Randy Freeman is an historical geographer, archaeologist, heritage consultant, author and broadcaster living in Yellowknife, Capital of Canada’s Northwest Territories.

It was in 1985, after completing a Master’s degree at the University of Alberta, that he moved ‘down north’ to work for the Government of the Northwest Territories. As the Territorial Toponymist it was his job to undertake research into the origins of northern place names. Through that work he began to uncover hundreds of exciting, unusual and often unbelievable stories from northern Canada’s past.

In April of 1996 Randy began telling these stories on CBC North radio. These popular weekly broadcasts lead, in March of 1999, to Randy becoming a columnist for Up Here, National Magazine Awards’ 2010 Magazine of the Year (www.uphere.ca). His Looking Back columns provide insight into the history of the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut, a history that had largely been forgotten, a history that both surprises and entertains.

The concept of putting these stories into a series of books began to take shape in late 2009. Taking hundreds of stories, arranging them geographically, then whittling the lists down, resulted, after several years of planning and procrastination, in the launch of the DownNorth Tales series.