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There’s an easy way to write a story about Stompin’ Tom Connors in time for Canada Day.

It goes something like this: Stompin’ Tom was a Canadian icon, who travelled the country for decades. A common man who reached out to the common people, wrote songs about the places he visited and stories he heard, and who succeeded despite being ignored by radio and the music industry.

It’s not that this story is untrue. But, like the history of Canada and our evolving views of our own country, it’s more complicated than that.

I have read Stompin’ Tom Connors extensive two-volume autobiography, so when I heard about Charlie Rhindress’ Stompin’ Tom Connors: The myth and the man—an unauthorized biography, I wondered how much more there was to say. But I had enjoyed Rhindress’ biography of Rita MacNeil, so I dove into the Stompin’ Tom book.

Rhindress relies on the autobiography, of course, but he also draws on many other sources, such as interviews Stompin’ Tom did with interviewers like Alden Nowlan and Peter Gzowski, and conversations with band members, including Nova Scotia’s Dave Gunning. He traces his subject’s life and career, from his painfully difficult childhood, to his travelling years, his remarkable run of hits, retirement, and a late-career renaissance after being embraced by a new generation of fans.

Rhindress points out inconsistencies in Stompin’ Tom’s stories—things that couldn’t have happened as he said—but The myth and the man isn’t a misguided “gotcha” of a book. Instead, it paints a portrait of two different people. One of them is the well-loved character of Stompin’ Tom. The other is Tom Connors, a well-read savvy businessman with an interest in literature and comparative religion, who carefully curated his image as the little guy. Connors makes this distinction himself, at one point asking a visitor not to call him Stompin’ Tom at home.

The two characters sometimes merge, as when Stompin’ Tom is a guest of honour at a Rideau Hall dinner (he was friends with then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson) and asks for a ham sandwich with mustard on white bread instead of the fancy cuisine on offer.

And one thing that is clearly not made up is Stompin’ Tom’s love for his fans and the personal attention he gave them. When she was in elementary school, my daughter went through a phase in which she absolutely loved Stompin’ Tom. So she wrote to him. He wrote back, sending a note he said he had typewritten himself, and including a pile of signed swag for her.

Stompin’ Tom’s love of Canada came from his endless travels (he got his first apartment at 35) and conversations, and one of his strongest passions was that Canadians should be able to make it at home. He was a nationalist and a populist, in an era in which nationalism and populism had very different connotations. His nationalism was one of celebration, and his populism was rooted in elevating working people, not in a politics of hatred and division.

Read Rhindress’ book in time for Canada Day, put on some Stompin’ Tom tunes, and celebrate a complex musician and country.

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K: You were a child when your great-aunt, Portia White, passed. How was it that you got to know her so well? 

GEC:  I was child of the 60s, and my parents were all too aware their children had to grow up in an inclement, racialized environment as “coloured” or “negro,” relegated to a community that was economically repressed, socially disrespected and politically unimportant. 

It was important to them, as our consciousness was developing, that we know we were connected to this great lady, to instill pride in ourselves and to help us understand that we could realize our potential and to never to take a back seat to anyone because—look at what Portia achieved. So those days, when we were looked upon as an expression of a negative stereotype, one of our arsenals for that was to say our great-aunt sang for the queen.

And that made storytelling essential. My grandmother, Nettie, (Portia’s sister) and my father made sure to repeat all the stories. It was almost ceremonial… the same photo album got dragged out, and the White family were retold family successes, and not just Portia’s. 

K: So there is more to tell, in addition to Portia’s story. Can you share some history on the White family’s DNA?

GEC:  The “black” White family was extraordinary. My great-great grand-parents, Andrew and Isabella White, were from Virginia and former slaves. Andrew and Isabella had good relations with their ex-master, Mr. White, and eventually built a church on the property he gave to them, post-civil war, which still stands today. Their son and my great-grandfather, William, dreamt of becoming a millionaire. But he heard the calling and decided to study for the ministry. He attended bible college in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to Nova Scotia, becoming the third black to graduate from Acadia University in 1898, the first black officer in the British Army in 1916 and the head of the African United Baptist Association. And then there is Portia, of course, and my Uncle Lorne, a regular on Singalong Jubilee alongside Anne Murray, and my dad’s brother, Bruce, first black police officer in Vancouver… the list goes on.

K: On to the book, which is gorgeous, the verse lilting, sumptuous, evocative and alive. And the words you wrote, they are her words. How did you get to her voice?

Illustration from PORTIA WHITE: A Portrait in Words, by George Elliott Clarke, illustrated by Lara Martina (Nimbus Publishing)

GEC: Portia was one of the first icons I looked up to as a writer. As a teenager, when I was starting off as a poet, I always had her in the back of my mind and would write a poem for her, here or there. In my first book, I had her in a Haiku, and, as I became more invested in poetry and then fiction, I made room for the image or name, Portia White, in my work. She was always with me.

I was approached to do a biography of Portia—a kid’s book that would have illustrations. But a funny thing happened on the way to that book… I could not find my way to it as a children’s book, and the way the book came to me—it had to be in Portia’s voice. I had to let her voice in, through my understanding of her, and let her speak for herself.  

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Awakening My Heart: Essays, articles and interviews on the Buddhist Life, by Andrea Miller (Pottersfield Press)

Q: Would individuals who don’t practise Buddhism be interested in this book? 
Andrea: Awakening My Heart will work for a readership that’s much wider than card-carrying Buddhists. First of all, the material was never intended to just be for Buddhists. The thing is that a large number of people who don’t identify as Buddhist nonetheless relate to the core teachings of Buddhism. Buddhism, at the heart of it, doesn’t require you to believe—or not believe—in something otherworldly. The core of Buddhism is simply timeless, universal observations about the nature of life—what makes us suffer and what could make us truly happy. Awakening My Heart is largely focused on that very accessible, very relatable core of Buddhism

Author Andrea Miller

Q:  I was especially excited when I saw children’s singer Raffi was one of the individuals featured in your book as he was a childhood favourite of mine. Is there one particular individual featured in the book who made a lasting impression on you?
Andrea: In 2010, I was assigned to write a profile of the Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh. I wasn’t wildly excited about doing this article, but in the process of doing the research, I became intrigued. Thay, as he’s affectionately called, is widely recognized as the creator of the modern Engaged Buddhist movement; that is, the movement to bring Buddhist teachings and practice to bear on activism. During the Vietnam War, Thay worked tirelessly for peace, and for his efforts, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. Then later, after the war, Thay went on to help the so-called boat people who were fleeing Vietnam. I was also drawn to his creative side. He was a poet, novelist and calligrapher. In 2012, I went—for work—on a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, and it was so much more powerful than I ever could have predicted and, ultimately, it led me to start identifying as a Buddhist.

 

Social Perspectives on Death and Dying, third edition, by Jeanette A. Auger, (Fernwood Publishing)

Jeanette A. Auger

Q:  I’m always curious as to why authors select a certain topic to turn into a book. What (or who) inspired you to write this book?

Jeanette: I grew up in the East End of London, England, and most of my family members died in hospices, so I was always fascinated with death and dying, especially as I was born at the end of the second world war and death was such a part of my community. As an adult living in Canada, I continued my interest in the topics and while teaching at Acadia and being involved in the local hospice initiative, decided to offer university courses in death and dying, which were (and are, as I still teach online) very popular.

Q:  There is the old adage, don’t judge a book by its cover. The topic of death is not always comfortable for some people to discuss and some try to avoid it all together. What would you say to those readers who may be uncomfortable with the subject of death and therefore be wary of reading the book?
Jeanette: Because we all die, as will everyone and everything we know and love, it is important to explore our thoughts and feelings about this subject as well as understand the academic, historical, social, political and cultural approaches to this complex topic.

 The Earthis Flat!: An Exposé of the Globularist Hoax, edited by Kay Burns and David Eso (ISER Books) 

David Eso

Q: What is a flat earth thinker?
(David): “Flat Earth thinker” is an alternate term for “Flat Earther,” which is usually a pejorative, and refers to someone with a blind faith in a particular shape of the planet as well as biblical literalism, conspiracy theories, anti-science, etc. “Flat Earth thinkers” are those who use a symbolic or metaphorical Flat Earth ideology to creatively critique dominant beliefs.
(Kay) : Flat earth thinking reflects an inquisitive mind. A Flat Earth thinker doesn’t simply choose to accept the first answer, even if it is the dominantly accepted one. A Flat Earth thinker chooses to explore and examine multiple viewpoints and can be quite happy with having an unanswered question.

Q: The book seems to be about far more than the shape of the earth. What would you say to those who simply read the title and are immediately turned off?
(Kay): That kind of defensiveness—passing judgement before becoming more fully informed—is too often apparent in all sorts of situations. I would simply be inclined to ask why they would make that assumption without looking further. This book does have much greater meaning than the playful implications, but it is through the sense of play that a greater awareness can occur. Those willing to read it as satire will understand its relevance in today’s world of misinformation and disinformation and the irony of perceiving flat earth thinking as limited.
(David): My advice would be to look again. This book is an antidote to our climate of polarized opinions. Ferrari’s philosophy is surrounded by humour—sometimes cutting, sometimes joyous, sometimes absurd. And I think we need books like this today, ones that refuse to remain in a particular box and defy the divide between seriousness and irreverence. Ironically, this book might be most useful for those who don’t want to read it. ■

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Happy International Women’s Day! Atlantic Books Today salutes the many women who have struggled for equality, for women’s rights, over the centuries. And, for the second year in a row, we express gratitude to the writers of astute feminist analysis, the groundwork for progress in policy and human behaviour that can, we hope, result in true equality for all genders. This analysis is found in fiction, fact and poetry, and has been for some time.

