Outdoor Junkie

About the Book

Robin Huth admits to having been pursued from a very young age by an addiction to the outdoors. A youthful craving for a life in the open drove him from his parents' comfortable home to the wilds of northern Manitoba to trap.

Outdoor Junkie portrays the old-time trapline that took the trapper a week of mushing a dog team to get all the way around. The book describes the travels of the old-time forest ranger who used horses, canoes, snowshoes and rafts to patrol his district. The life of a young couple attempting to bring up small children on a remote ranger station without electricity, running water or even motorized transportation creates some amusing and heart-felt stories. The book ruminates on the life of the timber cruiser who followed his compass needle across muskegs and over hills, and moved his camp along with him as he progressed on his compass route.

Part of Outdoor Junkie portrays winter camping, alpine hiking, rock and ice climbing, tour skiing and cave exploring. One chapter describes a three-week saddle-horse adventure tour into the bleak and treeless wilds of historic Spatsizi country where, years earlier, the accused murderers Peter Haimadan and Simon Gunanoot successfully evaded their pursuers.

Finally, in their late fifties, Dorothy and Robin built a house in semi-wilderness country in British Columbia's West Kootenays where for the first year they had to travel by canoe for mail and groceries. Here they generated their own power and cooked by wood. The last chapter talks of the 15 years they lived in these primitive but beautiful surroundings. Now, in their late 70's they have settled in Salmon Arm, British Columbia.

The stories in Outdoor Junkie brings back the lifestyles of the old-time trappers, rangers and cruisers.

About the Author

Robin Huth was born in Brandon, Manitoba in 1921. A youthful craving for an outdoor life drove him from his parents' comfortable middle-class home to the wilds of northern Manitoba to trap. After a stint as a soldier in the Second World War, he became a forest ranger/game warden, and later a timber cruiser. In their late fifties, Robin and his wife, Dorothy, sold their Edmonton house, and moved onto 30 acres of semi-wilderness in British Columbia where they lived until Robin turned 78 years of age.

Outdoor Junkie is an account of his life-long addiction to the outdoors. Mr. Huth has been a magazine writer of outdoor non-fiction since 1953. He has completed two outdoor history books, on commission for the Government of Alberta.

He and Dorothy now live in Salmon Arm, B.C.