Romancing the Rockies: Mountaineers, Missionaries, Marilyn & More

Marilyn Monroe made front-page headlines for weeks when she came to the Canadian Rockies in 1953 to star in a movie called River of No Return

Fifty years later, the locals were still talking about how she tore an ankle ligament and almost drowned while shooting a scene on the Maligne River, and was kicked out of the Jasper Park Lodge because she "dressed inappropriately" for the hotel's elegant dining room. That meant she came to dinner still dressed in the skin-tight jeans the wardrobe department had made for her to wear in the movie.

Author Brian Brennan tells that story and others in this collection of entertaining, inspiring and occasionally surprising historical vignettes about people who over the years have visited the Rockies for business or pleasure.

Other well-known visitors have included country singer Wilf Carter, who began his career by entertaining tourists on trail rides, wildlife artist Carl Rungius, who hunted and painted bighorn sheep, King George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth and - many years later - their daughter Princess Margaret.

Additionally, Brennan tells about the lesser-known visitors. They included the pioneering explorers, missionaries, adventurers, climbers, photographers and writers who were seduced by the romance, the allure, and the mystique of these ancient and fabled peaks.

"If you buy just one book about the Rockies, this is the one," writes Chic Scott, the author of Pushing the Limits: The Story of Canadian Mountaineering. Add it to your library today.