Summit Tales recounts the hardships, the adventures, the rivalries, and the accomplishments of mountaineers in the golden age of mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies. From fur traders seeking a better view of the land to government surveyors perfecting the art of phototopography; from university chums on summer vacation to England''s mountaineering elite seeking untrodden peaks; from Swiss guides who would haul just about anyone to the summits around Lake Louise to Gertrude Benham, who left everyone breathless in her wake, Summit Tales brings Canadian mountaineering history to life. Illustrated with one hundred archival images - some never before published - Summit Tales recreates the sense of adventure and the challenge of climbing in the Canadian wilderness when most of the land was unmapped and no guidebooks to the peaks existed.

Graeme Pole has been writing professionally since 1989. He is the best-selling author and photographer of six non-fiction books that describe the human history and the natural history of western Canada: Canadian Rockies SuperGuide, The Canadian Rockies: A History in Photographs, Walks and Easy Hikes in the Canadian Rockies, Classic Hikes in the Canadian Rockies, The Spiral Tunnels and The Big Hill and David Thompson. He has written and published one novel, Healy Park (1998). His wilderness essays and photography have been widely circulated.

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