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“So for two four-month seasons, my job was basically to map every river and climb every peak and track all the main traditional native trails. ... It was while I was up there that I fell in love with Tahltan culture.”

The adversaries in this battle are the Tahltan, a First Nations people living in a vast and sparsely populated wilderness in the northwest corner of British Columbia, and a steady stream of oil and mining companies that want to exploit the region’s resources.

For the last 10 years, however, much of his time has been taken up with the Tahltan’s efforts to keep out the mining and oil interests.

The reaction of the Tahltan elders to the “Sacred Headwaters” book, he notes, has been fascinating and moving.

TORONTO—Annita McPhee, the leader of the 5,000-member Tahltan First Nation in British Columbia, recalls mining-company executives seeking the nation's chieftains' permission to dig for coal next to their land.