Bernadette McDonald is an award-winning writer and consultant based in British Columbia. She has written over a dozen nonfiction books, including The Art of Freedom, Freedom Climbers, Brotherhood of the Rope, Tomaž Humar, and Alpine Rising. Bernadette was the founding Vice President of Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre and director of the Banff Mountain Festivals for 20 years. She is an honorary member of the Himalayan Club and the Polish Mountaineering Association, and is a Fellow of the Explorers Club. When not writing, Bernadette climbs, hikes, skis, paddles and grows grapes.
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Q&A with Bernadette McDonald, Award Winning Nonfiction Writer
Summit Journal: So let’s set the scene a bit: how does a farm girl from the flat expanse of Saskatchewan end up writing about the biggest mountains and mountaineers in the world?
Bernadette McDonald: It’s interesting to see how life unfolds, isn’t it.
The first time that farm girl saw the mountains (at the age of 11), she knew this was her landscape of choice. Of course, I had no idea of the “how” and the “when”, but I definitely knew that I felt at home in the mountains.
However, my main focus was music. I went to a boarding school that specialized in music and, immediately upon graduating, entered university in a music program. I was pretty focused during those years, practicing 4-6 hours a day (piano), as well as voice lessons and singing in a touring concert choir. Just before entering grad school to work on my MM [Masters of Music] in analytical theory, I took a “gap semester”.
Basically, I was a ski bum for a winter. One thing led to another, including meeting my future husband, Alan. He was a mountain person: building trails in the summer, doing avalanche control in the winter, and eventually becoming a National Park Warden. So, my mountain dream was coming true.
We were living up in Jasper National Park, spending weeks at a time in the backcountry, travelling with horses in summer and fall, and on skis in the winter. I continued with my music “career”, in a way, teaching piano and theory at a studio in Jasper.
Then, the Banff Centre started a new program for musicians who had finished all of their post-secondary training and wanted a residency-type experience, working with other musicians, composers, etc. I was accepted and I will forever be grateful to the Centre. It led to work with the Academy of Singing and, perhaps more importantly, with the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which was in its infancy.
Through that work, I met and got to know the crème de la crème of the mountaineering community. I had always been an avid reader of mountaineering books, so it was a natural evolution to start the Banff Mountain Book Festival. And I suppose it was also a natural evolution to begin writing those stories myself. After twenty years at the Centre, I decided to transition into full-time writing, which is what I’ve been doing since 2006.
Bernadette McDonald, writer and mountain culture consultant. Photo courtesy of Bernadette
SJ: After writing about Elizabeth Hawley, a chronicler of Himalayan expedition climbing, and Charles Houston, of K2 fame, you seem to have found your niche with Central/Eastern European mountaineers and alpinists — from Slovenia and Poland, in particular. What is your connection to these countries, and what attracts you to their stories?
BM: My attraction to the Eastern European mountaineering communities was through individual climbers that I met along the way, as well as one memorable party.
Part of my job with the festival was to invite leading alpinists to Banff to present lectures, and to be part of the festival. One of those was Wanda Rutkiewicz. I met her at a festival in France, was mesmerized by her stories, and invited her to be part of the following year’s festival as our guest of honour. She was midway through her Caravan of Dreams project, trying to climb all of the 14 8,000ers in quick succession. By today’s standards, it wouldn’t be considered “quick”, but back then it was ridiculously fast. She wasn’t using bottled oxygen, had no major sponsorship, didn’t use high-altitude porters and was climbing in small independent teams.
We had a long discussion about it in France, and I, like most people, advised her to consider a slower pace. We continued to correspond during the months that followed. The last aerogram letter from Wanda was from Kathmandu, just before she headed off to Kangchenjunga, where she disappeared.
Wanda made a huge impression on me, as did another group of Polish alpinists whom I met in Katowice a couple of years later. I was helping organize a film festival there, and at the closing night “after party”, I was introduced to a roomful of people who, I soon realized, represented the top high-altitude climbers in the world. Not all — but most.
What I also realized was that most of their names were almost completely unknown in the West; Wanda, Kukuczka and Voytek were, but the others? Not so much. It struck me that their stories should be told. For a number of years, I assumed somebody would write them. Eventually, that person was me. It was one of the most gratifying writing experiences of my career.
My introduction to the Slovenian mountaineering world was through a couple of climbers: Tomaž Humar and Silvo Karo. I knew them both because of their climbing careers, and also because I climbed with them in Slovenia and Croatia.
When Tomaž had his almost career-ending accident in his basement, I encouraged him to write about it. He declined, but promised to cooperate with me, if I would. I was always interested in providing as much historical and socio-economic context to individual biographies as I possibly could, so writing his introduced me to a whole new world in the Balkans, and more writing projects.
SJ: Yugoslavia and Poland, following the Second World War, share some parallels in that 1) they came under Communist regimes (though of very different ilk) and 2) in the context of climbing, they feature surprisingly challenging winter mountains that are used to train for the Greater Ranges. Beyond that, what is it about these countries that they produced so many high-end climbers like, among others, Wanda Rutkiewicz, Jerzy Kukuczka, and Voytek Kurtyka (for Poland) and Marko Prezelj, Tomaž Humar, and Luka Lindič (for Slovenia)?
BM: In both Poland and Slovenia, the post-war governments had training programs for climbers that were impressive. Many of the climbers joke about it now, and some of them resisted strongly, but it’s hard to deny that the training that these young climbers received was instrumental in their future success in the high mountains.
