This exhilarating journey through British Columbia's historic cattle country takes the reader from the high Chilcotin meadows to the rich irrigated fields of the southern Okanagan, from cattle drives to modern marketing, from urban ranches to those tucked away in splendid isolation - all with spectacular full-colour photographs. Ranchland is a gorgeous, inspiring portrait of BC cattle raisers and cattle country.

Rick Blacklaws was born in Calgary, Alberta, and came to BC thirty years ago to complete his graduate studies in archaeology. During that time he has also travelled BC, photographing the province in all its regions and seasons. Trained in landscape photography, Rick creates images that document people and their relationship to the land. Ranchland is his third book; his most recent title, The Fraser River (text by Alan Haig-Brown), won the 1997 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize.

Rick Blacklaws' profile page

Diana French has called the Cariboo Chilcotin her home since 1951 when she came to teach in a one-room school. She married Bob French, the son of a pioneer family, and they lived in different parts of the area before settling in Williams Lake in 1970. Along with raising five sons, Diana continued to teach, and later worked as a reporter then editor for the Williams Lake Tribune. She still writes a weekly column for that paper. She is the author of The Road Runs West: A Century Along the Bella Coola/Chilcotin Road (Harbour Publishing) and co-authored, with Rick Blacklaws, Ranchland: British Columbia's Cattle Country (Harbour Publishing).

Diana French's profile page

Stephen Hume was raised in fishing, farming and logging communities across Alberta and BC and studied at the University of Victoria. A journalist for over 35 years, Hume was editor-in-chief at the Edmonton Journal before moving to BC to become columnist and feature writer for the Vancouver Sun. He has won more than a dozen awards for his poetry, essays and journalism, including the Writers Guild of Alberta Literary Award, the Southam President's Award and the Marjorie Nichols Memorial Award. Stephen became the first Canadian to win the Dolly Connelly prize for environmental writing. His other books include Raincoast Chronicles 20: Lilies and Fireweed, Bush Telegraph and Off the Map, which was shortlisted for a Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize. He currently teaches professional writing at the University of Victoria.

Stephen Hume's profile page