(Chinook) – On Thursday, October 5th Mark Vitaris will be holding a book signing for his new novel “Borderlands” at the Chinook Library at 7 pm. Mark explains what the book is about.
“It’s as much about time as it is about place. It’s a photographic book with narratives, travel narratives, and history narratives. It’s basically about 5 years of traveling and crisscrossing the border between Alberta, Saskatchewan, Montana, and North Dakota.”
He also talks about what some of the narratives are about.
“Well, the narratives in the book range from historical narratives whereas for over the course of a four-year period I followed the trail of Sitting Bull when he was in Canada to the battle of Little Big Horn to the until he surrendered. There are narratives that cover my time traveling through the land he stayed in Canada and where he surrendered in North Dakota. The Photography is all black and white photography, and the other stories relate to people that I’ve met on the road and also place I happened to go.”
He also talked about what inspired the book.
“The book was inspired by the years of photography I had done I’ve been a commissioned photographer in Alberta for about 20 years and over that time I’ve done a lot of agricultural photography and the Agricultural photography lead me out to being in Southern Alberta for quite a bit. There I started following the milk river, so first the Milk River starts in Glacier Park and flows through Montana and then flows into Havre and then into the dam at Fort Peck. so eventually over the course of time I followed the milk river and one thing led to the next and I actually started covering more of the land around there, and the stories of the land and the book blossomed.”
He finished by talking about the new book he’s working on.
“So, I’m working on a book right now, its working title is “Buffalo Hunter” and basically what its about is the course of the buffalo over in North America and the artists and topographers and writers that followed the course of the buffalo. So, people like George Catlin, John Mix Stanley, Karl Bodmer, Wallace Stegner an American writer lived in southern Saskatchewan right near the U.S. Border, actually north of Chinook. and I went to his homestead and photographed there and the writing I’m working on right now. I’m not exactly sure where that is going but I got a year on the book coming out so.”
