Fishing in B.C.'s wilderness fuels the bonds of friendship between Ehor Boyanowsky and literary giant Ted Hughes.

They met at a poetry reading, but became friends through their shared, and unquenchable, passion for fishing. Against the backdrop of the Dean River, one of the world's greatest steelhead rivers, the two men explored their mutual regard for the planet's wild places. Boyanowsky draws on personal correspondence, interviews and journal entries to recreate their encounters and to paint an intimate portrait of a lifelong outdoorsman, conservationist and artist.

The book also goes behind the creative process as fishing logs transmute into poetry, talk becomes action and the queen's bard composes bawdy verse on the drive to a stag party. Boyanowsky realizes he's been privileged to see a Hughes who is different from the public persona.

In these tales of male friendship and the primal act of fly-fishing, the reader gets glimpses of the "nature red in tooth and claw" that drew Ted Hughes to Canada, and rekindled his love of the natural world.

Ehor Boyanowsky has written extensively on fishing and conservation issues in such magazines as Fly Rod & Reel and is the co-author of The Pocket Guide to Fly Fishing for Steelhead. As well as being a former president of the Steelhead Society of British Columbia, he is also a criminal psychologist and professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and the author of academic papers on violence and aggression. He lives at Hole in the Wall, near Horseshoe Bay, B.C.

Ehor Boyanowsky's profile page

• Nominated, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

"At first glance this seems like a book about fishing...But it is also a book about a remarkable friendship between British poet laureate Hughes...and SFU criminologist and author Ehor Boyanowsky, and about the passion they shared to save threatened environments."

AQ Magazine

"In [Savage Gods, Silver Ghosts], Boyanowsky offers a charming memoir that traces his relationship with 'my dear and great friend' [Ted Hughes]...This is a small book that pays tribute to a large man. It is the literary equivalent of a good day on the water when the line between fly fishing and poetry vanishes."

Waterloo Region Record

"In Savage Gods, Silver Ghosts: In the Wild with Ted Hughes, Ehor Boyanowsky reveals that side of the former British Poet Laureate, remembering their friendship not only as anglers together, but also as writers and conservationists."

Rise Forms

"Boyanowsky's descriptions of Hughes's numerous fishing expeditions (and poetry readings) in B.C. give a quick but insightful picture of the poet...a generally illuminating look at an unusual friendship."

Quill & Quire