Recently, there’s been a real wave of new books that aren’t afraid to embrace feminism. Some do so overtly, through an explicitly feminist lens. Others are feminist simply in their embrace of women’s stories, or their innate challenge of stereotypical feminine roles. Here are just five of the many feminist books from Atlantic Canadian writers and publishers:

 

Deep Water Pearls: A Collection of Women’s MemoirEdited by Kathleen Hamilton
Acorn Press

Historically, women’s voices have largely been ignored, and often forgotten. In recent decades, feminist scholars and writers have been “assigning value to what became labelled ‘women’s history’ and to the previously discounted diaries, letters and publications produced by women, which open a window on how half of humanity experienced their lives in past times.” But to avoid repeating past mistakes, we must value the lives and stories of women living today, and not only economic, thought and political leaders. Here are the voices of 13 diverse women (“a PEI farm girl exploring her early intuitive knowings, a tattooed millennial struggling with PTSD, a mature academic rebounding from the betrayal of her marriage, and a bride whose wedding day is a triumph over a treacherous past”), transforming “the grit of female experience into pearls of truth and beauty.”

Around the Province in 88 Days
Emily Taylor Smith
Pottersfield Press

More than just a grrl power story, Around the Province in 88 Days is a true hero’s tale with a strong female lead and equally strong female characters throughout. “We don’t wear make-up and we don’t dust,” the protagonist is told by a woman near Sable River, who rebuilt the area’s walking trails and won a Community Spirit Award. Taylor Smith covers a marathon a day in her quest to raise awareness for the Heart and Stroke Foundation and the Brigadoon Children’s Camp Society.

Dis/Consent: Perspectives on Sexual Consent and Sexual Violence
KelleyAnne Malinen
Fernwood Publishing

The ongoing calling out of abusive men has signalled a cultural shift in gender attitudes, but the mission to end their abuse is unfinished. These essayists (including Haligonians El Jones, Sherry Pictou and Ardath Whynacht) argue consent-and-sexual-violence conversations ignore deeper, intertwining roots of racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and colonialism.

Papergirl
Melinda McCracken with Penelope Jackson
Roseway Publishing

The theme of this young adult novel is the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, Canada’s most famous general strike, during which more than 30,000 workers risked literal starvation and the violence of scrub police to unite against powerful industrialists for fair wages and working conditions. But the focus is on 10-year-old Cassie, who due to her gender is not expected to ever have a job outside the home, yet plays a critical role in the strike distributing the strike bulletin. She is one of many too-long overlooked women, young and old, who take leadership roles in the movement for workers’ rights–the real-life version of which has benefitted all Canadians in the century since.

Bec & Call
Jenna Lyn Albert
Nightwood Editions

BC poet Laisha Rosnau calls Jenna Lyn Albert’s debut “Acadian steampunk rhythm—unable to use its inside voice.” Or perhaps, determined not to. It’s kick-arse poetry, “throwing enough shade to eclipse Jupiter’s moons,” as the poet herself says in the title composition. And yet she writes with honest vulnerability: “If all else fails, scream.” As the publisher says,, “The roles of Acadienne and feminist come with the responsibility of speaking up, and Bec and Call is a means of vocalizing the societal dérangement of Acadian culture amidst the difficulties women encounter as a result of rape culture and anti-feminism.”

 

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Photo by Chris Benjamin

The Age of Increasing Inequality
Lars Osberg
Lorimer

Organizing the 1%
William Carroll and JP Sapinski
Fernwood Publishing

My organization produces an annual Nova Scotia child and family poverty report card to help communities identify the changes that will improve the lives of our most vulnerable members. But, when communities ask what they can do to address poverty, my message is that in order to reduce poverty, indeed eliminate it, we need to address its root causes, including income inequality. 

I love finding a new way to explain something, to reframe a problem, and especially being able to point to more evidence-based solutions to propose. Thanks to Lars Osberg’s The Age of Increasing Inequality: The astonishing rise of Canada’s 1%, and to William Carroll and JP Sapinski’s Organizing the 1%: how corporate power works, I can now enhance my presentation on why communities should care about income inequality and what we can do about it.

Dr. Lars Osberg, who is an economics professor at Dalhousie University, shows that “The elimination of poverty is quite within the realm of fiscally feasible policies” by doing the math: it would cost the top 90 percent $378 per year to lift as many as 5.2 million Canadians just above the poverty line.

Osberg has been studying this subject for decades, since long before it was a hot topic. He points out that in the postwar period, the top’s share was 10 times that of the bottom 20 percent, but there was not significant growth at the top and researchers were not as interested in the issue. In contrast, since the 1980s top incomes have been growing exponentially faster than those in the middle or the bottom, with no end in sight. Had somebody been listening to Osberg then, we might not be where we are today, at a tipping point certainly, particularly when considering the impact this growth is having on the state of our ecological systems.

If you are not currently concerned about income inequality, these books are a wake-up call. As Osberg shows, income inequality matters for so many reasons: because of the poverty of the disadvantaged, because of the gap between the incomes of those in poverty and the middle class, because of the growing gap between the elite and the ‘ordinary’ citizen–sometimes expressed as the 1% versus the 99%–and because of the hollowing out of the middle.

While these things all have different implications, requiring different policy solutions, we should be especially concerned about how the increasing concentration of income and wealth affects our democracy and our access to political power.

What kind of society do you want to live in, Osberg asks. As a result of the growing gap, the society we live in is one where, with escalating consumption norms, status purchases are marketed to everyone, creating envy and discontent. The social resentment, coupled with economic insecurity, means some are pining for the good old days and looking for scapegoats—including “immigrants whose cultures are somehow threatening”—which fans the flames of class conflict and racism.

While intergenerational mobility is a marker of equality of opportunity, as Osberg points out, when you are at the top the only movement for your kids is down. It therefore becomes ever more important for the kids of the rich to have a built-in and ongoing advantage to protect their status; thus, paying their fair share for an adequately funded public education is a threat to that advantage. When public education, which has always been the great equalizer, is underfunded, inequality of opportunity becomes another cost of income inequality for the 99%.

Wealth inequality is even worse than income inequality. Wealth inequality is likely underestimated, with the top 20 percent having a net worth of billions, while the bottom 20 percent averages a net worth of negative $1,000—that would be debt.  

But to really understand economic power, you need to go beyond what the wealthy own, to what they control via their social status and political influence. Corporate power is so pervasive we may be unaware of its presence, or the extent of it.

Carroll and Sapinski mapped networks of individuals, corporations and key organizations to underscore and expose their influence. Included are many of SNC-Lavalin’s 312 direct and indirect subsidiaries, which are blamed for poor working conditions, while the parent company can claim it did not know. As the authors show, layers of management mediate the CEO’s control, sometimes in different countries, while workers report to supervisors who often do not know who the owners are. The production-consumption chain makes it nearly impossible for consumers to make ethical purchases. 

The concentration of corporate capital has closely followed the concentration of income with an elite few. (This concentration of wealth and power has even had an impact on price-fixing; the recent bread-pricing scandal is the starkest example.)

Carroll and Sapinski map networks of elites to show just how strong the interdependence is between industry and high finance, bank loans, shareholders and governance boards. Osberg does this at the individual level, highlighting who benefits and who does not.

In order for the affluent to acquire more financial assets, somebody else has to acquire liabilities. The flip side of the overspending by the debtor (households and governments) is underspending by the creditor (corporations and the very wealthy).

One of the critical points made by Carroll and Sapinski is that labour power is not an object: workers are people. Their very existence depends on a social relationship marked by class, gender and racial inequalities.

Carroll and Sapinski trace the current economic system historically, highlighting how it is based on making someone else pay for so-called externalities (like pollution), including through colonization, the slave trade and other forms of exploitation of humans and nature. The negative impacts of this kind of corporate power are social (poverty, homelessness, food insecurity) and ecological. Minimum wage, public pensions and public healthcare are important concessions, but ultimately corporate power and state power need each other. Even our education system has adapted to the needs of capital—best seen via the corporatization of our universities, from the board of governors and the buildings they meet in to corporate funding of research. 

Redistributive measures (higher wages, higher taxes on the rich, full employment), as Osberg outlines in this final chapter, would undoubtedly help constrain income and wealth concentration. However, Carroll and Sapinski argue that our solutions must enable collective strength that displaces the “antidemocratic logic that empowers and rewards those who own and control capital.” They propose that we need a fundamental restructuring of the economy, one that allows workers to have more control over their labour. They put forward co-operatives as an alternative to corporations, because they allow for democratic ownership and control by workers collaborating to meet human needs rather than simply amassing profit. 

Carroll and Sapinski also point to the need for more public ownership, including of banks, which must operate differently. They propose that our governments centre participatory budgeting and economic planning. They favour initiatives such as divestment, securities tax, increasing the role of unions, moving to codetermination of boards (half workers and half investors) like in Germany and the reinvention of jobs to balance creative control and collaboration. In order to build an energy democracy, we need to shift to renewables and increase public democratic control of economic decisions.

