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I Am Birch
Scott Kelley
Islandport Press

Taapoategl & Pallet
Peter J Clair
Chapel Street Editions

A Pony Day
Hélène deVarennes and Paul Lang
Bouton d’or Acadie

Discouraged and disgusted by the fiery politics burning through the United States of America in November 2016, Scott Kelley turned inward at his writing desk on an island off the coast of Maine.

He deleted all the news apps off his phone. In the silence came the stories of his childhood, stories of the People of the First Light—stories from the same land, but a different identity. As he began to create, he did so not in the United States of America, but in the Wabanaki Confederacy.

Kelley had been working on a series of portraits of Wabanaki Elders and a separate series of animals living in the woods near his home. “One night, I was sorting through my picture files and a photograph of a bear ended up next to a photograph of a Mi’kmaq chief’s coat, and next to that was a rather dapper Penobscot gentleman wearing a top hat,” Kelley says.

Illustration by Scott Kelley from I Am Birch

“I pulled out a big piece of paper and 20 minutes later had drawn a bear wearing a top hat and the chief’s coat. I knew that there was something there, and by the time I did the painting of the rabbit smoking a pipe, the rest just fell into place. It happens, sometimes.”

He started to tell a story among the striking and strange images of a wet-nosed deer wearing beads, a hat and a cloak; a badger staring deep into the viewer while wearing a bright red-and-black cloak and a pointed hat; and through it all, a birch tree.

“The legends of Glooscap were writ large throughout my childhood, but to be honest, the story itself was an accident. I needed a place for the paintings to inhabit, and Glooscap—or at least my memories of Glooscap—just kind of popped up and I went with it.”

I Am Birch (Islandport Press) came to light. Birch talks to Beaver, Porcupine, Heron and many others, and each tries to alarm him with the same bleak fortune: a time is coming of great cold and darkness. The fear of chaos sweeps through the forest but Birch resists panic. He questions the animals, but none know the source of the rumour and none know it to be true.

“There is no coming time of great Cold and Darkness,” Birch concludes. “There never was.”

Kelley says in times like ours, when every morning trumpets headlines of a coming time of great cold and darkness, we can find strength in the different identity of the Wabanaki Confederacy. It bonded the People of the First Light: the Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqey (sometimes called Maliseet), Passamaquoddy,Passamaquoddy and Abenaki.

“That old alliance was crucial to their survival and over the course of centuries, it remained largely intact. They depended on each other and their coexistence was, so far as anyone knows, a largely peaceful one,” Kelley says.

“They must have been like a hive, the greater part of their days spent gathering enough protein to get through the winter. And they did this forever: the Passamaquoddy have what I believe is the longest running government in history, over 14,000 years of uninterrupted councils.

“We can’t even manage to go two years without feeling the need for upheaval. It is something we seem to have forgotten, in the modern age: we are all in this together; the needs of one pale against the needs of many.”

I Am Birch, which features rich, full-page illustrations that can be devoured by children, offers a more hopeful understanding of humanity. “Think about all the things we have been led to believe were a matter of life and death, and, hey, look—we’re still here. Humanity survived the plague, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods; I even survived Catholic military school. You either do, or you don’t. The world still turns, the sun still comes up.”

Author Peter J Clair was born in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, now lives in Tobique and was likewise called back to the Wabanaki world. His novel Taapoategl & Pallet: A Mi’kmaq Journey of Loss & Survival was published by Chapel Street Editions.

“I wrote Taapoategl & Pallet to make a contribution to Mi’kmaq literature, which I call Migmagoigasig aatogaaen. And on the larger scale, I hope to make a contribution to Indigenous literature,” Clair says.

The novel itself occupies two worlds. Taapoategl lives in the mid-1700s and Pallet in the mid-1900s. Taapoategl occupies a Wabanaki world rooted deeply in her culture and family. Pallet journeys into the wilderness of a world closer to ours, searching for an identity rooted in the past.

“Hopefully with the book, the reader will be encouraged to investigate the contribution of the Mi’kmaq and other First Nations and their generosity and contribution to the birth and existence of Canada,” Clair says.

The pages are sprinkled with Mi’kmaw words, fragments of voices from one of the original tongues spoken in the old alliance.

Another old language came dancing off the tongue of eight-year-old Ava Polchies as she sang traditional songs in Wolastoqey. At Wulastukw Elementary School near Fredericton, she learned about her Wolastoqey culture. And then, on the best day of her life, she met Luna the pony. Her grandfather, Billy Polchies, joined her for a memorable day.

Paul Lang directed a photo shoot of the grandfather, granddaughter and pony. He then created background illustrations; the photographed Polchies walk through a watercolour world of ducks, ponds, deer and trees.

Author Hélène deVarennes added words, written in French, Wolastoqey and English. She says the trilingual book honours the land we all share. “Because Indigenous children here are schooled in either French or English, this book is an acknowledgement that their language has value,” she says.

