by Janet Smellie
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 11/97) - The writer who has come to describe herself as the "Northern wanderer" is back in our parts, where, as usual, she's venturing in all directions in the name of a story.

Lyn Hancock, whom many may know as the colorful author of Winging it in the North, spent last week visiting several communities in her favorite neck of the woods -- Nunavut.

Currently working on a series of articles for Mining North, Hancock, (who won't earn for her stories nearly the amount she's spending on travel) is in the North to tour BHP Diamond's mine near Yellowknife and the Nanisivik mine on Baffin Island, as well as roaming about Rae and Yellowknife.

"The North will always be my home, no matter where I may live. It continues to be in my blood," Hancock said during a brief stopover.

Born in Australia, Hancock has lived in Canada since 1961, where she started out as a school teacher only to become an avid photographer and writer a decade later. Her 14 books include the best-selling There's a Seal in My Sleeping Bag (1972) and Looking for the Wild (1992). Her latest book, Winging it in the North, was published last fall and is selling fast.

Hancock, who still has a house in Fort Simpson, currently spends her winters at her coastal home in British Columbia. But it doesn't take long to learn that wherever she may go or be, she's always promoting the North.

In hopes of promoting her book, Hancock has spent the last six months travelling southern Canada. One minute you could hear she was in Toronto doing a spot on the Peter Gzowski show, only to dash off to set up a booth promoting the North at an adventurers' trade show in London, Ont.

"It's been busy, but it's been rewarding, too. There's so much ignorance of the North by people you meet. I, being who I am of course, have to set them straight," she says with a laugh.

An avid photographer who's won many awards, Hancock is now hoping to publish a picture book based on the thousands of slides she's taken during her many adventures in the North.

But her frustrations with southern publishers, who "want to take over and depict the North in their own way," with her pictures has left Hancock saying, "No way," and patiently waiting until she can publish the book her way. Something tells us we'll see it on the book shelves before long.