It is unlikely Hal Hammond ever dreamed his stories would achieve fame and immortality. But in the retelling of his father's stories, Dick Hammond has brought his father a wide audience twenty-six years after his death in 1975.

Hal Hammond worked as a logger, a tracker and a beachcomber during his time on the BC coast. Most of that was spent on the Sunshine Coast, which is the setting for the unusual stories and characters that return to life in A Touch of Strange.

These tales have been chiselled and smoothed by countless renditions to family and friends during a time when storytellers played the role now appropriated by television and daily life was dramatic enough that storytellers didn't have to exaggerate.

Myths, mysteries and the memorable characters that play them out are the heart of this sometimes chilling, sometimes hilarious collection of stories. Discover the bones of an old man sitting quaintly on a creek bank, twenty years after he disappeared in the woods; the charred remains of a man beneath a lone boulder on a desolate island; and the jellyfish as big as a boat that wreaks revenge on those who indulge in mindless malevolence.

Dick Hammond (b Gibsons BC March 16, 1929; d Sechelt BC Sept 10,2008)
Dick Hammond was born in 1929 and lived on the Sunshine Coast all his life. He worked as a handlogger and a timber cruiser's helper, and was a self-employed log salvor since 1955. He is the author of Tales from Hidden Basin and a contributor to Raincoast Chronicles Eleven Up, Raincoast Chronicles 17, and Raincoast Chronicles 18. In 2000 his book Haunted Waters was shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize for best book about BC. Dick Hammond died September 10, 2008 in St. Mary's hospital, Sechelt.

Dick Hammond's profile page