Osberg, Carroll and Sapinski all point to honouring fundamental human rights. The latter authors recommend seeking collaborative consent by First Nations, respecting their collectivist ways and deep ties to the land. Solidarity among and between counter-movements including feminism, environmentalism and Indigenous and labour movements is important.

Do corporate owners have something to contribute to our democracy? Absolutely, say these authors, but no more so than anybody else. Protecting, indeed strengthening our democracy, requires us to restrain the influence of the corporate elite. Simple measures include banning corporate electoral donations and restricting individual electoral donations to $100.

We need to crack down on corporate lobbying, with greater transparency regarding indirect ways corporate elites lobby, such as through pro-business think tanks. Regulatory and public bodies should have very limited corporate presence, balanced out by citizens and community leaders who put the public interest first.

It is also essential to build the capacity of non-profits and community-based alternatives—like my organization—to support the democratization of civil society, including the policy planning process.

How have we gotten here? Carroll and Sapinski make clear the elite have been able to mute the contradictions and construct myths to cover the gap between what we aspire to in our democracies and the way inequality undermines those aspirations.

It is time to turn off the mute button.

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The Acadian Kitchen
Alain Bossé
Whitecap Books

Some Good
Jessica Mitton
Breakwater Books

The Kitchen Party Cookbook
Jenny Osburn
Printed by Gaspereau Press

Rock Recipes Cookies 
Barry C Parsons
Breakwater Books

These brief, cold, damp days of winter make us seek ways to counteract the gloomy emotional and physical effects of our maritime weather. When we’re not taking southern mini breaks under hot sunshine and azure skies, we often seek comfort in food: highly satisfying comfort food, like deliciously gooey macaroni and cheese or slow-cooked beef stew.

Comfort food is the culinary equivalent of a mother’s embrace, wearing a favourite woolly sweater or a cozy pair of slippers, snuggling up beside a crackling fire, wrapping yourself in a fluffy duvet or finally being able to sleep in your own bed after two weeks on the road.

Of course, each of us has our own idea of comfort food. Sometimes cultural or geographical differences are at play, as I was reminded last fall when I read a piece by Kimberly Pierceall of The Virginian-Pilot about the Mercy Chefs organization. These remarkable chefs prepare and serve comfort food to victims and first responders in disaster zones.

Pierceall wrote, “Depending on the disaster zone, Mercy Chef’s menu shave been Kosher, Halal, Tex-Mex and Cajun.” Most recently, in the Carolinas, Mercy Chefs served those affected by Hurricane Florence “clam chowder,ham-and-sweet potato biscuits and macaroni and cheese.”

No matter the recipe, there are certain qualities all comfort-food dishes share. They’re hot, rich and buttery. Ingredients are easily sourced. Flavours are robust, aromas intoxicating. Umami, the savoury fifth taste, is present. Textures are tender, cooking uncomplicated and, finally, comfort-food dishes are nostalgic.

We love comfort foods because they remind us of the first, wonderful time we tasted them, when we were young and contented. They’re dishes we turn to, time and again, when we want to feel better, to have our spirits lifted. For me it’s deep brown, molasses-flavoured baked beans enriched with salt pork. Mom would make them for Saturday supper along with her fragrant, warm, white bread.

When I make baked beans and white bread, I use the recipes from Edna Staebler’s classic Canadian cookbook, Food that Really Schmecks—which celebrated the 50th anniversary of its publication in 2018. The word “schmecks” refers to something that tastes incredibly good.

My mother never used recipes. She made baked beans and everything else from memory. Edna Staebler’s recipe is perfect. It tastes the same as my Mom’s,as does the recipe for basic white bread in Food that Really Schmecks, which came from Staebler’s friend, Clara May, of Neil’s Harbour, Nova Scotia.  

In 1968 Staebler wrote, in her book’s introduction, about the first dinner party she ever gave. Fellow writers were visiting her cottage at SunfishLake (in Southern Ontario) from Toronto. The following passage sums up what Edna Staebler’s food was all about. I believe it’s as good a description of comfort food as you’ll find.

“My dinner would not be elaborate, or exotic, with rare ingredients and mystifying flavours; traditional local cooking is practical: designed to fill up small boys and big men, it is also mouth-wateringly good and variable.

My guests from Toronto arrived. I served them bean salad, smoked pork chops, shoo-fly pie, schmierkase (spready cheese) and apple butter with fastnachts (raised doughnuts). At first they said, ‘Just a little bit, please,’ but as soon as they tasted, their praise was extravagant–lyrical to my wistful ears. They ate till they said they would burst. They ate till everything was all (nothing left).”

I was curious what other people might choose as a favourite comfort food dish. So, I employed social media and asked my Facebook friends what dish they would pick. I received more than 100 responses. The five most popular choices were: macaroni and cheese, stew, lasagna, roast-turkey dinner and chilli con carne. Other choices ranged from risotto and biryani to pan-fried cod tongues and enchiladas. I was surprised that only one person chose meatloaf, which would have made my top three list: baked beans, mac ’n cheese and meatloaf—with ketchup of course!

Next, I asked some Atlantic Canadian cooks to name their favourite comfort foods, including recipes available in their books. (All have new cookbooks on the market.)

Turkey Stuffing/Farce pour la Dinde from Alain Bossé's The Acadian Kitchen. Photo by Perry Jackson.
Turkey Stuffing/Farce pour la Dinde from Alain Bossé’s The Acadian Kitchen. Photo by Perry Jackson.

Alain Bossé is the affable Acadian known as“The Kilted Chef.” His cookbook, The Acadian Kitchen, celebrates the Maritimes cuisine that originated whenCanada’s East Coast and parts of the USA were called Acadie and occupied byFrench settlers.

At least 85 percent of The Acadian Kitchen’s recipes—including Cajun and French-Acadian fusion recipes—qualify as comfort food, beginning with seafood chowders and stews like oyster chowder and wine-braised beef stew, followed by a variety of much-loved dishes like cabbage rolls, chicken pot pie and meatloaf, ending with creamy rice pudding, blueberry grunt and old fashion jelly roll cake.

“We didn’t grow up eating any foods that could be classified as fancy,” Alain Bossé told me. “Comfort foods to me,” he continued, “are one-pot dishes such as casseroles, and one item that I’m a bit embarrassed to share. I would have to say shepherd’s pie, hamburger and macaroni (what my Mom called goulash), and pasta with Catelli meat sauce.”

The latter, as you may have guessed, is the source of Bossé’s slight embarrassment. Although, I’m sure Alain Bossé and all of us agree that apologies are never necessary when it comes to a personal choice in foods that comfort and gladden the heart. 

Naturally, Bossé recommends every recipe in The Acadian Kitchen but he suggests two that stand out. “Chicken fricot, which is basically a chicken stew with dumplings and the jam-jam cookies. They’re a molasses-type cookie with a jam centre. But I think Acadian food in general ticks all the comfort-food boxes. It’s just basic wholesome food. So, maybe, that’s the real definition of comfort food.”

Jessica Mitton is a holistic nutritional consultant and author of Some Good, featuring many popular Newfoundland recipes she’s adjusted and classified gluten free, dairy free and refined-sugar-free. She says, “My definition of comfort food might differ from some. For me, comfort food isn’t only the food that satisfies your taste buds,but that also nourishes your mind and body … My favourite comfort foods are hot elixirs, warming soups or stews, and cookies.”

Bossé’s The Acadian Kitchen and Mitton’s Some Good are similar in that they feature the dishes of a specific region and each region’s locally sourced ingredients. Both authors believe that local ingredients are essential for taste and good nutrition. In fairness, these days most cookbook authors,cooks and chefs advocate using fruit, vegetables and protein from local farms and producers, or ingredients that come from as close to where you live as possible.  

Some Good has Newfoundland’s unique tasting moose, bake apples, partridgeberries, cod, scallops, salmon and root vegetables. Bossé’s cookbook is larger, with more recipes, and taps into a wider variety of ingredients. The Acadian Kitchen, as its name suggests, focuses on much loved Acadian ingredients like oysters,herring, lobster, game and fiddleheads, often seasoned with the Acadian staple, herbes salées.

Jessica Mitton identifies several comfort-food recipes in Some Good.

“Seafood chowder is one of my favourites, as well as the smooth and warming curry lentil root stew. Others would be baked beans, roasted veggies,healthy hermit cookies and blueberry cottage pudding.”

While a comfort food main course can easily be found amongst the rib-sticking recipes of The AcadianKitchen and Some Good, hors d’oeuvres and appetizers occupy every inch of real estate in Jenny Osburn’s, The Kitchen Party Cookbook.

Osburn says that when she dines on comfort food she feels “like the luckiest human on Earth. My youngest daughter asked me, ‘Mommy, why do you close your eyes like that when you’re eating?’ She hasn’t noticed yet that I also breathe weird, so I can really taste the food. When it’s gone there is a feeling of sweet contentment, unless I’ve overdone it, which can be a real danger with comfort food.”

Osburn told me that her favourite comfort food is maki rolls, followed by her Mom’s seven-layer dip and “Italian-influenced cooking, the kind where the vegetables are soft, and you pour olive oil over everything.”

