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Creston Valley hunter brings 25 years of adventure to life in new book

Lister's Rob Shatzko has published his most memorable experiences in 'Unquenchable Spirit: Twenty-five Years in Pursuit of Adventure'...
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The cover of Rob Shatzko's new book.

A carpenter by trade and a hunter by obsession, Lister resident Rob Shatzko has published some of his life’s most memorable experiences in Unquenchable Spirit: Twenty-five Years in Pursuit of Adventure.

The book chronicles Shatzko’s introduction to the rarified world of trophy hunting, and the development of a deep philosophy that comes only with long days and nights alone in the wilderness and more face-to-face meetings with death than one person should experience. It takes readers around the Pacific Northwest, into the Yukon and High Arctic, and across oceans to rarely heard of countries in Asia.

Shatzko is an adventurer, a horseman, a loner, a student and a teacher. Now, in partnership with his wife, Collette, he has become a writer. The book is published by Safari Press, which markets its publications directly toward hunters and outdoorsmen.

Shatzko started thinking about writing a book 10 years ago, after he survived his second attack by a grizzly bear.

“I thought this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to normal people,” he said. “I should start writing it down.”

He didn’t, though.

“I was busy with life,” he laughed. “Then I realized I was starting to forget stuff. They would come back when I looked at photos. But a mind is like a hard drive, I think. Eventually it gets full.”

It was on a six-week Hawaiian vacation two years ago that he actually sat down to record some of his many adventures as a trophy hunter. He worked at the computer while his wife Colette, a professional writer, went for walks.

Or, as she wrote in the book’s preface: “And so I awake in paradise to the clackety-clack of Rob’s fingers on this new laptop. I shuffle downstairs in my zombie-like state, grab a coffee, shake my head at him hunched over the keyboard, his two index fingers poised over his keyboard, straight up and down, like twin sewing machine needles. I go sit on the deck and listen to the birds and watch the cruise ships into the harbor. I walk and swim and enjoy the sun.

“Way too soon, Rob announced he has finished another story.”

“I would write a chapter a day,” Shatzko said. “Then it would take Colette two days to edit it.”

Unquenchable Spirit takes the reader inside Shatzko’s head and helps one understand the need some have to be on their own, to test themselves against nature while at the same time being part of it.

“I took a 24-day horseback trip this summer — alone,” he said. “Sometimes it’s good to get out with others, but being alone is the best.”

Even for the non-hunter, Unquenchable Spirit is a great read. Travelling vicariously with a man who has survived grizzly attacks, made death-defying trips through whitewater rapids and camped on a rapidly disintegrating chunk of ice in the Arctic Ocean, readers experience danger, fear and exhilaration from the comfort of their home. They also get to meet and read chapters from Shatzko’s daughter, Cassidy, who has followed in her dad’s footsteps to become a renowned trophy hunter and staff writer for Woman Hunter magazine.

Shatzko will be reading from Unquenchable Spirit and signing copies in a book launch at Rotacrest Hall from 7-9 p.m. Nov. 14. The book is also available at Mawson’s Sports.