WHERE MEN STAND TALL

This story is incredible.

It describes the life style and working conditions Ed van Zeeland finds himself in, in a remote logging camp. He alternately is a tree planter, compass man, timber cruiser and road lay out man, and this thrilling, fascinating, heart-stopping narrative follows him as he goes from assignment to assignment throughout British Columbia over the course of a decade.

During that era, van Zeeland experiences a life time's worth of escapades and meets a host of eccentric characters who, like him, share indomitable courage and devotion, and an unquenchable thirst for the great outdoors and the unsurpassed beauty of nature.

His encounter with a black she-bear and more so his escape from a cougar are hair raising stories in this well written story.

It is novel is sure to intrigue anyone who has ever worked in the woods, or walked in the woods, as well as anyone who enjoys reading about different lifestyles and different careers.

There probably aren't many Ed van Zeelands left in the world, but his world is definitely worth reading about.

Ed van Zeeland is a fictional character, but he and the adventures he encounters are largely based on author William (Bill) Endert's real life and career. Endert, who immigrated to British Columbia from the Netherlands in the 1960s, spent ten years-the best years of his life-working as a tree planter, compass man, timber cruiser, and road layout man in the woods of his adopted province, mainly for Integrated Forest Companies and Forestry Consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia. He spent that decade travelling from the Queen Charlottes to the Kootenays, and from the West Coast to the Interior, and he wrote where Men Stand Tall in order to share with readers his countless hard-to-believe experiences while also paying tribute to the beauty and grandeur of his adopted country. Twenty years ago, Endert wrote and self-published a memoir entitled, The Timber cruisers, and borrowed much of its content for this new non-fictionalized account of his life.

Widowed, he lives a not so quiet life in Sechelt, British Columbia, where he kayaked every inlet for twenty one years, and hiked every trail on the Sunshine Coast.