The Kitchen Party Cookbook has no photos but what it lacks in visual stimulation it makes up for in plenty of well-written recipes. Jenny Osburn claims many of them as comfort-food recipes, including the seven-layer dip.

“There are downright tasty meatballs, tiny donairs, coconut fried scallops, and snow-crab dip. There’s a recipe for the samosas I’ve made since I was 15 and the garlic-topped mushrooms I swooned over in Spain. I’ve tried to create recipes that taste amazing every time, which is key to the true comfort-food experience.”

If we were to put together a multi-course comfort food buffet, with appetizers from The Kitchen Party Cookbook and mains from The Acadian Kitchen and Some Good, then Rock Recipes Cookies by Barry C Parsons could be our dessert provider. It’s a cookie compendium of recipes that Parsons has posted on his website for the past decade.

Like many of the people who responded to my Facebook survey, Barry C Parsons chose a Newfoundland favourite as his top comfort food.

“A turkey dinner with all the trimmings is probably my favourite comfort food. In our extended family, this is often Sunday dinner, not just holiday fare. It takes me back to many a happy Sunday in my Nan’s kitchen.”

Rock Recipes Cookies, with its colourful, mouthwatering photos of cookies of every variety imaginable, can give you a sugar rush just skimming it. Parsons’s cookie cyclopedia has them all, including the Parkin, a “sticky oat spice cake” from Old Blighty, the Australian Lamington, “cake dipped in a decadent chocolate syrup and then rolled in coconut,” and the UK’s beloved Jammie Dodger, two vanilla cookies stuck together with jam. Raspberry jam is preferred, or so my British correspondents tell me.   

As for especially comforting choices from his Rock Recipes Cookies book, Parsons admits, “Many are from my grandmothers and aunts. Nan Morgan’s snowballs and Aunt Marie’s date crumbles leap to mind, as do Aunt Aggie’s peanut butter cookies. I can’t count the endless numbers of those I must have eaten over the years, or the countless number of them I must have made for my own children. In our family, comfort food does not skip a generation.”

This intergenerational aspect of comfort foods is a fascinating point. After spending so much time with the cookbooks I’ve been telling you about, I noticed a strong, common theme: a warm, reassuring thread that binds the books together. It’s the devotion to treasured recipes devised—in some cases,generations ago—by close family members and friends. The evidence was in every bookI dipped into in my search for comfort food.  

Cajun Pralines, from Alain Bossé's The Acadian Kitchen. Photo by Perry Jackson.
Cajun Pralines, from Alain Bossé’s The Acadian Kitchen. Photo by Perry Jackson.

In Edna Staebler’s Food that Really Schmecks, her dear friend Bevvy, whose soups Staebler loved, is mentioned almost as much as the author’s mother. In The Acadian Kitchen, Alain Bossé refers to his mom’s delicious corn chowder, his vivid memories of selling fiddleheads as a Boy Scout and later making soup from the leftovers.

Jessica Mitton borrows from her parents and grandmother in Some Good, with recipes like her Mom’s baked beans, baked bread inspired by her Dad and her grandmother’s molasses cookies. Jenny Osburn’s The Kitchen PartyCookbook and Barry C Parsons’ RockRecipes Cookies contain similar references to parents, relatives and friends.

Parents, grandparents and others we care about, and who care about us,use a special ingredient in the food they cook for us. It’s why Mom’s baked beans and the authors’ family favourites tasted so good.

The ingredient, of course, is love. Love is what they poured into their pots and pans, along with everything else, and we could taste it. It’s why all other versions of our favourite comfort foods, including ones we make ourselves, never taste quite as good. Still, when we make them,long-held memories and the feelings we’ve stored in our hearts, are strong enough to make those comfort foods taste better than anything we will ever taste again.

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Kat Frick Miller from If I Had an Old House on the East Coast

There are winter days when, even as a weather-worn East Coaster, you simply don’t feel like wearing six layers of clothing or attempting the near-impossible task of walking as briskly as possible to your car while trying not to end up with your ankles by your ears. On days like that it’s better to shake out a packet of Carnation instant hot chocolate (or, for the fancier among us, reach for that emergency stash of hot chocolate from Sugah or Newfoundland Chocolate Company), settle into the squishiest, most overstuffed armchair you own, and cuddle up with a great book.

If you do decide to opt out of winter for the day, how do you choose the right book? For me, a good winter read is an immersive experience, with vivid characters, an epic story arc and a setting so real that, by the time I put down the book, I feel like I’ve lived there and then, in the world of the book, away from all this sleet and snow.

That’s the key to staying warm with books. Atlantic Books Today has the books to get you through at least a couple weeks’ worth of snow days. Buckle up, because we’re going to take you on a bit of a road trip (while the roads are still passable).

Growing Up Next to the Mental
Brian Callahan
Flanker Press

Wish Mooney is just four years old when he finds the dead man in the Waterford River at nine in the morning. For most people, the discovery would be horrific, but Wish is so young that fear isn’t his first response, or even his second. In fact, he’s not even sure the body is human.

“I didn’t think it was a real person, mainly because I’d never seen a real person like this before. Absolutely motionless. Reminded me of the mannequins in the windows down at Woolworths—save for the pose, and his clothes.”

The discovery puts a keen focus on a central feature of St. John’s, rich in trope and theme. Wish’s childhood is spent living just seven feet away from the grounds of the Waterford Hospital—then the Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases. To the locals, however, it’s simply known as The Mental—because it’s the 1970s and unfortunately, political correctness wasn’t really a thing yet.

The Waterford Hospital opened in 1855, making it the oldest mental health hospital in North America. Callahan draws a vivid picture of what the institution was like almost 50 years ago: the chain-link fence topped with barbed wire that borders the large field, the brick buildings and the “ominous, sky-scraping smokestack.”

Patients rarely use the fields but the neighbourhood kids pick up the slack, playing sports or throwing snowballs, depending on the season. Here on rare occasions, the worlds of the kids and the patients overlap. As Wish grows up, a first encounter with a patient leads to lessons that his neighbours don’t fit neatly into the boxes society shoves them into.

Something for Everyone
Lisa Moore
House of Anansi Press

Depending on where you live, Moore’s latest collection of short stories may require a quick mental trip over the gulf or straight—but there’s very little time travel necessary. Most of the people who inhabit these stories don’t hail from the long-ago version of Newfoundland we read about so often; instead this book is populated by characters with their feet firmly set in the modern world—they’ve been devastated by the Pulse nightclub massacre, empowered by #MeToo, and one is so desperate to save his grandmother’s life that he’s willing to rob an establishment with a syringe.

These people—widows and students, nurses and sex workers—hustle across skywalks, watch YouTube and know a surprising number of guys named Chad.

Something for Everyone is true to its title; there really is a story to suit almost any taste in literature. It’s primarily a work of contemporary fiction, but the stories contain hints of other genres, from mystery to speculative fiction.

Overall, it’s a beautiful and sometimes biting depiction of modern-day Newfoundland (and in some cases, the wider world). Moore never flinches from the truth, no matter how much it hurts. And sometimes it does—but Moore’s work is compassionate. She’s received no shortage of critical praise over the years, but it’s worth noting again that she’s a clear-eyed writer, never forgetting the effects of a parental suicide on a nurse’s life, or an unwanted pregnancy on the mental health of a young woman.

Old Newfoundland isn’t completely absent though from the book and it makes its presence known in more than just the story of Guglielmo Marconi. Traces of the past show up in Moore’s Newfoundland like the sound of after-dinner jigs and reels carried on the unrelenting wind.

Moore’s pacing is impeccable. Her stories can be savoured one at a time or devoured as a 10-course feast.

Oderin
Agnes Walsh
Pedlar Press

St. John’s poet Agnes Walsh’s new collection is dedicated to her mother. It’s fitting then that the opening poem, which serves as a sort of prelude, is about her 93-year-old mother reliving old memories while recovering from a broken hip. “Made in Canada?” is about how despite spending years in Canada, it still isn’t really home to Walsh’s mother—and, as Walsh herself asks, why should it be? Her formative years were in Ireland, and

The ways of Canada were foreign to her / as hers would be to Canadians.

Walsh’s mother may have had Ireland on her mind, but Walsh is firmly planted in Newfoundland soil. While the collection’s overall narrative focuses on the decline of Walsh’s mother’s health, her death, and Walsh’s grief, the individual poems guide us through various places in Newfoundland and their histories.

In “Southern Harbour, Two Cemeteries, One Name,” Walsh walks us through a Southern Harbour graveyard, where we encounter a gravestone with the word “Toslow” (a resettled fishing community in Placentia Bay) inscribed on it, prompting readers to consider the plight of a community forced to relocate and the importance of remembering where you came from.

Although “Rushoon 1,” “Rushoon 2” and “Rushoon 3” are all set in different times, the common thread of domestic abuse runs through all three, highlighting the idea that no matter how quickly neighbours will pull together when someone needs a new roof, they’re still slow to help when it comes to “private matters.” These poems make it clear that no matter how much time passes, the scars left by these wounds are slow to fade.

Later in the collection, specific Newfoundland and Labrador locales are mentioned less, but the province maintains a strong presence in the imagery of Walsh’s poems, in her mother’s “floating mind,” her “harbour of drugs,” and later, in the “bunched paw mark of moose” and the “calligraphy of bird claw.”

Life on the Mista Shipu
Robin McGrath
Boulder Publications

When Robin McGrath and her husband decided to move from Conception Bay, Newfoundland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay in central Labrador in 2006, she was looking forward to a change of scenery. But when she embarked on a journey down the Mista-Shipu (or Churchill River), she discovered that she had far more to learn about her new surroundings than she realized.

McGrath’s first introduction to the reality of life in Labrador was as unfiltered as it could possibly be.

Innu environmentalist Elizabeth Penashue guided the eight-day survivalist trek from Churchill Falls to Gull Island. McGrath and 13 other travellers spent the time navigating strong currents, constructing Innu-style camps from scratch, searching for non-contaminated water and dining on boiled beavers and roasted porcupines. The trip also helped shape much of the work McGrath would do over the coming years.

Canoeing the Churchill River highlighted for me two of the things that became most important to me during my decade in Labrador: the people and the land.

The land and people of Labrador unite the articles and essays in McGrath’s book, Life on the Mista Shipu. Informed by her interactions with the people McGrath has met and befriended, and her experiences exploring and diving headfirst into Labrador and its culture, the non-fiction collection is broken down into categories by theme: Life on the Coast, Justice, Food, Natural History, Visitors and Sojourners, Labradorians at Home and Away, On Land and Sea, People of the Interior, Life and Death, and L’Envoy.

The result is a marvellous and thorough collection where story, history and culture cross paths, intermingle and provide an informed view into an area many of us will never have the opportunity to experience firsthand.

A Boy From Acadie
Beryl Young
Bouton d’or Acadie

Just a 23-hour drive (including the ferry ride) southwest from Happy Valley-Goose Bay, nearly 90 years ago on December 18th 1927, a baby boy was born to a large Acadian family living in Cormier’s Cove, New Brunswick. Like many children at that time, the boy didn’t have an easy childhood. His family ran a small farm and, even at the young age of six, the boy was expected to help out, fetching water from the well, weeding the gardens, piling wood, and feeding livestock.

His mother was devoted to her family, but experienced chronic depression after losing an infant and had frequent debilitating headaches. When she wasn’t feeling well, the boy would have to be quiet and his sisters would have to step in and cover the meals. She died young, when he was around seven.

All this was in addition to studying at the one-room schoolhouse with its 57 children, single teacher and a big black stove to keep them all warm. The boy wasn’t cut out for farm work; school is where he thrived. While the rest of the children in his family left school at the end of Grade 7, the boy’s sister helped pay his way through high school, and more family members chipped in to get him through university.

The boy was Roméo LeBlanc, who eventually worked his way up through various political posts to become Canada’s first Acadian Governor General. In addition to the story of Roméo’s childhood, A Boy From Acadie also tells how he gave more than 800 speeches, protected the rights of Canadian fisherman by establishing the important 200-mile fishing limit off Canada’s coasts, dined with the Queen of England and hosted President Nelson Mandela.

A Boy From Acadie book makes it clear that despite all this, Roméo’s family and childhood home in New Brunswick remained closed to his heart. In that sense, it acts as a tour of Acadian culture itself.

Searching for Terry Punchout
Tyler Hellard
Invisible Press

Province hopping again, a shorter drive this time, Tyler Hellard’s debut novel takes place in a small (fictional) Nova Scotia town, called Pennington. To hear Hellard’s main character Adam tell it, though, it doesn’t matter that the little community isn’t real—because it’s intended to be a stand-in for all the small East Coast towns that do exist.

Within the first few pages, Adam returns to the town after spending years out west. He describes Pennington as:

a small town in the way all towns in Nova Scotia are small. In the summer, it smells like salt and in the winter, it snows that wet, heavy Maritime snow—heart attack snow, they call it. Everybody knows of everybody else and their business… It’s a town that thrives on routine and expectation and neighbourly kindness. There are hundreds of towns just like this—Pennington, Pugwash, Tatamagouche, Antigonish, Pictou—and the specifics don’t matter.

I won’t pretend this paragraph didn’t cause me to feel a bit of knee-jerk indignation. I’m someone who doesn’t mind making the drive to Tatamagouche just for the beer, and I was recently amazed by the high-quality service at St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in the unique small town of Antigonish.

But, shoving my internal biases aside and reminding myself it’s the character saying this, not Hellard (who is from PEI), Pennington works well as a familiar-feeling small Canadian town obsessed with hockey. Whether or not my Nova Scotian sensibilities are comfortable with the sameness of our towns, that idea serves as a benchmark for how Adam’s feelings change. The more he learns about his hometown’s role in his family’s history, and the more time he spends with old friends, the more assumptions he shoves aside.

Until he finally realizes moving away isn’t quite the same as moving on.

Now it’s time to hunker down. Hit up your local bookstores and libraries, and most importantly, restock the hot chocolate cupboard…

 

But wait! Here are some additional winter reading suggestions from our editor, all with a strong setting to take you away from it all:

Ned Pratt: One Wave
Ned Pratt
Goose Lane Editions

“He shows us the beauty of a quiet moment in a rugged and difficult place,” writes Anne Chafe, director of The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery in her forward. Perhaps this is the best description of how to find warmth in a winter space. It’s like the old adage, “There’s no bad weather, just bad preparation.”

Pratt embraces this harsh land, celebrates it, in all its glorious starkness. His sharp, in-your-face angles crash hard, whether he’s giving us a glimpse of ocean from a ferry, a wave crashing over a breaker, a snowdrift, a red-striped trailer or a guardrail by the roadside, fog on rocks, a frozen slab of seawater or a lone shack shelter in a storm of white.

These photos are so illustrative one might wonder if they are in fact drawn that way. They aren’t. They simply take the elements in their arms, or lens, with well-thought-out abandon. Taking in One Wave is like watching an awesome storm through your window. 

Threads in the Acadian FabricSimone Poirier-Bures
Pottersfield Press

Stories of nine generations of Poiriers—whirlwind touring, sometimes by force, from France to Port Royal to Beaubassin to Port Toulouse to Isle Madame and Halifax—told by the Evelyn Richardson Award-winning Simone Poirier-Bures give insight into the collective experience of Acadie, the physical and cultural landscape.

If I had an Old House on the East Coast
Wanda Baxter & Kat Frick Miller
Nimbus Publishing

Sit (warmly) at home, and imagine a home as seen from above, dating way back, with slate stairs and surrounded by trees, all bright and filled with souvenirs. Think sunny kitchens where recipes come to life, wall stencils full of stories and generations of DIY ingenuity that somehow comes together just right. Think animals, inside and out. A casa abierta generates warmth from all the life inside and around it. Even in such a lively house, Baxter and Miller tell us, comes a time “to go in, cozy up, and rest for a while…and dream some new dreams, while the snow flies.”

What Your Hands Have Done
Chris Bailey
Nightwood Editions

Clearly we’re not above romanticizing our region. We live here for a reason after all. But, as much as we want to trumpet its many charms it has its dark side, its “world of hard-scrabble, hard-luck ports and hard-living, hard-drinking fishers” as George Elliott Clarke puts it on the jacket of Chris Bailer’s new poetry collection. Bailey’s voice here is all authentic; he’s a North Lake, Prince Edward Island fisherman and an award-winning poet. A significant portion of his poems reference fish in the title; other eye catchers include “Crow Piss: a Pantoum,” “Beetles Running Mad,” “Uncle Stormcloud” and “Like Warren Zevon.” This is the fishing life of the 21st century.

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Fiction

The Smeltdog Man
Frank Macdonald
Pottersfield Press

Think: burgeoning fast-food empire. Think: Cape Bretoner with the munchies. Think: the smeltdog. Macdonald’s latest novel showcases his usual sense of satire and silliness, nods to an old character from Tinker and Blue, with a bit more of a freewheeling sensibility. But as always, common sense wins out over greed—at least in the hearts of the wise.

Treason’s Edge
Susan MacDonald
Breakwater Books

This is the third and final instalment in MacDonald’s YA fantasy series, The Tyon Collective. The tension is ramped up on high for protagonist Alec, whose terrifying abilities are being controlled by the traitorous Anna, with the fate of the world at stake.

Politics & Society

Crossing Troubled Waters
MacQuarrie, Pierson, Stettner, Bloomer
Island Studies Press

“Trouble” serves as a euphemism for unwanted pregnancy, in the old parlance. The trouble is magnified in societies lacking effective reproductive care. This work examines modern barriers to healthcare in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Prince Edward Island, an apt comparison given the power of the church on each island.

Hell’s Flames to Heaven’s Gate
Jack Fitzgerald
Breakwater

Jack Fitzgerald, journalist cum folklorist cum historian, talks about the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland, which has been a historical sanctuary for Irish-Catholic immigrants and is one of the most powerful political and social influencer on the Rock.

Viola Desmond: Her Life and Times
Graham Reynolds with Wanda Robson
Fernwood Publishing

Nine years before Rosa Parks made US history, Viola Desmond was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat in a segregated movie theatre in Nova Scotia. Desmond’s younger sister, Wanda Robson, played an active role in winning a posthumous pardon for Desmond. With Graham Reynolds, Robson tells Desmond’s life story, including her role as a pioneering African Canadian businesswoman.

