Bernadette McDonald Presentation

Although she grew up on a prairie farm in Canada, Bernadette McDonald became enamored with the mountains and made her career in that world. She spent nearly two decades at the helm of our fellow festival Banff Mountain Film in Canada and has written several highly acclaimed books about the exploits of great alpinists.

She returns to Mountainfilm in Telluride this year with her newest book Freedom Climbers (Rocky Mountain Books, Canada 2011), the story of a group of extraordinary Polish adventurers who emerged from under the blanket of oppression following World War II to become the world’s leading Himalayan climbers.

Freedom Climbers has already won three top prizes, including the Grand Prize at Banff Mountain Book Festival, where the jury said, “She has produced one of the most captivating books on the subject of mountaineering to have appeared in recent years.”