Staff
Best-selling author Matt Jackson will be at the Fort Frances Public Library this coming Monday (April 12) at 7 p.m. to share an evening of slides, music, and story-telling.
Jackson quit his job back in April, 1997 with plans to spend several months hitchhiking across Canada, taking in the scenery and meeting fellow Canadians from all walks of life.
Leaving from the Trans-Canada Highway near Lake Louise, Jackson ended up taking three-and-a-half years to reach Newfoundland, meeting hundreds of individuals and taking thousands of photos along the way.
His award-winning book, “The Canada Chronicles: A Four-Year Hitchhiking Odyssey,” tells of his adventures—ranging from rounding up elk calves and stretching bison hides in northern Saskatchewan to hitchhiking on a sailboat across the Great Lakes.
He also travelled above the Arctic Circle to dine on traditional Inuit fare, and paddled the Yukon River down to the Klondike gold fields at Dawson City.
The evening with Jackson on Monday will include tales of his adventures, which were full of twists and turns—some for the humorous and some of the tense variety, like when he was robbed in Dawson City, Yukon and then forced to confront the thieves.
Admission is free, with refreshments being provided by the Friends of the Library.
Jackson is a magazine writer, photojournalist, and professional speaker specializing in travel, adventure, science, conservation, and human interest stories.
His work has been featured in dozens of popular magazines, including Equinox, Explore, Canadian Geographic, and BBC Wildlife.
From 1998-2001, he was a regular columnist at Photo Life, Canada’s national photography magazine, and now is a contributing editor at Canadian Wildlife and Prairies North magazines.
“The Canada Chronicles: A Four-Year Hitchhiking Odyssey” won the Independent Publisher Book Award (also known as an IPPY) for best North American travel memoir in 2005.
Jackson also is president of Summit Studios, a Vancouver-based publishing company that recently launched a new series of anthologies edited by him, including “A Beaver is Eating My Canoe,” “I Learned Kung Fu from a Bear Cub,” “Mugged by a Moose,” and “I Sold My Gold Tooth for Gas Money.”
