Leaning on the Wind: Under the Spell of the Great Chinook - Hardcover

Marty, Sid

3.86

65 ratings by Goodreads

9780062585202: Leaning on the Wind: Under the Spell of the Great Chinook

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062585207 ISBN 13: 9780062585202

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1995

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Sid Marty lives in Chinook Country - a vast land of mountain, foothills, prairie and sky - where the warm Pacific wind blows in a broad belt along the eastern slopes of the Rockies, turning winter temporarily into spring. Known to hurl box cars off their tracks and make trees grow parallel to the ground, the legendary chinook created the plains and gave rise to the cowboy life.
From his home at the foot of the Livingstone Range in southern Alberta near the border of Montana, Marty embarks on a search for the spirit of the land. His journey takes him into the past, from the prehistoric forces that shaped the mountains and the days of the great plains buffalo hunters to the early settlers who came in search of freedom. Along the way, he encounters a remarkable gallery of characters on both sides of the border: cowboy poets, rodeo riders, local oracles, old-time ranchers, native healers, encroaching capitalists. As the unpredictable chinook dances and rages, Marty weaves his own experiences into the life around him to create a richly entertaining portrait of the wild and not-so-wild west.

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From the Publisher:

The Chinook, a warm Pacific wind that blows in a broad belt along the eastern slopes of the Rockies turning winter into a temporary spring, is the stuff of myth and legend. Known to hurl a freight train off its tracks and make trees grow parallel to the ground, it carved out the plains and created the cowboy life.

Sid Marty's search for the Chinook is a grand interweaving of Native legend, pioneer tales, cowboy myths, wildlife stories and often haunting insights into a force that has indelibly marked life on the southern prairie and foothills of Alberta and Montana.

Warm, wry and brilliantly amusing, Leaning on the Wind is also a personal journey -- a quest into the land of Sid Marty's ancestors and neighbors in which he encounters his abandoned family homestead, a gathering of cowboy poets and a school for rodeo clowns -- not to mention a psychopathic grouse. Throughout his journey, the Chinook dances and rages, a powerful connector in this entertaining, richly epic portrait of the profound relationship among people, culture and natural forces.

From the Inside Flap:

217;s extraordinary clarity of thought and language makes this ambitious book a pleasure to read. He combines native legends, pioneer tales, cowboy myths, and wildlife stories to paint an engaging portrait of his home in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, near Pincher Creek, Alberta. There is a rich store of history here – geological, human, and personal – and fascinating glimpses of individual lives. Marty has the rare ability to draw universal insight from his personal experience and observation. A delight.

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