Story-telling With Christine and Sharon
Featuring Christine Wiesenthal and Sharon Wood
Christine: Writer, Academic
Sharon: Climber, Mountain Guide, Public Speaker
December 13, 2012
Christine is an award-winning writer, editor and teacher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She has published books of literary criticism, poetry, biography and edited The Collected Works of Pat Lowther. Her literary biography of Pat Lowther was shortlisted for the 2006 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction. Christine prefers pedestrian modes of locomotion over automobiles, when possible — in cities, and especially as a mountain hiker.
Sharon was the first North American woman to summit Mt. Everest. Climbing it was a culmination of an odyssey that began at age twelve when her father took her up her first mountain. By the time she was seventeen she was devoting all her time to climbing. Her first break came in 1977 when she joined an all womens expedition to Mount Logan. She went on to climb Mt. Mckinley, Makalu, the south face of Aconcagua and the northeast face of Huascaran Sur. Her ascent of Mt. Everest by the difficult west ridge and north face was first for a North American woman, but as her friend Albi Sole recalled, “It’s not because she was a woman that she got to the top, it’s because she was the right person for the job”. After Everest she had moved on to other adventures. Much in demand as a public speaker, she travels North America sharing her experiences and her approach to risk. In 1988 she married and is now raising a family. In 1997 Sharon received the Summit of Excellence Award at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. Sharon has this to say about her motives:
“The constants that I have strived to maintain through all of these things is …the steep learning curve, the intensity, perhaps a certain degree of risk….and tremendous adventure…and that ongoing, never ending quest for self knowledge.”
For more about Sharon see http://www.sharonwood.net.
[info]It bears repeating: Sharon was the first North American woman to summit Mt. Everest.[/info]