Books with title Three Against The Wilderness

Eric Collier's riveting recollections about the 26 years that he, his wife Lillian and son Veasy spent homesteading in the isolated Chilcotin wilderness made for an international bestseller and one of the most famous books ever written about the area.In the early 1930s, Collier and his family moved to Meldrum Creek, where the couple built their own log house and learned to live off the land. Fulfilling a promise to Lillian's grandmother to bring the beavers back to the area she knew as a child before the White man came, Collier was instrumental in the species' survival. Collier's timeless tales about roughing it in the bush and the resourcefulness inspired by this lifestyle's challenges will engage readers young and old.

Collier, a young Englishman, who first came to Canada in 1919, married a quarter-breed Indian girl, then took off into the primitive wilderness of British Columbia where he had been granted sole trapping rights to 150,000 acres. There they almost single-handedly brought the barren wilderness, ravaged by fires, back to life and in the process created a truly remarkable family relationship. This achievement was recognized by the British Columbia Game Dept. as a prime example of what a few individuals can do to bring back the natural wealth of an area. There is a story of their desperate attempt to get a winter's supply of grease by throwing a torch into a bear's cave. Another dramatic account is of a 4 year fight against a vicious wolf. Lillian, his wife, was almost killed by a moose. One exciting chapter tells of the heroism of Lillian to rescue her ill son by dashing across the icebound lake at night, which Eric lay desperately sick with the flu. A wonderful, exciting true story.