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Explorer Wade Davis coming to Cranbrook

Renowned author and anthropologist giving presentation at Key City Theatre Dec. 9.
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Tickets to hear author Wade Davis in Cranbrook on Dec. 9 are available at the Key City Theatre.

What do mountains mean to you?

Author and anthropologist Wade Davis will be providing his own point of view when he will be presenting in Cranbrook and Invermere in early December.

In celebration of the United Nations International Mountain Day, the Humanity Network in the East Kootenay is bringing in Davis, National Geographic Explorer of the Millennium.

Amy Cross, from the Humanity Network, said they are also looking to get input about what mountains mean from the community perspective.

"We'll be asking that question at both events," she said. "We're a mountain community so it would be really nice to hear what other people have to say about mountains and how they feel that connection."

The Cranbrook presentation will be held on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. at the Key City Theatre.

The second showing will be held Dec. 10 in Invermere. That show will include a book signing at 6:30 p.m., prior to Davis’ presentation at 7:30 p.m.

Both are free, but Cross recommends getting tickets beforehand as there is limited seating. For the Cranbrook show, tickets are available at the KCT box office.

For the Invermere show, tickets are available at Circle Health Foods and The Book Bar.

Davis, who is from West Vancouver, is an anthropologist and ethnobotanist, as well as author and photographer.

Davis has written a number of books including “The Serpent and the Rainbow” which chronicled his studies on Haitian witch doctors implicated in pharmacological zombie creation, and most recently, “Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest”, which examines Mallory and Irving’s fateful attempt on Everest’s summit against the broader historical backdrop of the First World War.

Davis attended Harvard University for his degrees in anthropology and biology, as well as his Ph.D. in ethnobotany.

He’s lived among among 15 indigenous groups in Latin America and has spent more than three years in the Andes and Amazon as a plant explorer.

In B.C., Davis has worked as a park ranger, forestry engineer and river guide.

He has also conducted field work among indigenous societies of northern Canada.

The Humanity Network began as a partnership between The East Kootenay Organization for Human Dignity and Equality and the Elk Valley Metis locals.

Together those two organizations formed the network, with a mandate to increase public awareness of human dignity and the values of humanity that Canada and B.C. have identified with.

“We have a number of organizations that partnered with us,” said Cross. “They include School District 5, the District of Invermere, Cranbrook and District Restorative Justice, Wildsight Kimberley Cranbrook, EKOHD and the Elk Valley Metis Association.”

She said the event is an opportunity to promote the Humanity Network in hopes that people not only join the network but also become aware of the work that they’re trying to do in promoting human dignity and equality throughout the whole Kootenay region.

“One of the things that we decided as a group was that we would celebrate three international days,” she said. “The first was the International Day of Peace on September 21. The second is United Nations International Mountain Day and that’s why we brought in Wade Davis, to celebrate that event.”

The third day that they are celebrating is March 21, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.