocks or jobs; her moments sync with nature and survival.
Visit her website: http://www.wildernessdweller.ca/
Harbour Publishing , 2017
Published https://www.ottawareviewofbooks.com (December 2017)
September 6, 2017
If you are looking for sentimentality, this book is not for you. "Harry" recounts the lives of many of the canines who have accompanied Chris Czajkowski through her life living off-grid in the remote Chilcotin and BC's coastal mountains. While the book lacks sentimentality it does not lack feeling. Life is challenging and often painfully difficult choices have to be made in order for "the pack"and its individual members to survive or, at the very least, not suffer.
There are moments of sadness as the story of each dog comes to an end - and each for far different reasons than the others. But those moments are countered throughout the book with humour, wit and wisdom. Chris, through Harry, shares her joy of the little things - like a field of alpine flowers in full bloom - and her matter of fact way of getting things done through self-reliance in an often times hostile environment.
There are moments of sadness as the story of each dog comes to an end - and each for far different reasons than the others. But those moments are countered throughout the book with humour, wit and wisdom. Chris, through Harry, shares her joy of the little things - like a field of alpine flowers in full bloom - and her matter of fact way of getting things done through self-reliance in an often times hostile environment.
April 14, 2018
The story is told from the perspective of a dog named Harry. He is the last in a long string of dogs Chris has owned. She had spent about thirty years living in the wilderness which she loves. During the summer, she hosted a tourist camp specializing in the outdoor life; hiking, plant culture. During the winter, she wrote books on her adventures. When one of her books was published, she would go on book tours before the tourist season started. She was completely independent building her own buildings, living off the grid, and enjoying nature. It is an engaging story of a wilderness lover who lived her life the way she wanted and the dogs she owned who each had their own unique personalities and talents.
May 6, 2018
A very well written story of a woman and her dogs from the dogs' perspective. Enjoyed reading a local book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews