In the shadow of the Livingstone Range, near the Oldman River, lives an Alberta enigma, Sid Marty.
Part red-neck, sensitive poet, environmental activist, singer-songwriter, storyteller, humanist, screenwriter, public speaker and lover of the foothills and Rockies, Sid Marty is hard to define, but creative, driven, and passionate are apt adjectives.
Sid, at 79, has had a long and storied history in Alberta. He was born in England but raised from infancy in Alberta.
While still at University, Marty began writing poetry and published numerous poems in poetry anthologies.
In 1973, he had his first published book of poems published in a collection entitled Headwaters. Now celebrating 50 years of publication, Headwaters has become a beloved staple for anyone who loves poetry and Alberta.
Sid worked as a park warden in Yoho, Banff and Jasper National Parks from 1966 to 1978. His varied experiences at the job prompted him to write the classic book Men for the Mountains, which documented “true stories of heroism and folly drawn from life in the high country.”
The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society has called Men for the Mountains one of the fifty most influential books in the Canadian conservation movement.
Since then, Sid has written numerous award-winning books, including Leaning on the Wind: Under the Spell of the Great Chinook (1996), The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek (2008) and his latest, Oldman’s River, New and Collected Poems (2023).
If that isn’t enough, Sid has released two albums of critically acclaimed music, Elsewhere and Let the River Run, plays with his band Wailback, and is a sought-after events speaker.
In his ‘spare’ time, he fights against dams, coal mining, logging, and the development of critical east-slope wildlands.
He says that “being an environmentalist in Alberta is like being a Boy Scout in hell.”
Sid’s days are now spent near Pincher Creek, in an old wooden house, in the company of his muse and wife, Myrna, tending to their garden or repairing the old ATV they fondly called “the Anti-Christ.”
His workshop, a treasure trove of curiosities, which Sid calls his “Little Shop of Horrors,” mirrors the eclectic nature of his mind.
His writing shed, barely larger than a closet and dubbed the “brooding pen,” is where he blends his poetic elixirs or strums out ideas for new songs about mountain life.
His daily mission is always clear: to fill the void in the poetic response to the mountains and plains of Alberta, a challenge he embraces with the enthusiasm of a true craftsman.
Sid’s poetry is a soaring tribute to the silent rocks, the burbling headwaters, and the wildlife that roams free.
He gives voice to the voiceless, reminding people that the world was not created solely for us. His words and lyrics bridge the human heart and the geography that defies gravity; each poem or song is a step towards understanding our place in the grand tapestry of life.
His latest book, Oldman’s River: New and Collected Poems, is a memoir in verse, spanning five decades of living and breathing the mountainous world.
When asked why he continues to write poems in an algorithm-driven world, he says: “It connects us with what universal truths that are still left. Real poetry is divorced from the economy.”
And so, he continues his daily communion with the brooding pen, seeking to discover something new that moves him, to write a poem or book better than the last.
And for that, all Albertans are lucky.
Maybe Sid is not so much an enigma but just a true Albertan living his best life among the prairies, foothills and mountains that define us all.