As well, their governments recognized climbing as a sport, and wanted their sportspeople to be supported financially, at least to a certain extent. It’s why there were so many state-supported expeditions to the high mountains, once the travel restrictions were lifted. Although there was no sponsorship as we know it today, the government's support functioned as sponsorship for these climbers.
There are other similarities as well. Living conditions in both Poland and Slovenia were not easy following the Second World War. The stories vary from truly horrific to just annoying, but it's clear that there was little to hold these climbers back from heading out in their overloaded trucks to the high mountains of Asia for months at a time. They had no money, but they were trained, they were ambitious and they were adventurous.
SJ: For those not familiar with the history of these countries, what do you hope readers take away from these books?
BM: I think it’s endlessly interesting to learn about the backstories of their lives: their Communist and Socialist governments, their education, training, jobs, career opportunities, living conditions, travel restrictions, family life, etc. Their situations were so fundamentally different than for climbers from the West. In many ways, much harder.
And yet, if you look at the mountaineering records being set during those years, many of them were done by climbers from the Eastern Bloc. And many of those climbs were not as well-known or as well-acknowledged in the West (in my opinion).
So, I would hope that readers take away an appreciation and respect for those mountaineering communities that pushed through a lot to achieve what they did – setting standards that in many cases have still not been bettered.
Bernadette's latest book is Alpine Rising, about the untold stories of local climbers and Sherpa from the Himalaya and Karakoram.
SJ: And for climbers from these countries, what does it mean for these books to be written?
BM: I was terribly nervous about writing “Freedom Climbers” because I had no idea how the Polish climbing community would react to a Canadian woman attempting to write their story. But I shouldn’t have been. They were so supportive and forthcoming and welcoming and grateful. So many hours spent around kitchen tables, looking at images, recording their stories, staying with their families, eating together and, in the end, almost becoming part of their community. When the Polish climbing community offered me honorary membership in the Polish Mountaineering Association, I was really touched by that gesture.
The Slovenian response is more complex. Most of the climbing community was extremely supportive and, like the Poles, super forthcoming and grateful. Likewise, with the Croatian climbers. But the Slovenian climbing community is somewhat more fragmented than what I was seeing in the Polish community at that time, and not all Slovenian climbers supported each other. As a result, there was some pushback from individual climbers regarding the inclusion of certain stories. I won’t elaborate more, but it was definitely a less cohesive experience, although very validating overall.
SJ: I enjoy your biographies because, in particular, they portray the personality of the characters and provide context for what made them, them (these aren’t dry, “just the facts, ma’am” accounts). When considering someone to biograph, what makes a compelling candidate to you?
BM: I suppose the best characters for a writer to tackle are the complex ones. Which is probably why Voytek Kurtyka was kind of a dream subject.
The historical context surrounding his career as an alpinist is full of drama and intrigue, tragedy, political turbulence and mind-boggling challenges. His personality is also very complex. He has a laser-sharp wit, is a perfectionist, holds high standards for himself and everyone around him, is compassionate, and highly articulate. And he has a conflicted relationship with fame. He would almost certainly never have written a memoir or autobiography — he abhorred the idea.
It felt almost like a rare privilege to have his enthusiastic cooperation on his biography.
SJ: In general, you write books. When you do write articles, such as “Kacper’s Last Climb” in the latest issue of Summit Journal, how do you pare down a story to be only a few thousand words instead of a few hundred thousand?
BM: With great difficulty. I understand the limits of the format and try as best I can to fit within the word count restraints. But as you can see, context means a lot to me, and it’s difficult to provide enough of that in a short piece like Kacper’s story. The challenge is to not leave anything out that actually contributes to his character development. So hard.
Excerpt from Kacper’s Last Climb, written by Bernadette McDonald, in SJ 323.
SJ: Without giving too much away, let’s talk about the article: who was Kacper Tekieli? What made him part of a “bridge generation” in climbing in Poland?
BM: Kacper was privileged to begin his climbing career while the “golden age” Polish climbing community was still active. They were no longer in their prime climbing years, but they were particularly active in mentoring the next generation. He benefited from that exposure to greatness.
At the same time, Kacper was a young man whose circle of friends included uber-sportspeople, like his wife. They knew so much more about high-level training than he and his mentors did. So, he was the beneficiary of both the more traditional approach to expeditions and the performance-oriented approach of his young contemporaries.
SJ: Why was his a story you wanted to tell? Will there be a book?
BM: As with so many of my writing projects, I was motivated by Kacper as an exceptional human being. He wasn’t just a great climber. He was funny, kind, generous, considerate and intelligent. I have lost a lot of friends in the mountains, but hearing of his death in the Alps was a gut punch. I couldn’t not write something about him. There could easily be a book, but it will be written by someone other than me. I am trying hard to “retire”.
SJ: Speaking of, is print dead?
BM: No, certainly not.
SJ: Lastly, what is the art of freedom, for you?
BM: I think at this stage of my life it’s finding a new balance between cerebral and physical activities and spending time with the people who are close to me. I am not going to complain about my life up to this point at all, but I did spend a LOT of time running around the world at a breakneck pace. Growing grapes is not easy, but there’s something to be said about the seasonal pace of things. We are harvesting our Syrah in two days, and then that’s it for this year. It will feel good to wrap that up and get the skis out.
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Feature Image: Winter in the High Tatras of Poland, the training ground for some of the world’s best mountaineers over the past 50+ years. From Kacper’s Last Climb, written by Bernadette McDonald, in Summit Journal 323. Photo by Marcin Kesek