The Rescue of Belle and Sundance

January 23, 2012
Two horses are stranded on treacherous mountain terrain in the Canadian Rockies—when winter comes, they are emaciated and frostbitten, “waiting for the inevitable.” Their plight galvanizes the small town of McBride, British Columbia, and the ensuing rescue effort is the focus of this slim, moving book. Stutz, a horse trainer and McBride resident (writing with Scanlan, author of The Horse God Built), was involved in spearheading the effort to return Belle and Sundance (a young mare and older gelding, respectively) to safety. In elegant prose, Stutz recaps the days of the rescue, in which a search party is sent up the mountainside with a handgun and a bale of hay, the former to be used in case the horses are too far gone. We experience the emotional and physically draining days along with Stutz, who also narrates the actions of Belle and Sundance’s original owner, an Edmonton lawyer who abandoned his pack horses after an expedition gone awry—and then tries to claim them after the rescue. This uplifting story will even touch readers who aren’t horse fanatics—a lovely read. Agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists (Canada).

March 1, 2012
The story of a town in northeast British Columbia that came together to rescue two horses trapped on a mountain's snowy summit. With co-author Scanlan (The Horse God Built: The Untold Story of Secretariat, the World's Greatest Racehorse, 2007), horse trainer and riding instructor Stutz opens with a kind of fairy-tale tone that hints at sublime imagery, suspense and creatively drawn characters. Despite sincere, balanced efforts by the author, the story--while impressive and inspiring--ultimately fails to deliver on these literary counts. Still, there is certainly something here for animal lovers and those for whom life in the Canadian Rockies is either familiar or of interest. In September 2008, a lawyer from Edmonton took his two pack horses, Belle and Sundance, up Mt. Renshaw to deliver supplies to a friend hiking there. When the weather turned foul, he made a wrong turn and led the horses through two treacherous bogs, after which they refused to follow him. Figuring the horses would come down the mountain when they were ready, he abandoned them and headed for the valley, not to find them again for 12 weeks. By mid-December, "the verdant mountain meadows...gradually transformed into...a cold, white prison" for Belle and Sundance. The owner determined them too weak to make it through the deep snow, and decided to "let nature take its course," a decision for which he would later be charged with animal cruelty. Meanwhile, snowmobilers had spread the word around a nearby town that two emaciated horses were trapped at Renshaw summit. After ruling out euthanasia due to the glimmers in Belle and Sundance's eyes, the locals mobilized in a collective act of community spirit to orchestrate a rescue attempt. Over seven days, they dug a "tunnel to freedom" to lead the horses down the mountain to the logging road nearly 20 miles away, and eventually to health on separate ranches in the region. Stutz emerged as the lead horse handler and spokesperson for the effort. A bit narrow, but worth the read if the topic appeals.

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February 15, 2012
Stutz begins with a simple declaration. She cannot stand to see animals suffering. On Mount Renshaw, in British Columbia, it is not uncommon for more than 30 feet of snow to fall in the winter. When two local snowmobilers discovered two starving horses high on the mountain, trapped in a packed-down enclosure of their own making and surrounded by six-foot-high snow walls, they knew they had to do something. The horses were so hungry that they had chewed off the hair from each other's tails and were down to skin and bones. Belle, a bay mare, and Sundance, a sorrel gelding, had been abandoned on the mountain in September when a packing trip went wrong, and had done well living free until the snow fell. The small town of McBride rallied to the cause. An hour-long ride on a snowmobile brought rescuers to the horses, and then there was the digging of a 3,500-foot-long trench down to a logging road so the horses could walk out, all in subzero temperatures. This inspiring tale of equine rescue will be devoured in one sitting.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)