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Canadian Alpine Journal editors’ labour of love<

>Since the Alpine Club of Canada published the first Canadian Alpine Journal in 1907, Canada’s record of mountaineering has evolved and changed significantly.
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The View Up Here The Canadian Alpine Journal has long been a mainstay in Canadian climbing culture

>Since the Alpine Club of Canada published the first Canadian Alpine Journal in 1907, Canada’s record of mountaineering has evolved and changed significantly. It has also endured as the second longest running publication in the country, after Maclean’s magazine.

>This week, as the 2008 CAJ heads to the printer, the publication marks another milestone as Canmore climber and guide Sean Isaac’s name appears as editor on the masthead, following in the very large boots of Geoff Powter, editor since 1993.

>Like climbers — and CAJ readers — before them, both Powter and Isaac admit they were aficionados of the publication long before taking the editorial reins.

>“I was totally thrilled and honoured,” said Powter of first accepting the position. “I think it’s the coolest thing to be involved with the Canadian Alpine Journal. I think it’s a treasure of the Canadian climbing community.”

>For Isaac, becoming editor felt like a natural progression after writing several features for previous issues, and then working as assistant editor for the past three years.

>Prior to taking the helm of the CAJ, Powter had written for climbing magazines and had teamed up with several Calgary climbers to produce a publication called Polar Circus in the late 1980s, which focussed on the cutting edge of climbing — a realm many felt was then missing from the CAJ. Only two issues were ever produced, but they created a ripple in the Canadian climbing community. Arriving in the form of a letter to the editor of the CAJ, one such ripple amounted more of a wave, as its author, a long-time ACC member, suggested it was time for the CAJ to get with the times.

>Upon accepting the job, Powter felt it was his responsibility to do just that. By the mid 1980s climbing experienced an evolution as greater numbers of people took up the activity, likely attracted by the introduction of bolted sport routes that made rock climbing safer and easier to learn.

>“At the time I came in, there was another wave of change taking place in the Canadian climbing community,” Powter said. “There was a real expansion in how it was being practiced, and by whom. The Journal, in many ways, couldn’t be what it had always been before — a vehicle for the Club. It was natural evolution. When I started, it was the only climbing publication in Canada. I felt it had to represent the broadest interest. I also felt it should not be just the record of climbing itself, but also that of the Canadian climbing mind.”

>A climber since his teens, and a psychologist by profession, Powter explained he hoped to shape the Journal more toward a publication that he would be interested in reading.

>“The journals preceding me had tons of maps and topos and information on where to climb,” Powter said. “Mine had a lot less of that. That stuff bores me to tears. I’ll admit, the people who love that stuff didn’t like my journals very much. What interests me is the internal appreciation of place, and the state of mind that takes you to that place. I’m way more interested in climbing experiences expressed as mental puzzles than physical ones. That’s a big part of why I wanted to be editor of the CAJ, my interest in the human experience. That’s why I allowed a lot more free form, even some rants. It’s a lot more aesthetic.”

>To that end, Powter created a section he named The Inner Ranges, and which Isaac believes is as good as ever in the new volume. Those stories are essential to a full appreciation of climbing, Powter said, as climbing writing that focuses more on the difficulty of the grades can easily become elitist.

>“It’s the editor’s job to balance motivation and marginalization,” Powter said. “You can motivate using the hard climbing stories, but if you overweight that you’ll marginalize the vast majority who don’t perform at that level. For me, it seems there are two ends — self-absorption and detail absorption. Good climbing writing has a mixture of both, bad climbing writing tends to be at the extremes.”

>Now with the 2008 volume gone to the printer, Isaac said he’s pleased to have headed a team that includes copy editors Helen Rolfe, Anne Ryall and Lynn Martel, layout and design wizard Suzan Chamney and graphic assistance from Hermien Schuttenbeld (Isaac’s wife), helping to build on the outstanding foundation built by Powter and the editors before him. He’s also grateful to take on the job at a time when technology makes including line drawings and topo maps quick and easy.

>“When Geoff began his tenure as editor, luxuries such as Photoshop and e-mail did not exist,” Isaac said. “Articles were snail-mailed in analogue form, often handwritten. Chicken scratchings had to be typed out, then cut with scissors and taped into columns in order to be photographed for the printing plates. I received only one article with old-school slides — everything else was sent digitally.”

>Recalling his early years, Powter chuckled.

>“I had never copy edited before, never fully edited, never done any layout and design,” he said. “I really walked in totally blind.”

>Fortunately he had help at first, particularly from Bow Valley resident and IT technician Jim Swanson and his wife Abbie. Later he took on all the desktop publishing tasks himself, and enlisted the copy editing talents of Anne Ryall.

>“She’s phenomenal, she’s so precise,” Powter said.

>Among the myriad of things he learned during his tenure, Powter said learning the geography of so many mountain ranges ranked high.

>“That part I love,” Powter said. “The egos involved always present a challenge. It’s not an easy process. Some climbers are very good writers, some climbers are just climbers.”

>After just one volume, Isaac agreed.

>“Just because someone’s first language is English, doesn’t mean they can write,” Isaac said. “And from the editor’s perspective, just because I’ve written a couple of guidebooks and magazine articles doesn’t mean I know how to write English.”

>Beyond that, Isaac said one of the biggest lessons he’s learned so far is to appreciate the importance of maintaining Canadian spelling.

>“That, and you can’t make everyone happy,” he added.

>After two months of intense work to meet his first big deadline, Isaac said he looked forward to getting out from behind his desk and into the mountains.

>For his part, Powter said he’s enjoyed spending more time climbing in the springtime — and more time writing.

>“That’s what I love doing more than anything else,” said Powter, author of Strange and Dangerous Dreams: The Fine Line Between Adventure and Madness, and recent winner of two National Magazine Awards.

>“I’m grateful to have had my turn. It’s time for a fresh voice, and the willingness to tend to that voice is part of loving the CAJ.”