Raising Kain Book Review by Ron Dart, of the Federation of Mountain Clubs of British Columbia

Mountaineer and book reviewer Ron Dart at the Conrad Kain Hut in the Bugaboos.

Raising Kain:
The adventurous life of Conrad Kain, Canada’s greatest mountaineer
Wild Horse Creek Press: Cranbrook, British Columbia, 2012
Keith G. Powell

Conrad Kain was definitely the crown jewel of the 1st generation of Canadian mountaineers. Earle Birney, one of our finest Canadian poets, lauded Kain in his dramatic poem sequence, Conrad Kain (1949). Where the Clouds Can Go tells, in a graphic and not to be forgotten way, the full and vibrant, demanding and challenging life that Kain lived. The combination of poetic biography by Birney and edited prose autobiography by J. Monroe Thorington offers the curious reader a variety of paths to trek into the multilayered world and ethos of Conrad Kain.

The publication of Raising Kain should be greeted with much applause. This innovative tome is part biography, part fiction and part delving into Kain’s varied life via a creative journalistic approach. The book claims to be a ‘historic novel’ and that it is in many ways. Facts are carefully laid on the table, but there is also some ‘purely fictional’ interjections in the biography that spice up the tale being told. The front cover has an iconic black-white photo of the young Kain as an insert with a larger photograph of a soft alpine glow hovering on a snow crowned peak. The book is also laced with excellent and not often seen photos that depict and judiciously describe Kain’s mountain life from Austria to Canada. Raising Kain is, in short, a superb companion interpretation of Kain that cleverly complements other reads of Kain.

Raising Kain is divided into 25 compact chapters that recount, retell and in a compelling way invite the reader to join Kain as he emerges as an impoverished youth to a gifted mountain guide. The book shuttles back and forth between different periods of time and geographic places, and, in doing so, holds the readers’ attention in an alluring manner. Many of the ‘Amelia Letters’ are, gratefully so, included in this biography as are letters to other leading mountaineering luminaries--- fictional dialogues between Kain and his diverse array of friends fill out the book quite nicely. Kain went to many places in the mountains that Swiss Guides would not go, and there was a certain charm about him that drew many to his guiding style again and again. Kain did many first ascents and led others up the ancient sentinels and white towers on climbs they never forgot---he is also a legendary mountaineer within the Alpine Club of Canada. Raising Kain describes, in generous detail, much of Kain’s evocative life and, sadly so, his early death at the tender age of fifty-one (1883-1934).

I visited Wilmer BC a couple of years ago where Kain lived for a few years with his wife (and where the Kain Cairn now stands), and drove to Cranbrook BC to see Kain’s tombstone (where, tragically so, Kain is buried at a distance from his wife). Keith Powell, in his ‘Epilogue’, brings the ‘historical novel’ to a close by retelling a trip that he and his wife made to the birthplace of Kain in Nasswald. Austria--this is worth the read, also. The photographs, as I mentioned above, illustrate much in a poignant manner.

Raising Kain is a must purchase and must read for those keen to know more about Canadian mountaineering history and culture, the Alpine Club of Canada and, equally important, a creative approach and interpretation of Kain’s life through photographs, letters, lenient fiction and hard fact history. This tome has certainly raised Kain again to the pedestal he belongs on in the Canadian mountaineering hall of fame. Raising Kain is an A++ keeper and charmer of a book that invites many a reread.

Ron Dart