The Rural Voice, 2019-02, Page 27Shawn returned to Ontario to find
everything had changed. Undaunted,
she refocused and began a working
relationship with Scholastic Canada
that involved publishing six books on
horses, including the well-known
Crazy for Horses.
More obstacles appeared. The
lucrative U.S. market was drying up
with the demise of the U.S. economy
in the early 2000s. Also, Shawn.
became bored with show jumping.
“Same horses. Same riders. Same
jumps. I was in Calgary and I
realized I wanted to ride into the
mountains. I didn’t care about
jumpers anymore.” It was time to be
in the saddle.
Shawn found an outfitter to take
her riding into the mountains, camera
strapped on. Shawn tried to sell the
photos but magazine editors wanted a
story to go with them. So she wrote a
story. “I discovered I could do both
plus be in the saddle and behind the
camera.” This opened up the whole
riding vacation market and has taken
Shawn to Mongolia, the Andes,
India, Montana, the Yukon, Costa
Rica, Cuba, Ecuador and other
countries.
The photos are stunning and she
found words to capture the sites as
well, saying “The mountains changed
their clothes around every corner that
you moved.”
Part of the joy of these trips was,
and is, meeting all the different
breeds of horses from solid quarter
February 2019 23
Shawn Hamilton
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