Katherine Govier is the author of more than a dozen books including the novel The Ghost Brush, which was published in the United States as The Printmaker’s Daughter and translated for publication in Romania, Spain, Quebec and Japan. She has twice been shortlisted for Ontario’s Trillium prize. Govier has been instrumental in establishing two innovative writing programs, Writers in Electronic Residence and The Shoe Project, which work to improve the written and spoken English of immigrant women. She travels regularly between Toronto and Canmore, Alberta.

The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel

Katherine Govier’s new novel begins in 1911 in Gateway, Alberta. The coming of the railroad to the Canadian Rockies has brought to the heavenly Bow Valley a parade of newcomers — climbers, coal miners, artists, scientists, runaway aristocrats and remittance men. Among them is the poacher Herbie Wishart, who arrived on a one-way ticket and has reinvented himself as a trail guide and teller of tall tales.