“Indigenous children should find books at school that they can identify with, books that celebrate their culture. Non-Indigenous children need to realize that Indigenous children can and should be part of storybooks as well.”

A Pony Day was launched at Ava’s school on the first day of October. The story bubbles with warmth. Ava has an ancestor named Josephine. In the book, a little girl named Josephine travels with her grandpa on her sixth birthday for an unimaginable treat: she will ride a pony for the first time. The story says:

Josephine looks at her grandpa. He does not seem to be joking. His eyes are not filled with stars and his mouth is not wide-open like when he laughs.

The creators of the book say its message is that all children love to imagine and need loving and joyful relationships with their extended family.

“A very wise Indigenous woman once told me that Indigenous peoples seem to always be historicized,” deVarennes says. “It is important to have storybooks featuring everyday activities for Indigenous children as well.”

As Josephine’s magical day draws to an end, the sounds of the ancient and modern worlds sing together. The story continues:

Stars sneak into Josephine’s eyes. Her little mouth opens to let laughter spill out.

The trio of pony, girl and grandpa ride off together on the final page. In English:

A sweet wind and bursts of laughter float around Josephine and her grandpa.

In French:

La magie dans le vent et les éclats de rire virevoltent autour de Joséphine et de son grand-père.

And in one of the original languages of this land:

Eci wolamsok naka wolihtakuk etolelomihtit Josephine naka Muhsumsol.

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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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In the 20 years we’ve lived in Nova Scotia, my family has almost never left Atlantic Canada for a summer holiday. Why would we? Summer is short and often gorgeous and one of the beautiful things about the region is the variety of landscapes and many types of experiences available so close by. One year I was on the phone with someone at the Maine Tourism Association and when I gave her our address on the Peggy’s Cove Road she said, “Why would you want to come here?”

You don’t even have to set aside extended holiday time to enjoy what the region has to offer because there are so many great day trips available.

One of my highlights of last year was heading to Pockwock Falls with one of my sons in late spring after a heavy rainfall. It’s an impressive waterfall barely a half-hour from my home, yet I’d never been there. The Pockwock River waterfall is one of 100 featured in Benoit Lalonde’s book Waterfalls of Nova Scotia.

Pockwock Falls, Pat O’Malley

(Somewhat confusingly, the book has the same title as one written by Allan Billard and published in 1997, but it is a completely different endeavour.)

In his day job, Lalonde is an environmental scientist. He brings a scientist’s thoroughness to the book. Organized using the familiar tourism “routes and trail” system (Lighthouse Route, Glooscap Trail, etc.) Waterfalls of Nova Scotia offers an easy-to-read and comprehensive guide to each of its 100 falls.

The book includes photos, information on finding trailheads, difficulty level and GPS coordinates for the falls themselves. One nice feature is Lalonde’s “Bonus falls,” directing the reader to other points of interest—often a nearby, less spectacular waterfall that is still worth visiting. In addition to the specifics on each of the falls, Lalonde offers an extensive introduction filled with tips on safe and successful waterfall treks, including whether it’s worth going during dry periods and a classification system for waterfalls, so you’ll have a good idea what to expect when you get to your destination.

If you’re planning a hike in New Brunswick, you’ll want to get your hands on the brand-new 4th edition of Hiking Trails of New Brunswick, by HA and Marianne Eiselt. The Eiselts have a breezy, chatty style, sharing their enthusiasm for the trails—all 800 km of which they re-hiked over a two-year period in researching this book—and the regions in which they can be found.

Since the previous edition of the book, 12 years ago, New Brunswick has seen new trails, revamped or rerouted trails, and yes, some closed trails as well. The Eiselts can’t include every trail in the province. They focus on routes that have particularly interesting features and that are designed specifically for hikers. That excludes most multi-use trails, which also welcome ATVs.

Photo by Peter Zwicker

What makes this book really stand out is the clarity of the writing. Writing trail descriptions is harder than it seems and the Eiselts succeed in guiding readers with writing that is clear and full of detail, without being dry. The book is also packed with helpful, detailed maps and features spectacular photos.

Striking photos are also on offer in Bluenose: On Board a Legend by Devyn Kaizer, with photography by Peter Zwicker. The book serves as a re-introduction to Nova Scotia’s sailing ambassador, following the Bluenose II’s extensive refit. It offers a history of the vessel, its intimate links to its homeport of Lunenburg and a taste of daily life on board—both above and below decks.

Zwicker’s photography is stunning and Kaizer’s text provides enough detail to satisfy mariners while remaining accessible for those who couldn’t tell you the difference between a sheet and a boom. The Bluenose is a regular site in the summer waters of Nova Scotia and the book gives a fine taste of what it’s like to get aboard.

