Capturing the Summit: 

Hamilton Mack Laing and the Mount Logan Expedition of 1925

This is a project three years in the making, one that emerged from researching the papers of H.M. Laing while working on Riding the Continent

In June 2023, Ronsdale Press published Capturing the Summit. It is not only the remarkable account of the mountaineers who ascended the tallest peak in Canada, it also follows naturalist and cinematographer, Hamilton Mack Laing, from Comox, British Columbia, as he is immersed in a prolific adventure during the golden era of Canadian mountaineering.

“The work was gruelling and monotonous, and the journey filled with discord, exhaustion and heartbreak, but the author carries the progress toward the summit with compelling narrative.” -Michael Gates, Yukon News

“Kudos to Trevor Marc Hughes and Ronsdale Press for faithfully recounting a foundational episode in the history of mountaineering in our country.” – Pat Morrow, author and mountaineer, recipient of The Order of Canada

“[Hughes] writes with a strong sense of the epic that at times leaves one holding one’s breath with anticipation or fear, at times wanting to clap and cheer for the participants out loud.” – Miramichi Reader

“Capturing The Summit deftly weaves two compelling stories: Laing’s solo mission as naturalist and the mountaineering team’s attempt on Mount Logan. Archival photos and still images from The Conquest of Mount Logan film help lift the narrative from the valley floor to soaring peaks.” – Mark Forsythe, BC BOOKWORLD

“From his extensive research, Hughes weaves the tale of two concurrent, never repeated events into one story for the reader: the stoic naturalist who spent three months alone in the Chitina River valley, and the mountaineers struggling against the odds as a team upward toward the the 5,959-metre summit of Mount Logan in a landscape devoid of any living thing.” – Paul Geddes, Canadian Alpine Journal

“With the help of both Laing’s and Lambart’s diaries, Hughes delivers two adventure stories for the price of one. Two men, a naturalist and a mountaineer, offer the reader a visceral experience of the North and its mighty landscapes.” -Dana Gee, The Vancouver Sun

“Hughes does much to rescue from obscurity the life and times of Hamilton Mack Laing, the exploratory naturalist who breathed science into the epdi first ascent of Canada’s highest peak.” – Zac Robinson, editor, Conrad Kain: Letters from a Wandering Mountain Guide, 1906-1933 and chair, expeditions committee, Royal Canadian Geographical Society

“Readers, especially birders, will gain insights from this book that can also enrich classroom teaching. Well researched and based on trip diaries, reports, and museum catalogues, the book has a bibliography, index, and appendices. A valuable afterword sets Laing into a historical context pertinent to the traditions of natural history, with specimen collections and museums serving as scientific and educational means of advancing conservation and ecological thinking.” -PearlAnn Reichwein and Lyndsay Conrad, BC Studies

“Mack was left alone in the remote wilderness, relying on his ingenuity and resourcefulness to survive. many of the species he collected are now under threat from climate change. Essentially, Mack was an ecological historian.” –Mack Laing Heritage Society

My book trailer, shot in Courtenay, B.C. including film from The Conquest of Mount Logan:

 

Past Events

Date: June 29, 2024

Time: 7pm

Place: The Globe Theatre, Atlin, B.C.

What a privilege it was to be in Whitehorse and Atlin across the Canada Day weekend June 29- July 1, 2024. I’d never been to either community, and straight off the plane in Whitehorse I had the opportunity to interview author and historian Michael Gates for The British Columbia Review Interview Series. Immediately following I met Jacqueline Bedard, Executive Director of Yukon Words. She drove me to Atlin, a place I’d always associated with adventure in the North ever since seeing the 1983 film version of Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf, which was partially shot there. Jacqueline and I talked about her wonderful organization, which supports and promotes writers and storytellers in the region, and Atlin, how despite being within B.C.’s boundaries, is more closely linked to the Yukon, and specifically Whitehorse, as there is only one road out, which leads to Whitehorse! After interviewing Jacqueline for the Interview Series (and a lovely dinner at her Atlin cabin), I was transported to the home of writer Fiona McGlynn, and her husband Robin, where I interviewed Fiona, who has a contribution in the recent title Points of Interest: In Search of the People, Places, and Stories of B.C. titled “Serving the Cranberry Crowd.”

