Wayne McCrory co-winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature for Wild Horses of the Chilcotin
Wildlife biologist Wayne McCrory is the co-winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature for his book, Wild Horses of the Chilcotin (Harbour Publishing), with Helen Knott, author of Becoming a Matriarch (Knopf). The award will be presented to both winners in tandem with the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement award at the Vancouver Public Library this June. Details will be announced on BC Booklook later this month.
News of this award comes on the heels of the announcement that the book is a finalist for the 2024 Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Award (winner to be announced in September), as well as the 2023 BC Historical Writing Award (winner to be announced on May 4, 2024). Earlier this year, the book won the 2024 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Book on British Columbia.
In Wild Horses of the Chilcotin, Wayne McCrory draws upon two decades of research to make a case for the protection of the Chilcotin’s wild horses—a population that is seen by government policy as an intrusion and competition for range land with native species and domestic cattle. McCrory argues that the horses, known in Tŝilhqot’in culture as qiyus, are a resilient part of the area’s balanced prey-predator ecosystem. McCrory also chronicles the Chilcotin wild horses’ genetic history and significance to the Tŝilhqot’in; juxtaposing the community’s efforts to protect qiyus against movements to cull them.
Wayne McCrory is a registered professional biologist specializing in the study of wild horses, bears and western toads. He has published more than ninety scientific reports on wildlife and conservation, including two technical reports on wild horses in BC and Alberta and, with horse genetics expert Dr. Gus Cothran, two reports on the genetics of wild horses in the Chilcotin. McCrory lives on a small farm in Hills, BC with his wife, conservationist and journalist Lorna Visser.
The George Ryga Award is an annual literary prize awarded to a B.C. writer who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book published in the preceding calendar year. The winners will share the $2,500 prize, sponsored by Yosef Wosk, The Writers Trust of Canada, BC BookWorld and the Vancouver Public Library.