Canadian Sid Marty writes mainly on natural history and western life and culture. He has published four books of non-fiction and three of poetry, some of which are based on his formative experiences as a park warden in the Rocky Mountain national parks. His book Leaning on the Wind: Under the Spell of the Great Chinook was a finalist for the l996 Governor General’s Award for Literature and won the Mountain Environment and Culture Award at the l996 Banff Mountain Book Festival.

Marty’s latest poetry collection is Sky Humour, published in l999. His newest non-fiction work is Switchbacks, which picks up the story where it left off in his well-known Men for the Mountains, twice cited by the National Parks and Wilderness Association as one of the 50 books most influential in the Canadian conservation movement. Switchbacks won the Jon Whyte Award for Mountain Literature at the l999 Banff Mountain Book Festival.

Marty has long been a singer/guitarist performing his original songs about western Canada at various venues and on radio. He and his wife, Myrna, live near Pincher Creek, Alberta, at the foot of the mountains.