Edward Feuz Jr.

Edward Feuz Jr.: A Story of Enchantment is an intimate, non-fiction look at the life and climbs of Swiss alpine guide Edward Feuz Jr. (1884–1981), a patriarch of Canadian alpinism and a genuine lover of mountains. It traces how a young Swiss boy’s passion for climbing became a reputation as a responsible guide, and how he was drawn to Canada in the footsteps of his father, Edward Feuz Sr. (1859–1944), one of the first Swiss guides hired by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1898 to help develop alpinism in western Canada.

The book follows the people he guided—from professors and women of independent means to students, newspaper figures, a Hindu holy man, and even Sherlock Holmes—through untrailed forests, roaring streams, icy glaciers, and up to rocky summits. Edward’s guests kept returning, not just for the climbs, but for the wide open spaces and grand vistas that defined mountaineering in North America at the time. Finalist for The Jon Whyte Award – Mountain Literature (non-fiction) at the 2022 Banff Mountain Book Competition, it transports modern readers to an earlier era when the point was often the splendour of the mountains, not pushing personal limits.