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Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly

19 June 2017 | Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

The writer Lily Gontard and photographer Mark Kelly discuss their new book, Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community (Lost Moose, 2017), with Joseph Planta.


Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community by Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly (Lost Moose, 2017).

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Beyond Mile Zero


Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

We go along the famed Alaska Highway, and see the way of life and experiences of travellers and lodge owners alike in a new book Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community. It’s a history, travelogue and a document of the past and present of the kinds of people that populate this stretch of road providing accommodations and meals since the highway opened in 1948. It’s a way of life that is disappearing as well. The writing of Lily Gontard, and Mark Kelly’s photographs evoke the past and present, the scenic beauty. It almost makes one want to go there. The food illustrated looks tasty too. Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly join me now. She is a writer living in Whitehorse. Her fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in magazines such as Pushing Out the Boat, Geist, The Puritan Magazine, and Cirque. Mark Kelly moved to the Yukon in 1999, where he runs a counselling practice. As a photographer, he has travelled the world. I’ll ask Lily and Mark about their own travels along the Alaskan Highway before and during the writing of this book, which is published by Lost Moose. The Twitter handle for more is @BeyondMile0. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Lily Gontard; Ms. Gontard, good morning. And Mr. Kelly, good morning.