Algernon Henry Blackwood (1869-1951) in his rich and varied lifetime was an English broadcasting narrator, Canadian farmer, New York newspaper reporter, hotel operator, journalist, bartender, secretary, mystic, teacher, adventurer, novelist, and short-story writer, and among the most prolific ghost story writers in the history of the genre. The son of a preacher, Blackwood rebelled against his strong Catholic upbringing and had a life-long interest in the supernatural, spiritualism, and the occult, later joining several occult societies. He was an avid lover of nature and the outdoors, which many of his stories reflect, especially two of his best-known works "The Willows, " in which two friends on a canoe trip become temporarily marooned on a river island only to discover the willow trees are not what they seem, and "The Wendigo, " where a Canadian hunting party encounters the mythical beast of legend - stories that led H. P. Lovecraft to praise Blackwood as "the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere. "