I first set foot in Glacier National Park 43 years ago. Since then, I have found others like myself who have tried to capture their own truths about the crown of the continent on the printed page. Here are some of my favorites...
A Climber's Guide to Glacier National Park, by J. Gordon Edwards, 1995 (latest edition)
All Aboard! for Glacier, by C. W. Guthrie, 2004
Firestorm! - The Explosive Heaven's Peak Forest Fire of 1936, by Rolf L. Larson, 1987
Geology Along Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier National Park Montana, by Omer B. Raup, Robert L. Earhart, James W. Whipple, and Paul E. Carrara, 1983
Glacier Country, Montana Magazine, 1983
Glacier National Park - A Natural History Guide, by David Rockwell, 1995
Glacier's Secrets - Beyond the Roads and Above the Clouds, by George Ostrom, 1997
Guide to Glacier National Park, by George C. Ruhle, 1962
Going-to-the-Sun - The Story of the Highway Across Glacier National Park, by Rose Houk, 1984, with photographs by Pat O'Hara and Danny On
Place Names of Waterton-Glacier National Parks, by Jack Holterman, 1985
Plants of Waterton/Glacier National Parks, by Richard Shaw and Danny On, 1979
The Story of Marias Pass, by Grace Flandrau, a Great Northern Railway Publication, no date
The Trail Guide to Glacier National Park, by Erik Molvar, 1994
Trains, Trails, & Tin Lizzies, Glacier Natural History Association, 1987, with photographs from the George A. Grant Collection
Waterton and Glacier in a Snap!, by Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison, 2005
Where the Bald Eagles Gather, by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, 1984, with photographs by William Muñoz
Who Was Who in Glacier Land, by Jack Holterman, 2001
Friday, March 31, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Amazon Stats for "The Sun Singer"
“A suitably programmed computer can read a novel in a few minutes and record the list of all the words contained in the text, in order of frequency. “That way I can have an already completed reading at hand,” Lotaria says, “with an incalculable saving of time. What is the reading of a text, in fact, except the recording of certain thematic recurrences, certain insistencies of forms and meanings? An electronic reading supplies me with a list of the frequencies, which I have only to glance at to form an idea of the problems the book suggests to my critical study.” From If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino, 1979.
The “Search Inside” feature on for books listed on the Amazon.com web site not only allows readers to view selected pages, it provides a computerized view of the book for comparison with others.
I learn that the Fog Index (7.3), Flesch Index (76.2) and the Flesch-Kincaid Index (5.5) all put The Sun Singer into the “easier” reading category from the standpoint of readability formulas. That's good, I think, though potentially misleading.
Only 7% of the book’s 131,166 words are considered complex, the average number of syllables per word is 1.4, and the average number of words per sentence is 11.6, all within the parameters for easy reading.
In the “Fun Facts” category, prospective readers will learn that they 7,575 words per dollar and 7,734 words per ounce.
The concordance also includes the 100 most-frequently used words in the book. The names of the characters come in first: Robert appears 779 times, Gem appears 453 times and Marten appears 384 times. There are numerous occurrences of: dark, door, guardian, mountain, osprey and wind.
Amazon’s computers also spit out a list of capitalized phrases (CAPs) from the book. In a novel, many of these will be the proper names of people and places. The list for The Sun Singer is: Sun Singer, David Ward, Robert Adams, Grandfather Elliott, West Wood Street, Boundary Wall, Argyle Point, Sonny Trout, Milk Lake, Thomas Elliott, Daonie Sidhe, Lake Gordon, Spirit Mountain, Sylvia Zorn, Lake Deucalion, Angel Wing, Blue Dove, Julianne Wilson, Tuatha de Dannan City of the Last Returning, Father Sky, Staff of Wisdom, Dancing Bear Lake, Hidden Peak Mountain, Deucalion Point.
While the book’s Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs) don’t quite allow you to “read” the novel by looking at its use of phrases that don’t appear often in the word list for all of the novel’s using Amazon’s Search Inside feature, they’re somewhat telling: bear puke, staff wielder, story chair, elder staff, dream notebook, lightning falls, limitless light, city patrol, savage mountain, bakery truck, avalanche chute, sheep man.
When you click on these words on the Amazon site, you’ll see how often I used them as well as a list of other books in which they appear. For example, I used the phrase “bear puke” eight times, “staff wielder” five times, “limitless light” 16 times, “lightning falls” 22 times, and “savage mountain” six times.
A quick look at the other books using such terms may give prospective readers a few hints about the book. The references displaying for “limitless light” indicate it’s a Kabalistic term variously meaning God’s spirit or the light emanating from God. The references for “savage mountain” indicate that I am probably referring to the mountain usually called K2.