Westray: My Journey from Darkness to Light
Vernon Therriault as told to Marjorie Coady
Preface from Steve Hunt, United Steelworkers
Nimbus Publishing

This is the memoir of a brave person, a survivor and a fighter. It is the story of the Westray mine disaster told by a man who worked in the mine and who won a Medal of Bravery for his part in the unsuccessful rescue efforts. In the aftermath—fraught with chronic pain and PTSD—Theriault found purpose in fighting for the Westray Bill to hold negligent companies criminally responsible.

Holiday Gifts

Christmas in Atlantic Canada: Stories True and False, Past and Present
David Goss
Nimbus

Old-world countries like England have grand narratives by beloved authors to give them a sense of Christmas past. But the holiday didn’t gain significance here until…well, 1604 as it turns out. Thankfully we have folklorist David Gross tracing the history of Christmas in our region, from the first live Santa sighting to the first awed crowd surrounding a Christmas tree in a store window.

Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 5
Ronald Caplan, editor
Breton Books

Collected Cape Breton Christmas stories have become an annual tradition, and for editor Ronald Caplan a year-round endeavour. The Cape Breton Post reported him scouring the beaches for prospective writers saying, “everyone has at least one good Christmas story to share.” He proves himself right every year, with a diverse collection of well-crafted, touching stories.

Saltwater Mittens
Christine LeGrow & Shirley Scott
Boulder Publications

It’s a very Newfoundland book in one sense, but anyone north of say the 42nd parallel is sure to appreciate a good pair of wool mittens, especially ones as stylish and authentic as those knitted by LeGrow & Scott. A perfect gift for your favourite knitters.

History

Halifax Harbour 1918
Anabelle Kienle Ponka
Goose Lane Editions

As significant as a centennial is, it is equally fascinating to envision the site of a disaster a year after the fact. How fortunate that Harold Gilman and Arthur Lisman—a co-founder of the Group of Seven—were working in Halifax as war artists a year after 1917’s Halifax Explosion. Their contrasting depict a critical moment in the history of Canadian art, and of Canada itself.

Album Rock
Matthew Hollett
Boulder

St. John’s visual artist and writer Matthew Hollett became fascinated with the question, “Why are a group of French sailors from the mid-1800s painting the word ‘ALBUM’ on a rock?” Album Rock: Looking back through the lens of Paul-Émile Miot is Hollett’s personal journey to solve the mystery of NL history.

Bounty: The Greatest Sea Story of Them All
Geoff D’Eon
Formac

Bounty was the 1787 ship where the most infamous mutiny in British naval history took place. They made a Hollywood movie about it in 1962 using a recreation of the ship built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, which eventually sunk in Hurricane Sandy in 2012. D’Eon’s account of the famous ship spans 400 years of “romance…cruelty, lust, loyalty, jealousy, misadventure, hubris, heroism and death.”

The Blind Mechanic: Eric Davidson, Survivor of Halifax Explosion
Marilyn Elliott foreword Janet Kitz
Nimbus Publishing

Eric Davison lost both eyes in the Halifax Explosion. Supporting his fascination with cars and mechanics, his brothers read him auto-repair manuals. He learned well and went on to a decades-long career as an auto mechanic, winning the hearts and loyalty of his Halifax customers.

Personal Accounts

The Other Side of the Sun
Thien Tang
Pottersfield Press

Given the number of people from troubled spots across the globe who have found refuge in this region, it’s remarkable how rare published refugee memoirs are. Prince Edward Islander Thien Tang’s eloquent, honest, lyrical and heartrending story, in addition to personalizing the kind of harrowing account most of us only hear on the news, contributes an important thread in the fabric of our regional culture.

New Brunswick Underwater
Lisa Hrabluk, photography Michael Hawkins
MacIntyre Purcell

The 2018 Saint John River flood was a record breaker that affected thousands of New Brunswickers, cost millions to clean up after, and may have been but a glimpse of a changed-climate future. Award-winning journalist Lisa Hrabluk personalizes the statistics with moving individual accounts of despair, heroism and resilience.

The Nova Scotia Book of Lists
Vernon Oikle
MacIntyre Purcell

Be they to-do, to-see, bucket, top-ten or otherwise, we love our lists. Oikle’s collection, a combination of his own lists and those of experts from across the province, is geared to Bluenosers and anyone looking to get to know Nova Scotia better. Here you’ll find out where see the best waterfalls, eat the best pizza, drink the best wine, find the best sea-glass…

Sports

Brad Marchand: The Unlikely Star
Philip Croucher
Nimbus Publishing

Hammonds Plains’ Brad Marchand is widely considered one of the 20 best male hockey players alive. He’s also the single most annoying hockey player to non-Bruins fans. Whatever your perceptions of Marchand, there’s no denying the 5’9” forward, drafted 71st overall, has defied expectations, becoming an elite scorer, Stanley Cup winner and World Cup hero. Croucher’s account features personal interviews and 40+ photos.

Hockey Card Stories 2
Ken Reid
ECW

Pictou native Ken Reid is back with “59 more true tales from your favourite players,” the follow up to his highly readable national bestseller of 2014. Reid’s a TV sportscaster but other than the sports angle these books have relatively little to do with his day job. It’s his childhood passion for collecting that drives his quest for the stories behind quirky cards featuring mullets, broken noses and, in one case, a rhinoceros and Hall of Famer together.

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Late June, 2001, I’m sitting on a Vancouver Beach reading a book called No Great Mischief, when a real-chill dude accosts me. “You’re missing the real world, man.”

By the way, it’s sunset or something. In the real world.

I’m all dismissive. “I like this world,” I say, stabbing the book with my index finger. I mean Cape Breton.

But the dude’s words dig at me. I’m travelling, after all. Checking out new terrain. And when I look up I see that the sunset is, in fact, spectacular.

Still, I love the worlds in books. That is, I love that each time I open one I know I’ll be able to escape or immerse myself at will, within new landscapes, cultures, possibilities.

This magic is particularly relevant in winter, I find, when real-world travel is more burdensome and the mere act of stepping outside can sometimes seem futile at best. Yes, we have the holidays and an infant year to fete, but then it’s another five weeks till the groundhog indicates there are another two or three or four (in NL) months to go.

At this time of year, more than any other, we seek comfort in a good book and a hot meal. Both these things have the power to transport us to another time, another place.

As Sarah Sawler (author of 100 Things You Don’t Know About Nova Scotia and 100 Things You Don’t Know About Atlantic Canada) and Karl Wells (co-author author of Cooking with One Chef One Critic) show us in this issue, comfort books and foods give us a veritable cultural and literary tour of our region, past and present.

Stories and foods are the ties that bind, in that the nostalgia they build in us become like the same family they remind us of.

[And while you’re on our tour, check out our Book Lovers’ Holiday Gift Guide insert on Page 19.]

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One Strong Girl
Lesley Buxton
Pottersfield Press

The Tides of Time
Suzanne Stewart
Pottersfield Press

Pottersfield Press publisher Lesley Choyce admits he was simply seeking out new writers and higher-quality manuscript submissions when he created an in-house literary prize last year that promised the two top winners not only publishing contracts but also cash advances against their book’s royalties.

Choyce had landed on creative non-fiction as his prize category of choice because he himself had become “more and more excited about the possibilities of creative non-fiction, the bending of traditional categories and the infusion of new styles and content” into non-fiction. (Publisher Choyce, you probably know, is also Writer Choyce, one of the world’s most prolific authors, with 87-and-counting books published himself in virtually every genre imaginable to librarians and booksellers.)

“We mostly wanted to try something new—for us at least—and it paid off,” Choyce says. It’s also paying off handsomely for five first-time creative non-fiction authors.

Pottersfield’s competition attracted 50 book-length entries from Newfoundland to British Columbia. “While the number doesn’t sound that impressive,” Choyce acknowledges, “what was impressive was the quality of the manuscripts that came our way. Two won; three more entrants were accepted for publication and now have books in the pipeline.”

Choyce describes the first-prize winner, One Strong Girl by British Columbia writer Lesley Buxton, as “a gut-wrenching, honest, heartfelt book about the loss of a daughter. The writing is powerful… a difficult story well told.”

Lesley Buxton and her daughter, India

The second-prize winner, The Tides of Time by Suzanne Stewart, an Antigonish-based academic with a PhD in English literature and a specialization in Romantic poetry, is a very different project, “a gem of a manuscript by a lover of literature who used her literary skill and knowledge to write a most evocative book about everyday life in rural Nova Scotia.”

Buxton’s book began as a blog, Fall on Me, Dear, which she wrote to cope with her daughter India’s serious illness, and eventual death.

“I wanted to share what it was like to mother a very sick child—the isolation, the heartache, but also the beauty. From the start,” she adds, “readers responded positively. People wrote me from all over the world sharing their experiences.”

The blog evolved into book form during Buxton’s two years in the University of King’s College’s MFA in Creative Non-fiction program. (Full disclosure: both Buxton and Stewart are 2016 graduates of that MFA program in which I teach, though neither were students of mine.)

“King’s was the perfect fit for me,” Buxton explains. “I needed the intimacy of a small university… We all hung out together, cheered for each other during readings, talked about our projects.

