The Long Trail

""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. Of course, 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."--Ian Tyson" "Ian Tyson's journey to the West began in the unlikely city of Victoria, B.C., 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 compete in local rodeos. Laid up after breaking a leg, he learned the guitar and then he drifted east, becoming a key songwriter and performer in the folk revival movement of the 1960s. 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 found his way to the foothills of the Rockies and work with cutting horses. Soon, he'd bought a ranch in Alberta and found a new voice and a new life as the renowned Western Revival singer-songwriter and horseman he is today." "In The Long Trail, Ian Tyson,