Canadians publish digital collection of club’s Alpine Journal

Print this story Email to a friend

The Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) has released a DVD containing every issue of the Canadian Alpine Journal from the past 100 years. EverUpward: A Century of Canadian Alpine Journals enables the texts of each issue, as well as photographs, to be searched digitally. The entire collection can also be word searched as one package.

“It has been a long and character-building journey for the many individuals who have worked on this digitization project,” says Isabelle Daigneault, ACC Vice-President of Mountain Culture, “From the scanning of each page of each journal to the proofing, editing, formatting, linking, producing the PDFs and finally creating the DVD, a long list of individuals contributed their time, effort, passion and ideas thereby giving this digitized century of journals the quality it deserves. These people, along with our many and generous sponsors, have made possible the enjoyment of reading and reliving an important part of our nation's cultural mountain heritage.” 

“One thing I know is true: the love, the beauty and the reverence for the mountains rings out of these pages from the first journal through to the last. Seeing that love flow from the pages of the CAJ over the last 100 years makes me feel connected to those who have expressed their feelings about the mountains,” said Vi Sandford, who scanned the pages.

“I can’t help but be inspired by author and photographer names such as A.O. Wheeler, A.L. Mumm, George Mallory, Don and Phyl Munday, Fred Beckey, Barry Blanchard and dozens of other famous alpinists and climbers who have been involved with the Club and the journal for the last 100 years. It is truly an incredible collection of stories and photos,” added Nancy Hansen, who helped put it all back together.

“I also learned how the ACC has changed over the years – by how people wrote in the early years of the Club up to the present, and by what those people are like. I read marvellous stories, told in fascinating detail. There are so many good writers in our Club, so many adventurous people doing amazing things,” said proofreader Ruthie Oltman.

The Alpine Club of Canada is grateful to the patrons of the Journal for their ongoing support, as well as the individuals and organizations whose financial donations made this project possible, and recognize the following donors for their significant financial contributions: Alberta Lottery Fund, Mountain Equipment Co-op, Parks Canada, and Bev Bendell. EverUpward is available for purchase through the Alpine Club of Canada's online store.