Barry Broadfoot was born in Winnipeg in 1926, and died in Nanaimo, British Columbia, in 2003. After editing the University of Manitoba student newspaper, Broadfoot worked at papers in Winnipeg and Edmonton, and at the Vancouver Sun, where he was a reporter, editor and troublemaker for 17 years, starting in 1955. That ended in 1972, when Broadfoot chucked his daily job, got into his old Volkswagen with an upright typewriter, and drove across the country, collecting the stories that became his first book, Ten Lost Years. His other books include The Pioneer Years, Next Year Country and The Immigrant Years. Broadfoot received the Order of Canada in 1987.