"I live on a ranch about six miles east of the town of Longview and the old Cowboy Trail in the foothills of the Rockies. On a perfect day, like today, I can't imagine being anywhere else in the world."

So says a Canadian icon on his long-standing love of the West and his life in "one of the last true cowboy countries on either side of the border."


"Of course," adds Ian Tyson, "I'm not going to say there aren't those other days when you think, 'What am I doing here?' It's beautiful country and it can be brutally tough as well." 


Browsing through a Calgary bookstore this week, one of our regular correspondents was delighted to run into an old friend and near-neighbour in the person of Ian Tyson, a veritable legend on the Canadian music scene. 


"Would you look at that?" he laughed as he pointed out the memoir of his life in and out of the business, "it looks like I'm a best-seller!"


Tyson shouldn't be surprised at being in tenth spot on the Canadian Best-Seller List.   He was, after all, consistently near the top of the music charts before escaping to cowboy country, and songs like "Four Strong Winds" and "Navajo Rug" echo in the national memory.


Ian Tyson's journey to the West began in the unlikely city of Victoria, BC, where he rode his dad's horses on the weekends and met cowboys in the pages of Will James's books, and eventually followed that cowboy dream to rodeo competition. 


Laid up after breaking a leg, he learned the guitar, and drifted east, becoming a key songwriter and performer in the folk revival movement. 


But the West always beckoned, and when his marriage to his partner and collaborator Sylvia broke up and the music scene threatened to grind him down, he retreated to a ranch and work with cutting horses. Soon, he'd bought a ranch in Alberta and found a new voice as the renowned Western Revival singer-songwriter and horseman he is today. This book is Ian's reflection on that journey.

The Long Trail: My Life In The West By Ian Tyson is published by Random House of Canada