CANMORE – For years, Rick Harris and his granddaughter Kyra Dumoulin have been writing a children’s book series based on adventures they’ve had in the Bow Valley.
They have just self-published their first book The Adventures of Kaboose the Rocky Mountain Bear, which has been in the making for 10 years.
The book stems from Kyra’s daycare where the kids were given a rabbit plushie, named Georgia, with a suitcase full of clothes to join them when they go on vacation. When Kyra grew out of daycare, she still wanted to continue the tradition and asked her grandfather to make their own character.
“Kyra and I had Georgia with us a lot of time, you know, put her in her car seat and it was quite hilarious, but it was a lot of fun,” said Harris. “Well, now she didn't have Georgia any longer. So, she said, ‘Papa, can we come up with our own characters?’”
They landed on the name Kaboose because Harris’ vacation rental on Railway Avenue was themed after trains that had a model steam locomotive with a caboose. Kyra didn’t understand what a caboose was, but she fell in love with the word that inspired them to use that name for their character.
The ‘K’ in Kaboose stands for Kyra.
The story is set in the fictional town of Big Head, which is inspired by the Bow Valley, and contains “nuggets of truth” throughout the book reflected by the altered or renamed iconic scenes of Canmore and the surrounding area.
What started with just Kyra and Harris eventually branched out to his other grandchildren as they were born and now there are around 38 books in the works incorporating his family.
The first book follows the birth of Kaboose and the celebrations that followed as she was the first cub born in “many moons”.
The 34-page book has colourful illustrations and four additional activity pages at the end.
Harris said he encourages more families to turn their adventures into stories as that’s how it began for him and Kyra.
“You think of all of the pictures that people have taken that they store on their iPhone or smartphone and it never sees the light of day, but we’d encourage people to sit down with their grandkids and look and maybe you can develop stories from that,” said Harris.
“That’s what really happened because Kyra and I would go sit in a coffee shop here in Canmore. And then we would look at our adventures, and then we would actually develop other stories.”
Harris said the stories also convey “living in harmony with Mother Nature” as people and animals can be seen living together in the illustrations.
The book is available on Amazon and will soon be available at Stonewaters in Canmore.
Harris and his family plan to use the book series to make a podcast, audiobooks, and a Patreon. The official site www.kaboosetherockymountainbear.com aims to launch at the end of October.