“The hardest part of the process was actually re-reading the drafts. While I was writing, Lesley the Writer was in charge, and I was able to keep some distance, think of the story as belonging to someone else, but when I read the chapters it really affected Lesley the Mother.”

Buxton first heard about the Pottersfield prize last year when a fellow grad—with whom she still meets weekly to share and critique work and with whom she is now collaborating on a children’s book—wrote to her “basically telling me to apply.”

But when the good-news email from Choyce eventually arrived, Buxton was so nonplussed, “I remember opening it up thinking, ‘Oh, damn, I guess it’s time for Plan B.’”

She says the book’s publication will be bittersweet. “This is my first book and I’m very proud of it, but it’s also a book I wish I’d never had to write.”

Stewart’s challenges were different. “While working on the project, I kept it largely to myself,” she says, “thinking that my creative writing fell outside of the bounds of academic life and might not be of interest to, or accepted by, my colleagues… But I was wrong, and that realization became my greatest joy.”

Her book idea “sprang from my interest in rural life and natural beauty, and I wanted to treat these subjects uniquely by tying them to my study of 19th-century [Romantic] poetry.” While the book is a kind of “conversation” between those poets and present-day rural seasonal labourers, “I, too, entered this dialogue, as I struggled to reconcile my own search for beauty with the purely practical concerns of rural labourers.”

Like Buxton, Stewart didn’t allow herself to imagine her manuscript might actually be chosen. “Having hardened myself to the many rejections that writers receive… the gratification was immense,” she says. “My self-doubt suddenly lifted, and I felt that I could enjoy my project—and creative writing—again, after having lost my confidence in both.”

While their successes are already spawning next steps—Reader’s Digest is excerpting Buxton’s book and both authors have begun follow-up projects—Choyce says the prize has boosted Pottersfield too.

Founded in 1979 in Lawrencetown Beach, NS, Choyce’s book publishing empire grew out of Pottersfield Portfolio, a series of his 1970s magazine-like anthologies of new regional fiction and poetry. Since then, Pottersfield Press has published more than 200 books by authors ranging from iconic Maritime literary figures like Thomas Raddall, Harold Horwood, George Elliott Clarke and Charles Bruce to new works by first-time book authors like Vietnamese refugee Thien Tang and spoken-word artist/poet Abena Beloved Green.

Although Pottersfield has always considered itself a regionally based publisher with larger ambitions—“We’ve often branched out,” Choyce notes, “with things like one of the first anthologies of Canadian science fiction, a memoir by Neil Peart of Rush fame, the story of a young BC man who hiked solo across the Himalayas and a book about food politics and culture in sub-Saharan Africa”—the fact Buxton is BC-based helps make his case anew.

In the large publishing landscape, Choyce adds, “I think smaller prizes like this help offset some of the rigidity of the big money prizes in Canada, which tend to go all too often to writers published by big publishing houses.”

One Strong Girl and The Tides of Time will both be published in November.

As for Pottersfield, Choyce has already announced plans for its second annual Creative Non-fiction Prize.

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The Creative City of Saint John
Edited by Davies, Larocque and Verduyn
Formac Publishing

The Lost City
Ian MacEachern
Goose Lane Editions

Shipwrecks Off the East Coast
Carmel Vivier
Formac Publishing

Saint John has often been referred to as a historic city and a renaissance city. It has a long history of achievements, including many firsts. It is filled with creativity in its endeavours, be they shipbuilding, architecture, literature or visual artists.

Boy on a tricycle, Moore Street, by Ian MacEachern, from The Lost City, courtesy of Goose Lane Editions

Saint John has been welcoming immigrants from the United States, Eastern Europe, England and Ireland for centuries, and more recently from the Middle East and Asia. With their arrival, each immigrant group brings more culture, and leaves a unique imprint on Saint John’s cultural and artistic scenes.

The population of the city started expanding with the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists from the United States, in 1783. Two years later, New Brunswick had its first official newspaper, The Royal St. John Gazette and Nova Scotia Intelligencer. By the 1820s, some books were being published locally, instead of in England.

According to The Creative City of Saint John, a new collection edited by scholars Gwendolyn Davies, Peter J Laroque and Christl Verduyn that portrays the creative work of Saint John in the century following confederation, one writer, Mary Agnes Fleming, sold her first story at the age of 15, to a New York magazine.

Fleming continued to write after her marriage in 1865 and moved to New York to be closer to her various publishers. A savvy businesswoman, Fleming was earning $10,000 yearly through her writing contracts with magazines and publishers. It was an unheard of amount for a woman in 1875.

Another prominent local writer was bestselling author William Edward Daniel Ross (1912-1995). He wrote an incredible 358 novels in various genres throughout his career, as well as more than 600 short stories and over a dozen plays. He wrote many of these under one of his 21 pseudonyms.

Ross’ popular vampire Gothic fiction books series sold 17 million copies. His novel China Shadow, written under the pseudonym Clarissa Ross in 1974, sold more than 2 million copies.

We’ll Be Shipbuilding

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, New Brunswick was the centre of tall shipbuilding in Canada, producing more than half of all tall ships in the country. Among the ships built here, the most famous was the Marco Polo, the “fastest ship in the world.” I wrote about the Marco Polo in my book Shipwrecks Off the East Coast.

Saint John master carvers were kept busy during the Golden Age of Sail carving figureheads for many of the ships being launched. One such carver, Amos Fales, carved the figurehead for the ship the Prince Victor. The Quaco Museum in the Village of St. Martins in Saint John County has the repatriated piece, the only fully restored figurehead from a locally built ship.

School girls with laundry, photo by Ian MacEachern, from The Lost City, courtesy of Goose Lane Editions

Fire and Architecture

The architecture of Saint John is unique in part because of the Great Fire of 1877, which gutted the city. What took the fire nine hours to destroy took a building boom of almost ten years to rebuild. Saint John’s diverse architecture stands as an homage to the craftsmen, designers and builders who travelled from across North America and beyond to assist in the rebuilding of the city.

Changes to the landscape have also been made through urban renewal. Fredericton-based photographer Ian MacEachern’s work in his new book, The Lost City, serves as a portrait of times gone by, specifically showcasing and documenting the changing landscape of Saint John from the 1950s through to the 1970s.

These landscapes at times resemble the much larger American city of Boston, and have in fact been used by film crews in Boston-set movies.

Much of the architecture from the late 1890s has been preserved and Saint John is unusual in having a designated heritage area in its downtown/uptown landscape. One heritage district is the Trinity Royal Preservation Area located in the heart of the city and encompassing more than 300 commercial and residential buildings. You can read more about the architectural heritage of historic Saint John in A Pictorial Walk Through Historic Saint John: Canada’s Oldest City, which I co-wrote with Ethel King.

In the Art of the City

Saint John continues to have a vibrant and eclectic literary and art scene. Many of the city’s artists exhibit their works at the Saint John Art Centre, which also holds workshops, classes and cultural events. Saint Johners are proud to claim prominent artists Fred Ross and Miller Brittain as their own.

Saint John was also once home to famous actors like Walter Pidgeon and Donald Sutherland, and film producer Harry Salzman, who produced many of the James Bond films and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Movie studio mogul Louis Mayer of MGM fame also came from Saint John.

Musicians like Ned Landry, the three-time North American fiddle champion and composer of more than 500 original fiddle tunes, was also from Saint John. Other local musicians include Landry’s cousin, Stompin’ Tom, Bruce Holder, Kenny Tobias, Frances James and Catherine McKinnon, to name a few.

Saint John Innovative

Saint John can also boast of having been home to some famous inventors and inventions, such as the SCUBA tank, invented by James Elliott and Alexander McAvity in 1839. Since modified for modern use, the SCUBA tank had its first patent nearly 180 years ago.

The Steam Fog Whistle, invented by Robert Foulis, was patented in 1853. The world’s first steam fog whistle was set up on Partridge Island to warn ships of the often fog-enshrouded location of the island at the mouth of Saint John Harbour.

Other local inventions include a clothes washer with wringer rolls, combination hot-and-cold water faucets, and the vortex flushing toilet.

Artistry in all forms is being created and viewed every day in Saint John. Look at the events being showcased around the city to get a flavour of just how much Saint John has grown, and of the bright road ahead. There are local music, dance and drama schools where all levels of these arts are taught.

People here embrace their heritage. Whether extolling Saint John’s architectural wonders to visitors, performing in musicals or plays, or writing novels, Saint Johners proudly create, and encourage their compatriots to do the same.

Saint John is a better city for it, one that embraces varied cultures and art forms, and one that continues to innovate.

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Hope Blooms youth. Image courtesy of Hope Blooms and Nimbus Publishing.

Hope Blooms
Hope Blooms/Arlene Dickinson
Nimbus Publishing

 

Be Prepared!
Frankie MacDonald and Sarah Sawler
Nimbus Publishing

 

My River
Anne Laurel Carter
Formac Publishing

 

Mamadou Wade is fond of this particular quotation, attributed to ground-breaking thinker and computer scientist Alan Turing. As a long-time member of Hope Blooms, a youth-led community project growing vegetables and herbs and producing their own line of popular salad dressings, Wade is getting accustomed to “achieving things people don’t really imagine you achieving.”

“I feel like that resonates with us,” says Wade, “because from the outside looking in you see the stigmas, you see the stereotypes of inner-city kids. But we’re really achieving great things.”

