Scott Hayes | [email protected]
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
A storied life should be written into a book.
It鈥檚 a good thing that Patrick McLaren finally got down to it, or at least the start of the business. That business is not only telling his life but talking about taking care of the planet at the same time.
The first of a promised three volumes of his memoir has just come out, and 鈥�鈥� is as compelling in the telling as it was for the author himself to scribe.
鈥淚t's absolutely been fascinating,鈥� he said, confirming that he was pleased to finally find a new use for all of the journals that he has kept over the decades of his life.
鈥淚 do have an ulterior motive on human beings鈥� existence on the planet and what we're doing wrong. That's a geological point of view.鈥�
For a guy who started off as a magician before working his way up to cowboy and packer in Jasper in the early 1960s, he seems to now be starting his next career as a writer. The prodigal son of Digby McLaren, the geologist who gained some fame from his early concerns about climate change going back to the mid-1950s, Patrick McLaren seems to have picked up his father鈥檚 mantle.
Perhaps he picked up his own interest in geology from the times he and his family went on pack trains through the Rockies when he was a young child. Later, he came to Jasper to work for two summers and it was the most amazing formative experience for him, he said.
Being surrounded by the mountains is a great way to learn about geology, too.
The son entered a different field of geology from his father, however. He went on to become a research scientist with the Geological Survey of Canada, later founding a consulting company while at the University of Cambridge.
He earned some of his own fame as the first scientist to dive under the ice at the North Pole. He is very clear that he spent his career concerned about the fate of the planet, while also fighting 鈥渇raudulent science鈥� being used for industrial economic gain. He has some stories to tell, some of them quite humourous.
Now retired, he has found the time to compile them in chronological order, including much of his interest and practice as a real magician.聽
Considering the unlikely adventures that certainly has had, one might think that the task of writing one鈥檚 autobiography in not one but three substantial parts to be much like climbing a mountain, for lack of a better phrase.
鈥淚've written lots of scientific papers and so on, and I've never found writing easy. Ever. The hardest thing to do in all of this was not to be frightened and to just talk about how I remembered it,鈥� he said.
鈥淚 found that it's getting easier. I was terrified of being full of myself, and then, 鈥業sn't it a conceit to just write about yourself?鈥� I was very, very worried about that. I just wanted to tell a good story, if I could, and then in doing that, where I can, get a little bit more academic or discuss things. It comes through, I think, a little bit in this book of hitting a little more serious topics but still trying to make it interesting: why geology is so fascinating.鈥�
