H. Dude Lavington was born in Alberta in 1907. He has lived the life of a pioneer: breaking trail, breaking horses, breaking bones. He eased into the cowboy life aboard a bronco named Calamity. His colloquial, down-home style and stories are major additions to the Canadian cowboy mythos.

Born To Be Hung

The chapter headings in Born to Be Hung hint at the "range" Dude Lavington has covered: "Runaways — High Water Crossings", "Moose-Hunting Yarns", "Range Riding on the Batnuni", "The Lady Said Yes", "A Birth — A Death", "Bluffing Wolves...", etc.

This is the author's second book on wrangling and ranching in the Baker Creek Valley region of British Columbia. It is an autobiographical adventure that upholds all the best western story traditions... but the adventures are fact not fiction and the tall tales are true.

Pioneer Autobiography, 220pp, 6 × 9, paper, photos, $13.95, ISBN 0-919-203-09-4

Nine Lives of a Cowboy

A cowboy must be blessed (or cursed) with nine lives like the proverbial cat, or he would never make it to the allotted three score and ten — or even to maturity.

The wild, wild west, Canadian style! Dude Lavington's densely packed memoirs are full of humour, aphorisms, cowboy english and the stuff from which folk heroes are made. Stettler, Calgary, Quesnel, Barkerville, Stanley... find the places, hold the book, and both adventure and history will fall into your lap.

Pioneer Autobiography, 216pp, 6 × 9, paper, photos, $13.95, ISBN 0-919203-20-5