Back in 2013, Wade was on a team of young kids from Hope Blooms who presented on CBC’s reality investor series, Dragon’s Den. After going in asking for a $10,000 investment to help meet the growing demand for their home-grown herb salad dressings, the Hope Blooms kids brought tears to the eyes of several Dragons and went home with four contributions of $10,000 each.

The story that moved the Dragons to tears (and to ponying up financial support) is told in Hope Blooms: Plant a Seed, Harvest a Dream. It is one of three new books—the others are about an autistic weather aficionado and an 11-year-old citizen scientist—that, on the surface, tell vastly different stories. But they all hone in on some basic principles that drive their subjects—all of them under 40—who “no one can imagine anything of.” They have all achieved book-worthy success and they are all, each in their own ways, are changing and inspiring the world in the process.

The Garden Tycoons

The Hope Blooms story goes back to 2008, when nutritionist Jessie Jollymore brought together nine children and youth living near an abandoned community garden in Halifax’s North End. Together, they grew enough fresh ingredients to produce 150 jars of homemade salsa. The “Salsamania” crew sold the lot, then voted to donate the proceeds to a local women’s shelter. The seeds of Hope Blooms were sown.

Ten years later there are more than 50 Hope Blooms youth, ranging in age from five to 18 years old, growing over 4,000 pounds of produce annually. The group has a bustling commercial kitchen and storefront, a solar-powered greenhouse growing herbs year-round and an ever-evolving garden space, which has become a focal point of the local community. Hope Blooms dressings are now available in major grocery stores and, in addition to funding local charities, they have created the Hope Blooms scholarship fund, currently helping four garden alumni cover their post-secondary education costs. Mamadou Wade was the first scholarship recipient in 2016, and attends the University of Toronto focussing on business and technology.

Wade recalls first joining the group when he was 11. “Some of my peers would go to the Hope Blooms garden, and I was kind of curious,” recalls Wade, admitting that the gardening was not what won him over. “I like gardening but I wouldn’t necessarily say that’s my main passion. The business side of things really attracted me—going to the Seaport market every Saturday selling the dressings.

“I still garden occasionally,” he admits with a smile.

 

Photo by Nicola Davison, Snickerdoodle Photography

In the spirit of a youth-led organization, the children and youth take ownership over what Hope Blooms does, says Wade. “Salad dressing is obviously our staple product, but there’s also other things we do. We’re starting a tea business, which is completely youth-led. And we have a lemonade business. Going on Dragon’s Den, that was our idea that we put forward,” he recalls. “We really were into it. We would come in after school and just really put in the necessary work. We took ownership and we took pride in that. It wasn’t just about getting the money, it was about making our community proud.”

After ten years, Hope Blooms has become a self-sustaining community engine of positive impacts, with older participants and “alumni” like Wade mentoring the younger gardeners and budding social entrepreneurs. And that, according to Wade, is the real payoff. “Starting off as kids, and growing into young men and women who are going to eventually change the world… that’s kind of the end goal.”

The Citizen Scientist

It’s a goal Stella Bowles can relate to. In Grade 6, at age 11 going-on 12, Bowles became a household name in Nova Scotia. Her science-fair project documenting the dangerously high enterococci bacteria levels in the LaHave River put the adult stewards of her community to shame, and kick started a process that will, eventually, put an end to more than 600 illegal “straight pipes” that have been flushing raw sewage directly into the river for generations.

Like Mamadou Wade, Bowles is taking her personal success and parlaying it into helping other young people. Using awards, grants and donations, and in partnership with the conservation group Coastal Action, Bowles has put together kits and training sessions to make it possible for other young people and citizen scientists to measure pollution levels in their own local waterways. And she’s also become a strong advocate for better science education, calling for more hands-on experience and inquiry-based learning in schools.

The story of how Bowles got where she is today—a savvy, determined 14-year-old who may end up seeing the demise of straight pipes throughout Nova Scotia—is told in My River: Cleaning up the LaHave River, co-authored by Anne Laurel Carter.

It all started with a conversation around her kitchen table. As her parents discussed the prospect of replacing their septic system, it came up that not all properties along the river actually had septic systems. “And Mom explained what a straight pipe was and my jaw dropped. I had no words,” recalls Bowles.

Bowles had questions. Her parents decided to help her find the answers. Through Coastal Action, Bowles met her first mentor outside her family, Dr. David Maxwell, who had been testing the LaHave for two years and was finding unsafe levels of fecal contamination. Bowles was shocked and concerned, especially for the people swimming and boating in the river, including her father and brother. Even today, says Bowles, “I see people swimming in the water and I’m like, ‘oh, I wonder if they know.’”

Before taking on any testing herself, Bowles decided to start getting the word out. She put up her first now-famous sign facing the road on her property: “This river is contaminated with fecal bacteria.”

Photo by Andrea Conrad, courtesy of Formac Publishing

Almost two years later, after her science project had gained boatloads of media attention and garnered her a silver medal at the Canada-wide Science Fair in Regina, the government funding needed to put an end to straight pipes had still not come through. So Bowles put up a second sign: “600+ homes flush their toilets directly into this river.”

“It was to the point, it was simple, and everybody understood it,” says Bowles. In addition to learning the rudiments of controlled experiments and the importance of valid scientific results, Bowles had learned the value of simple, clear messages when communicating to the public at large. She had also learned that to provoke change in the adult world, you need to keep up the pressure.

After federal funding was approved and the demise of straight pipes in the LaHave seemed imminent, a call came in from the municipal government to ask if Bowles would consider taking down her discomforting sign. She agreed to, but only after the first hole was dug to replace a straight pipe with a proper septic system.

Bowles’ youth has had its disadvantages. Though no one challenged her in person, Bowles has heard people discrediting her work, “because you’re a kid.”

Luckily, she has had mentors showing her how to do the science right, her parents and Dr. David Maxwell, as well as other local scientists. She was even invited to Acadia University to perform further tests to confirm that what she had been counting were actually enterococci. (They were.)

At other times, her youth has proven advantageous. “The fact that I was a little kid, kind of shaming the adults, was creating a lot of talk in the community,” says Bowles. “‘Hey, look at what this kid did for a project. Why hasn’t anybody else done this?’ There was a lot of upset people, not because of me, but because this is happening and nobody was really doing anything.”

To date, about ten straight pipes have been replaced along the LaHave. More are underway. The full project is expected to take about five years.

“I’m really, really happy with the progress,” says Bowles. “It’s crazy to see that a little project sparked so much change. Being a kid doesn’t mean you can’t do anything. You can make a difference. Your age is just a number.”

Bowles found strength not only in science but also in effective communication. For that, she didn’t just rely on roadside signs. She also made good use of social media.

“Posts went so far,” says Bowles. “Social media can be used for good. It doesn’t have to be always negative. Without Facebook I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with this project.”

The YouTube Weatherman

The support of mentors and the ever-growing online world has presented opportunities for another young Nova Scotian, too.

You may know Frankie MacDonald from his videos on YouTube, where he reports the weather forecast with a gusto that has won him fans across the globe. He also creates popular comedy clips such as “Guy Tries to Eat 50 Hot Dogs at Once,” which has garnered more than 1.2 million views.

In Be Prepared: The Frankie MacDonald Guide to Life, the Weather, and Everything, author Sarah Sawler teams up with MacDonald to give a glimpse behind the videos and tell the story of how MacDonald’s interest in technology and weather eventually led him to carve out a dream job for himself.

In Be Prepared, we learn of MacDonald’s early life, growing up with autism in Sydney, Cape Breton. We learn of the people in his life who helped him learn to connect with others and encouraged him to pursue his interests. We learn of his passion for weather, rooted in his early childhood watching the weather channel, and later chasing the odd storm with his father. And we learn that concern for people is at the core of his dedication to weather forecasting.

Frankie MacDonald, photo courtesy of Nimbus Publishing

“I warn people to get them ready for bad weather,” says MacDonald, with advice ranging from “get your flashlights” to “order your pizza, order your Chinese food.” And always, “take care, be prepared.”

Of course, MacDonald has had his run-ins with the darker side of humans so prevalent on the internet. He shut down his first YouTube channel in 2010 after too many negative comments. But his current channel is going strong, with more than 175,000 subscribers and pages of positive comments. MacDonald says when things get nasty, there’s only one thing to do:

“Ignore all the trolls. Ignore bullies. Ignore negative comments,” says MacDonald. “Those guys will be banned from YouTube sooner or later.”

On Twitter, where MacDonald maintains an active presence as @frankiemacd, Frankie Defence Teams have sprung up to help maintain the positivity and shut down the bullying.

MacDonald’s new book (replete with weather facts from around the world) and his new line of action figures (sporting hoodies emblazoned with “Frankie Says Be Prepared!”) are his current projects, but otherwise MacDonald is focussed on producing more videos, continuing to care for people by warning them of bad weather in the making and continuing to make them laugh with his comedy skits.

Your age is a number. Ignore the bullies. Seek out the right mentors. Put in the necessary work. Make your community proud.

It’s almost as if the kids of Hope Blooms, Stella Bowles and Frankie MacDonald were all following the same recipe for success, each in their own unique way.

It’s lucky for us they are, because someone has to have the guts, the creativity and the fortitude to “do the things no one can imagine.”