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Czajkowski has nurtured and developed a connection to the earth that most of us can hardly relate to, let alone appreciate . . . reminding us of how much we don't need and how much we are missing.- The Globe & Mail.
In the bookstores October 2008. Harbour Publishing |
In this illustrated journal, Czajkowski intimately describes the splendour of seasonal transformation with her trademark expressiveness; each day brings new obstacles and surprising revelations. At the start of the year, she writes, "The night was bright with a silvery soup of moonlight refracted off snowflakes fine as stardust." Spring arrives with breathtaking beauty and summer brings company from abroad. In the fall, Chris travels back to her first autumn at Nuk Tessli when she views "an extraordinarily beautiful moment. The clouds hung low enough to almost touch the water . . . and a wonderful, bluish, pearly luminescence covered everything." Prepare to witness the magnificence of a year in British Columbia's high-altitude wilderness, a place of astounding natural beauty like no other. |
Harbour Publishing |
 Here is another engrossing account of Chris Czajkowski's spectacular corner of the wilderness world. She regales the reader with accounts of shimmering mountain peaks, roaring snow-fed creeks, bears, eagles and monstrous storms; and tales of her dogs - Bucky (short for Bucket-head), who chases everything; Max, who tussles with wolves and a porcupine; and Raffi, a large, happy animal who thinks he's a lapdog.
The book culminates in a white-knuckle account of the all-too-close Lonesome Lake fire of 2004, from its infancy as a lightning strike reported in nearby Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, to Czajkowski's realization that her first wilderness cabin had been consumed by fire and the dreaded moment when she is ordered by radiophone to evacuate herself, her guests and her dogs. |
Heritage House, Touchwood Editions |
18 months on the BC Bestsellers list. No 4 on November, 2004 Canadian Bestseller Canadiana list
Lonesome hated the wilderness, but as she says: "Any dog worth her milkbones must accept the idiosyncracies of her human without complaint" - and then proceeds to do just that. She adds "This story is all perfectly true. I have just changed some of the names to protect the privacy of the dogs." Lonesome is engaging, faithful, lonely, and very real. She learns to swim wild rivers, sleep out in bitter weather, and wear a backpack; but best of all she loves company and when she visits the city she loves to check out her p-mail. Lonesome is not really a kid's book but more a comment on society. It should appeal to people - and especially animal lovers - of all ages. |
Can$24.95 — € 15,95 — US$16.95 1-55017-279-4 |
 10 weeks on the BC Bestsellers List, when released in the Spring of 2003.
Snowshoes and Spotted Dick describes Czajkowski's experiences as she builds her fourth cabin in the wilderness with hand tools, two chainsaws, an Alaskan Mill and some helpful friends. One of her helpers is Nick Berwian, a quiet but literary young German who corresponds with Czajkowski long after his return home. In these fascinating letters to Berwian, Czajkowski details her often solitary life: how she breaks trails by snowshoe with her two pack dogs, encounters grizzly bears, builds a custom stone oven and learns how to use it to bake bread. There is a considerable amount of information on stone-oven building in this book. The letters also chronicle Czajkowski's challenges and triumphs as she tries to finish her cabin. Food and building supplies must be flown in and Czajkowski must hike more than 30 kilometres to the nearest road to lead guiding trips and to attend craft fairs and book promotions to supplement her income. Lyrically written, Snowshoes and Spotted Dick provides a close look at a simpler way of life that most of us only dream about, one that cleaves to nature with beauty, resilience and independence. |
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€ 11,00 |
Eine Frau lebt den Traum, den viele haben: Im Alter von 35 Jahren zieht sich die unerschrockene Autorin mitten in die kanadische Wildnis zurück, rodet ein Stück Land und zimmert sich - ohne besondere Vorkenntnisse - eine Blockhütte. So einsam und mühsam ihr Tagewerk auch ist, Chris meistert jede Herausforderung und wird reich belohnt durch die Schönheit der unberührten Natur. Frederking & Thaler Verlag Tel: ++ 49 / +89 / 12 11 3 - 0 |
| No. 10 on the February 2, 2000 Canadian Bestseller list
Orca Publishing |
- from Nuk Tessli: The Life of a Wilderness Dweller Knowing that Chris Czajkowski is living her rich and vital life in the wilderness enriches the lives of us all. . . . calming and inspirational - Alan Haig-Brown (author of The Fraser River and Fishing for a Living |
Joint publication between
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And yet, unbelievably, I now have rights, in the eyes of our civilization's laws, to adapt this uncompromising pile of boulders, with its wind-weary trees, to my own ends; I plan to build on it, single-handedly, two cabins, a business, and a life. I must be craz This is the inspiring story of an independent woman, determined to succeed and prosper in the untouched wilderness. Diary of a Wilderness Dweller recounts the struggles, the triumphs and the lessons learned while carving a home and living from one of British Columbia's most remote areas. A veteran of the outdoors, Chris Czajkowski captures the beauty of these places with lyrical intensity that touches and inspires. |
Can$21.95 — € 13,70 — US$14.95 Ordering Information |
Chris Czajkowski came to Canada's attention in the mid-1980's when she was a regular correspondent to CBC Radio's Morningside, describing the trials and tribulations of building a log cabin in the B.C. bush; Morningside host Peter Gzowski wrote the foreword to this 1991 classic of life on the modern frontier. Raised in England, Czajkowski was in her thirties when she moved to a remote location some 300 miles north of Vancouver. There, she single-handedly cleared the land and - despite a total lack of experience - built her own home. A celebration of the natural world, and a story of perseverance, independence, courage and imagination. |
Published by Aquarelle Press. Hardcover |
In this fascinating book are personal glimpses of life as it really is in the Arctic today. Chris' spontaneous, sensitive sketches and journal capture the spirit of the local people, their town life and the vast landscape that surrounds them.
"Out here, the tundra is greening, and the stony ridges are massed with flowers, purple oxytropes, creamy avens, pink wallflowers, and armies of yellow poppies, nodding in the wind. Most of the ice has gone from the freshwater ponds, and people are fishing from power boats, buzzing round in tight circles." - from To Stalk the Oomingmak |
BOOKS BY CHRIS CZAJKOWSKI:
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ORDERING INFORMATION
Most titles are available in bookstores, libraries, and from the publishers (see links). |
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In 1988, Chris Czajkowski walked into British Columbia's Central Coast Mountains to build a homestead, a business, and a life. A Mountain Year is a beautifully-produced art book full of original paintings, sketches and diary entries, offering an awe-inspiring glimpse into the life of this independent spirit and the landscape that she calls home.
Lonesome was the first dog to live with Chris Czajkowski in the wilderness. She was present throughout the activities denoted in 
Visitors who have no experience at all of my kind of life might marvel at my monuments, but simply accept that they are somehow conjured into place. It is the people who have done some bush living or cabin building who ask: "Where did you get your logs from?" This compliment for the apparent lack of logging activities is no accident but the product of a lot of hard work. Admittedly, as no vehicles were involved, there was far less damage to the surroundings than there would have been otherwise. The single passage of a Cat would have left a far greater mark on the landscape than all my other logging activities put together.
It is two days since I left my truck at the end of a logging road twenty miles east of here. I have hiked through unmarked forest and over a mountain, through country I have never seen before, to reach a point of land jutting into an un-named lake, five thousand feet hight in the Coast Range of British Columbia.
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"This is the cabin that Chris built - literally. She felled the trees, milled the lumber, raised the rafters." 