I seldom notice Amazon’s CAPs and SIPs for fiction, other than out of idle curiosity. The SIPs for Gone With the Wind include “slanting green eyes” and “pie wagon,” while the SIPs for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell include “madhouse attendants,” “practical magician” and “fairy roads.”
So far, our automation hasn’t quite made reading unnecessary, nor has it found a substitute for meeting the book’s characters, experiencing the setting, or bounding along on the thrills and chills of the plot.
The “Search Inside” feature on for books listed on the Amazon.com web site not only allows readers to view selected pages, it provides a computerized view of the book for comparison with others.
I learn that the Fog Index (7.3), Flesch Index (76.2) and the Flesch-Kincaid Index (5.5) all put The Sun Singer into the “easier” reading category from the standpoint of readability formulas. That's good, I think, though potentially misleading.
Only 7% of the book’s 131,166 words are considered complex, the average number of syllables per word is 1.4, and the average number of words per sentence is 11.6, all within the parameters for easy reading.
In the “Fun Facts” category, prospective readers will learn that they 7,575 words per dollar and 7,734 words per ounce.
The concordance also includes the 100 most-frequently used words in the book. The names of the characters come in first: Robert appears 779 times, Gem appears 453 times and Marten appears 384 times. There are numerous occurrences of: dark, door, guardian, mountain, osprey and wind.
Amazon’s computers also spit out a list of capitalized phrases (CAPs) from the book. In a novel, many of these will be the proper names of people and places. The list for The Sun Singer is: Sun Singer, David Ward, Robert Adams, Grandfather Elliott, West Wood Street, Boundary Wall, Argyle Point, Sonny Trout, Milk Lake, Thomas Elliott, Daonie Sidhe, Lake Gordon, Spirit Mountain, Sylvia Zorn, Lake Deucalion, Angel Wing, Blue Dove, Julianne Wilson, Tuatha de Dannan City of the Last Returning, Father Sky, Staff of Wisdom, Dancing Bear Lake, Hidden Peak Mountain, Deucalion Point.
While the book’s Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs) don’t quite allow you to “read” the novel by looking at its use of phrases that don’t appear often in the word list for all of the novel’s using Amazon’s Search Inside feature, they’re somewhat telling: bear puke, staff wielder, story chair, elder staff, dream notebook, lightning falls, limitless light, city patrol, savage mountain, bakery truck, avalanche chute, sheep man.
When you click on these words on the Amazon site, you’ll see how often I used them as well as a list of other books in which they appear. For example, I used the phrase “bear puke” eight times, “staff wielder” five times, “limitless light” 16 times, “lightning falls” 22 times, and “savage mountain” six times.
A quick look at the other books using such terms may give prospective readers a few hints about the book. The references displaying for “limitless light” indicate it’s a Kabalistic term variously meaning God’s spirit or the light emanating from God. The references for “savage mountain” indicate that I am probably referring to the mountain usually called K2.
I seldom notice Amazon’s CAPs and SIPs for fiction, other than out of idle curiosity. The SIPs for Gone With the Wind include “slanting green eyes” and “pie wagon,” while the SIPs for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell include “madhouse attendants,” “practical magician” and “fairy roads.”
So far, our automation hasn’t quite made reading unnecessary, nor has it found a substitute for meeting the book’s characters, experiencing the setting, or bounding along on the thrills and chills of the plot.
Friday, March 03, 2006
A Great Glacier Park Fun Facts Book
In the years since 1910 when Glacier National Park was established, this mountain preserve known as the Crown of the Continent and the Backbone of the World, has attracted a wide variety of colorful characters, odd happenings, little-known snippets of history, and good old funny stuff.
When it comes to fun facts about the park, my has attracted a wide variety of colorful characters, odd happenings, little-known snippets of history, and good old funny stuff. When it comes to fun facts about the park, my favorite book is Waterton and Glacier in a Snap! - Fast Facts & Titillating Trivia by Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison.
If you have been to Glacier National Park (Montana) or Waterton Lakes Park (Alberta), you were probably inspired by the glacier-carved peaks and valleys, the 1000 miles of trails, the old red busses, the flora and fauna, the historic hotels built by the Great Northern Railway, and the strange changes in the weather.
Ray Djuff began discovering the excitement and beauty of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park when he worked as a seasonal employee at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton. Chris Morrison has been writing about the park for about 20 years.
