Curl up beside the fire and journey to a time when Montrealers skied down Peel Street and the Laurentians were "the wild west" of Quebec. For two expatriate Torontonians, Neil and Catharine McKenty, this journey begins at the Laurentian Lodge Club in Shawbridge, now Prévost. There we meet skiing legends like "Jackrabbit" Johannsen, Harry Pangman and Barbara Kemp. With them we discover the perils of "Foster's Folly", the world's fi rst ski tow, we climb Mont Tremblant in the Thirties and we ride the ski trains with their smells of wax, orange peels and cigar smoke. And we also meet those earlier legends, the larger-than-life Curé Labelle, and the tragic Viscount D'Ivry who lived in a magnifi cent chateau on the shores of Lac-Manitou. This is also the story of how the Laurentians helped Montrealers weather two World Wars and the Depression. It's a great story and the authors have told it well.

Catharine McKenty grew up on her grandparents' farm, "Donlands," then eight miles outside the Toronto city limits on Don Mills Road. She went in every day to Bishop Strachan School, where she won scholarships in French and German. After taking a degree in English at Victoria College, University of Toronto, she spent four winters as a volunteer in the mining area of post-war Germany with an international group of young people involved in reconstruction.Catharine served as Research Editor for Pace, a magazine for young people, based in Los Angeles and New York, and linked with the international musical group Up With People. Next came a stint as a speechwriter for the Ontario Minister of Education in Toronto. At that time she met her future husband, author-broadcaster Neil McKenty on the dance floor.