Trent Ernst has been researching and writing the BC and Alberta Backroad Mapbooks for the better part of the last decade. In 2008, he started researching the entire Backroad Mapbook series, save for Quebec books. Trent has an uncanny knack for digging up often unheard of trails and places to explore.

Trent was born in Rosthern, Saskatchewan because his hometown of Waldheim, found 25 km (15 miles)down the road, was too small to have a hospital. The evening he was born, the townsfolk celebrated with a big party on Main Street, and fireworks lit up the evening sky.

It was only later he learned that it was the simply the annual 4H festival. Since that time, his life has been inexplicably linked with cows.

Mussio Ventures Ltd. was incorporated in 1993 and has become one of the top three map producers and one of the biggest publishers in Canada. We are in the business of producing, publishing, distributing and marketing Outdoor Recreation guidebooks and maps. Selling over 250,000 copies sold in 2007 and 2008, our Backroad Mapbook series is easily the best selling Outdoor Recreation guidebook series in Canada. We also sell almost 50,000 copies of our various Fishing Mapbooks, Outdoor Recreation Maps, Topographic Maps, digital maps and various other products annually.

Russell and Wesley Mussio started the Backroad Mapbook Series in 1993. The brothers are avid backcountry explorers who love to pursue a variety of different activities. They came up with the idea when they realized it was rather cumbersome to cart a different book for each activity along with a stack of often-outdated maps.