The chapter headings tip you off (as they should) to the kinds of titillating trivia you'll discover in this book: Gertie and Other Animals; Park Lore; On the Trail; Movies, Stars and VIPs; What's In a Name; Connections; Oddities; What Were They Thinking; Creatively Speaking; By the Numbers.
Let's take a peek inside...
Gertie was a grizzly bear who pan-handled for food along the Going-to-the-Sun highway in the 1940s. As the book says, "She learned to sit on her haunches and beg, with her front paws outstretched, sometimes in the middle of the road as traffic passed on either side."
Hired in 1910, Joseph Cosley was one of the park's original rangers. Unfortunately, he chose to make extra money trapping animals inside park boundaries for his fur-trading business. He wasn't caught and tried until 1929.
Hoke Smith, a publicity agent for the Great Northern Railway (1910-1920) used to spin a yarn about a purported geyser of 4000-year-old ice-cold bourbon in a hidden away part of the park.
Many movies have used Waterton and Glacier parks as settings for the action, including "Hidalgo," "Forrest Gump," "Heaven's Gate," "The Shining," and "Cattle Queen of Montana."
While the Blackfeet Indians considered the mountains as part of their domain, they spent most of their time on the plains. Many of the Blackfeet names given to the park's mountains, lakes, and rivers were bestowed by park developers who thought such names would provide the mystery and intrigue needed to lure visitors.
While the image on the famous buffalo nickel doesn't really belong to the legendary Blackfeet Chief Two Guns White Calf, the Great Northern Railway circulated a story in 1938 that visitors to the park could meet the Native American who posed for the coin.
When Going-to-the-Sun Road was dedicated in 1933, 4,000 people gathered at Logan Pass for chili cooked up at a Civilian conservation Corps (CCC) kitchen. The recipe called for 500 pounds of beans.
This 240-page book includes an index, a bibliography and hundreds of facts. It's a good read, a fun read, and an informative part of the Waterton-Glacier experience.
When it comes to fun facts about the park, my has attracted a wide variety of colorful characters, odd happenings, little-known snippets of history, and good old funny stuff. When it comes to fun facts about the park, my favorite book is Waterton and Glacier in a Snap! - Fast Facts & Titillating Trivia by Ray Djuff and Chris Morrison.
If you have been to Glacier National Park (Montana) or Waterton Lakes Park (Alberta), you were probably inspired by the glacier-carved peaks and valleys, the 1000 miles of trails, the old red busses, the flora and fauna, the historic hotels built by the Great Northern Railway, and the strange changes in the weather.
Ray Djuff began discovering the excitement and beauty of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park when he worked as a seasonal employee at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton. Chris Morrison has been writing about the park for about 20 years.
The chapter headings tip you off (as they should) to the kinds of titillating trivia you'll discover in this book: Gertie and Other Animals; Park Lore; On the Trail; Movies, Stars and VIPs; What's In a Name; Connections; Oddities; What Were They Thinking; Creatively Speaking; By the Numbers.
Let's take a peek inside...
Gertie was a grizzly bear who pan-handled for food along the Going-to-the-Sun highway in the 1940s. As the book says, "She learned to sit on her haunches and beg, with her front paws outstretched, sometimes in the middle of the road as traffic passed on either side."
Hired in 1910, Joseph Cosley was one of the park's original rangers. Unfortunately, he chose to make extra money trapping animals inside park boundaries for his fur-trading business. He wasn't caught and tried until 1929.
Hoke Smith, a publicity agent for the Great Northern Railway (1910-1920) used to spin a yarn about a purported geyser of 4000-year-old ice-cold bourbon in a hidden away part of the park.
Many movies have used Waterton and Glacier parks as settings for the action, including "Hidalgo," "Forrest Gump," "Heaven's Gate," "The Shining," and "Cattle Queen of Montana."
While the Blackfeet Indians considered the mountains as part of their domain, they spent most of their time on the plains. Many of the Blackfeet names given to the park's mountains, lakes, and rivers were bestowed by park developers who thought such names would provide the mystery and intrigue needed to lure visitors.
While the image on the famous buffalo nickel doesn't really belong to the legendary Blackfeet Chief Two Guns White Calf, the Great Northern Railway circulated a story in 1938 that visitors to the park could meet the Native American who posed for the coin.
When Going-to-the-Sun Road was dedicated in 1933, 4,000 people gathered at Logan Pass for chili cooked up at a Civilian conservation Corps (CCC) kitchen. The recipe called for 500 pounds of beans.
This 240-page book includes an index, a bibliography and hundreds of facts. It's a good read, a fun read, and an informative part of the Waterton-Glacier experience.
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