The evening event on June 29 was a real pleasure. Held at the historic Globe Theatre, a group of supportive local residents, and authors as well, dropped by for readings by Fiona McGlynn, Eva Holland, and myself. As author Kate Harris moved around the space taking excellent photographs of the evening, all were shaking hands or hugging, and caught up with each other, and I got a snapshot of the community there, in this tight-knit town of 300 folks.

Jacqueline Bedard started things off by welcoming us, and told us more about Yukon Words, and Words Out Loud, the event we were attending, which was a monthly event, featuring author readings and an open mic. Fiona McGlynn read from her contribution to Points of Interest, describing bartending in Atlin, which was her introduction to the town. Eva Holland, author of Nerve: A Personal Journey Through the Science of Fear, by Eva Holland, read from her recent work for Outside Magazine , featuring a fascinating article about the bus featured in Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.

I got up on stage next and read from Capturing the Summit, finding it very appropriate to, not only be reading excerpts from this story which took place, for the most part, not too far away in the St. Elias Range, but also in this place which I associated so much with adventure in the North. But that last point was just my own preconceived notion of the place I was in. What struck me, and what has stayed with me since, was the warm and hospitable welcome I received, and the wonderful community that I found in the northwest of the province.

My sincere thanks to Jacqueline Bedard, Fiona McGlynn, and those I met in the town of Atlin for that warm welcome. My visit there is one I will not soon forget.

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I had a wonderful time at the Tea and Book Launch event –  a fundraiser for the Marpole Museum and Historical Society held at St. Augustine’s Hall, 8680 Hudson Street in Vancouver, B.C. on Saturday, April 6, 2024. Not only did I get to catch up with members of the society over a tasty nanaimo bar and welcome cup of tea, I got to meet and get to know fellow authors Danielle Marcotte (who worked in the same CBC building I did for my decade there, just down the hall), Vicki Earle, and Silvana Goldemberg.

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Thanks to those that stopped by the Alpine Club of Canada table at MEC, 111 2nd Ave East in Vancouver on Saturday, October 21, 11am – 3:00pm

I was at the Alpine Club of Canada, Vancouver Section’s table with copies of Capturing the Summit, speaking with members, and promoting the sale of the Canadian Alpine Journal (the 2023 CAJ features a review of Capturing the Summit written by Paul Geddes and the 1925 CAJ was a primary source when researching the book), encouraging folks to sign up to become a member with their local ACC (I recently became a member myself).

It was a pleasure to attend alongside Alpine Club of Canada’s Vancouver Section members Paul Geddes, Ian MacNab, and Richa Chuttani.

Thanks to the Alpine Club of Canada, Vancouver Section for hosting my presentation at the Floral Hall at VanDusen Botanical Garden, Vancouver, B.C. on September 26, 2023  at 7pm. We had over 50 folks turn up. My special thanks to Richa Chuttani for organizing the event (and the technology!) and to Anna Milino for the wonderful introduction! I tried to tell an abbreviated version of the story of the Mount Logan Expedition, mainly from the mountaineers’ perspective. It was a significant date, as it was 100 years since the Alpine Club of Canada meeting, held in Vancouver, that created the expedition committee.

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Thanks to those who came and visited the Laughing Oyster Bookshop, 286 Fifth Street in Courtenay, from 1:00-4:00 pm on Saturday, June 17, 2023. It was a pleasure to meet you and tell you about Capturing the Summit. Also it was a pleasure to reconnect with members of the Mack Laing Heritage Society for an evening screening of The Conquest of Mount Logan where I also met mountaineer Lindsay Elms. Coincidentally, that same weekend saw the publication of Dana Gee’s article in the Vancouver Sun titled “Capturing the Summit offers readers a true Canadian adventure story on Mount Logan: Vancouver writer Trevor Marc Hughes delivers a look inside the life of exploratory naturalist Hamilton Mack Laing.”