In the late 1980s, Chris Czajkowski left her truck at the end of a logging road 300 kilometres north of Vancouver and hiked for two days on unmarked wilderness trails to the site of what would become her home. This is her account of building three log cabins, an eco-tourism business and a life beside an unnamed lake 5,000 feet high in the Coast Range mountains. This new trade paper edition of Diary of a Wilderness Dweller shares Czajkowski's adventures from the beginning as she wields chainsaw and axe to forge a different kind of life.

Chris Czajkowski was born and raised in the north of England. She lived and worked in Uganda, New Zealand, the South Pacific and South America before settling in the remote reaches of British Columbia's Coast Range mountains, 480 kilometres north of Vancouver, where she created the Nuk Tessli Alpine Experience, an ecotourism business catering to hikers and naturalists. She has written ten books about her nearly thirty years of wilderness living, including Snowshoes and Spotted Dick: Letters from a Wilderness Dweller, A Mountain Year: Nature Diary of a Wilderness Dweller, A Wilderness Dweller's Cookbook: The Best Bread in the World and Other Recipes and most recently, Ginty's Ghost: A Wilderness Dweller's Dream.

Chris Czajkowski's profile page

"As western society becomes increasingly reliant on technology and marches further from its roots, Czajkowski's books allow us to share a rare, lingering glimpse of frontier life."
--Vancouver Sun

Vancouver Sun

"Chris transports the reader into the trackless expanse that is her neighbourhood, opening a truly experiential window into the world of those who live alone, far from the concrete canyons that many of us call home."
--bcbooks.com

bcbooks.com

"Czajkowski has nurtured and developed a connection to the earth that most of us can hardly relate to, let alone appreciate ... [She] has followed a different path, reminding us of how much we don't need, and how much we are missing."
--The Globe & Mail

The Globe and Mail