Born in Toronto in December of 1948, former geologist and CPR locomotive engineer John F. Garden was raised in Calgary (1949-1974) and educated at the University of Calgary. While based in Revelstoke, he retired from the CPR and formed Footprint Publishing in 1984. After preparing two lavish coffee table books, The Selkirks and The Bugaboos, his third mountain book was The Guiding Spirit by American mountaineers Andrew Kauffman and William Putnam. It's about 36 Swiss mountain guides hired by the CPR to help open the Rockies and Selkirks for tourism, most notably Edward Fenz Jr. John Garden also wrote and published The Palliser Triangle: A Tale of the Canadian Grasslands (Footprint Publishing), and another coffee table book called British Columbia Rail: From PGE to BC Rail (Footprint, 1995).

Perhaps his most important books are two representations of the work of CPR photographer Nicholas Morant. First published in 1992, his Nicholas Morant's Canadian Pacific was into its fourth printing by 1999. The year before he released Nicholas Morant's Canada. The Crow and the Kettle: The CPR in Southern British Columbia and Alberta, 1950-1989 (2005) looks at the modern era of the famous rail line that ran from Medicine Hat to a switch on the CPR mainline at Odlum, then across the Fraser River from Hope. Built by way of the Crowsnest Pass, Kettle Valley and the Coquihalla Pass, the all-Canada route was designed to thwart American interests in southern B.C. It crossed three major rivers and seven mountain summits.

Review of the author's work by BC Studies:
Nicholas Morant's Canadian Pacific

BOOKS:

The Selkirks: Nelson's Mountains (Footprint, 1984)
The Bugaboos: An Alpine History (Footprint, 1987)
Nicholas Morant's Canadian Pacific (Footprint, 1992)
British Columbia Railway: From PGE to BC Rail (Footprint, 1995)
Nicholas Morant's Canada (Footprint, 1998)
The Palliser Triangle: A Tale of the Canadian Grasslands (Footprint)
The Crow and the Kettle: The CPR in Southern British Columbia and Alberta, 1950-1989 (Footprint, 2005)

[BCBW 2006] "Outdoors" "Publishing" "Transportation"