This website is currently being revised. My apologies for links and other things that don’t work.
— Ben
Ben Gadd knows the Canadian Rocky Mountains well. He has written or co-authored ten books on the area, plus his memoir about living and working in the Rockies nearly all his life.
Ben’s best-selling Handbook of the Canadian Rockies is an award-winning guide to everything from geology, botany and bears to human history, places to visit and appropriate recreational activities. With a degree in Earth science and four decades of teaching and writing about the Rockies, Ben is an acknowledged authority on the region. (Click here for Ben’s résumé, a short bio, his books, and more photos.)
In the early 1980s Ben worked for the Canadian government as a park interpreter in Jasper National Park. In 1985 he and his wife Cia became independent natural-history guides. They may have been the first such licenced private-sector interpreters in the national parks.
Since then Ben has led many bus tours, guided walks and backpacking trips. He has presented hundreds of interpretive talks and been accredited by the Canadian professional Interpretive Guides Association as a master interpreter.
Ben retired from doing this sort of work in 2016. Click here to view the hilarious skit that Laurie Schwartz, a master interpreter with the Interpretive Guides Association, presented during his retirement party in Canmore. (That’s Dave Verhulst in the skit, also an IGA master interpreter, improvising on the piano.)
Nowadays Ben spends his time enjoying his family and friends and roaming the mountains he loves. He still posts interesting material that you can download at no charge. To get updates on his books, the notes for one of his lectures, his equipment lists for hiking, backpacking and back-country skiing in the Rockies, assorted geological material, the full text of one of his popular essays/speeches or to listen to one of the short musical pieces he has composed, please go to the downloads page.