Mountain Man: The Life of a Guide Outfitter

Life was one big adventure for Hiram Cody Tegart. At times unbelievable and others just downright impressive, Mountain Man is the celebration of a legend of a man and a legendary way of life that is quickly disappearing.

Cody was born in 1950 on a ranch in BC’s Columbia Valley. The bush that surrounded his family’s farm was the best playground any kid could ask for. Growing up with wildlife, guns and one misadventure after another, Cody quickly gained the skills he needed to help his father manage their guiding and outfitting operation. Located around the Palliser River, his father’s guiding territory extended to the Kootenay National Park and Alberta border. Cody eventually purchased the hunting business and built it into one of the most prosperous in BC. By 1984 he had an unprecedented success rate of 85 percent in elk hunts and an amazing 100 percent in goat hunts. This entertaining memoir is a collection of Cody’s most unruly, shocking and hilarious escapades. Cody sums up his well-lived outdoor life with his favourite saying: “Get tough or die!”

In Mountain Man, co-author and friend Andrew Bruce Richards collects tales written by Cody, but also includes his own memories and stories from other hunters, guides and friends to give a full account of this remarkable life. Mountain Man is an ode to Cody and a way of life that celebrates the thrill of a bull elk bugling on a frosty morning, the excitement of a hunt and the satisfaction of sitting in a smoky cabin with a strong drink afterwards and the smell of elk steaks on the grill lingering in the air.

Hiram Cody Tegart (Cody) was born in 1950 to a pioneering family in the Columbia Valley of British Columbia. He grew up on a ranch near Brisco where he learned to ride, shoot and work hard at a young age. Some of his earliest memories were of watching men ride off to his dad’s hunting territory and wanting so badly to join them. He learned to pack a horse and throw a diamond hitch and spent many of his summers in the hills. After high school, Cody tried his hand at being a carpenter in Calgary but the mountains called him back. Eventually he purchased the guiding business from his father in 1979 and ran it successfully before selling it in 1993. He continued to guide for others and, and in the off-season he logged and ran heavy equipment. He retired in 2017 and moved to Winfield, Alberta. Cody passed away in the spring of 2018.

Andrew Bruce Richards (Andy) was born in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan, in 1953. He lived on a small farm there, then moved to Flin Flon, Manitoba, where he developed his love of the outdoors. At age thirteen he moved with his mother to the Columbia Valley in British Columbia. He met Hiram Cody Tegart (Cody) in high school, where they developed a close friendship that would last ten years and rekindle twenty years later. After guiding one season for Cody’s father, Andy married his high school sweetheart and went to work in the forestry industry. Eventually deciding his career didn’t lie in the bush, he enrolled in the Journalism Arts Advertising Program at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. Starting in 1980, he worked at weekly newspapers in Quesnel, Salmon Arm and Victoria before joining the Times Colonist Daily. With small-town life calling, Andy and his wife moved to Summerland in 2001. After sixteen years with the Penticton Herald, he retired in 2016 and now spends his time doing the things he loves in the great outdoors.