The book is divided into two sections: the first is a guide to the Bluenose today; the second is an extensive and accessible history detailing the original schooner’s rise to fame (along with the story of the famed captain Angus Walters), her ignominious end hauling cargo in the Caribbean and the commissioning and building of the Bluenose II—which had the 82-year-old Captain Walters aboard for her maiden voyage in 1964.

For those in Canada’s easternmost province, Field Guide to Newfoundland and Labrador, edited by retired Memorial University biologist Michael Collins, promises to be a handy guide for those living or vacationing in the province and wanting to learn about its natural history. I wasn’t able to review the book before press time, but it includes essays on flora, fauna and phenomena such as weather and icebergs from nearly two dozen contributors, and packs an astounding 900 photos and illustrations, along with an index.

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Photo: Jessica Emin

Coauthored by Whitney Moran, originally of Yarmouth and now living in Peggy’s Cove, and Christopher Reynolds of Halifax, East Coast Crafted takes a fun peek at Atlantic Canada’s craft beer industry.

“The book is about Atlantic Canada’s brewing scene,” says Reynolds, a certified cicerone, beer judge and co-owner of Stilwell beer bar on Barrington Street in Halifax. “It is part guide book, part oral history or reference book, and, mostly, a snapshot in time celebrating the incredibly diverse and booming brewing business here on the East Coast.”

Moran, a freelance beer journalist for several Atlantic Canadian publications and a poet of note—including being shortlisted for the ARC Poetry Magazine Poem of the Year Award, is also an acquisitions and managing editor for the largest book publisher on the East Coast—Nimbus Publishing.

“I’m constantly looking for untold stories and new book ideas,” she says. “I’d always known a book about Atlantic Canada’s craft beer industry was one I’d want to read. The story of our craft beer industry was both a passion as well as a fascinating regional story.”

Reynolds also brought considerable writing experience to this project. He was a community newspaper reporter in Toronto, a former editor of Golf Canada Magazine, and a staff writer in New York City for Holmes Magazine. East Coast Crafted is the first book for both and took just under two years to complete.

Published by Nimbus Publishing, Halifax, East Coast Crafted is 392 pages in length, softcover, and available both online and in bookstores throughout the region.

East Coast Crafted includes more than 80 profiles, personal visits to nearly every brewery and the sampling of many dozens of beers. Both authors are “confident in saying that this is the most comprehensive story of Atlantic Canada’s craft beer industry ever produced.”

“For those interested in the multitude of stories behind the breweries, “ Moran continues, “the beers, and to want to get to know who is brewing and why, how we got here and where we’re headed, this book will more than satisfy your thirst for knowledge.”

East Coast Crafted features a foreword by Canada’s renowned beer writer, Stephen Beaumont (World Atlas of Beer) as well as more than 60 colour photos by acclaimed Halifax photographer, Jessica Emin (The Wine Lover’s Guide to Atlantic Canada).

The following is a brief passage shared by Whitney Moran from East Coast Crafted:

“When that latest wave of craft brewing started to really hit out west, in the US, and everywhere else, really, Atlantic Canadian beer drinkers—other than the beer geeks and homebrewers—remained blissfully unaware. But then something happened and things went from a crawl to a full-on sprint seemingly overnight, and we had (and have) one of the biggest economic and cultural booms of our lifetime on our hands…Sure, there’s alcohol in there, but there’s something even more enlivening, something that we’re not used to having when it comes to beer in Canada: choice. Choice, and quality.”

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For forty years artist Thaddeus Holownia has been making splendid photographs that have put him at the forefront of Canadian art. For almost as long he has also been making books, primarily on letterpress, through his Anchorage Press.

Holownia works in large format photography, and the majority of his work has been made with an antique instrument called a banquet camera, designed to photograph large groups. The negative size from these cameras varies, but is usually 7 x 17 or 9 x 20 inches. For much of his career Holownia has elected to print his photographs at the same scale–creating horizontal prints, dense with information, that are perfect for photographing the landscape.

This format makes them hard to reproduce in print media, which is what led Holownia to produce books where the images could be printed at their actual size, one per page. This newest book, beautifully designed by Robert Tombs, is somewhat smaller (11 x 13 inches), but is still at a scale where the photographs, which make up the bulk of the book, are reproduced at a scale conducive to close looking. And that is exactly what this book draws one to do–to study these images, to look, and look again, seeing both familiar and strange landscapes in a new light.

The book accompanies a full-career retrospective exhibition. The two essays by curator Sarah Fillmore and poet Peter Sanger are informative and engaging, focusing on Holownia’s treatment of the natural world in his work. Between them, the two writers touch on most aspects of Holownia’s long career, but always leave the final word to the photographs themselves.

The Nature of Nature: The Photographs of Thaddeus Holownia, 1976-2016 is a remarkable artefact–a book designed to make photographs come to life in our hands. Featuring reproductions in colour and black and white, the book is a work of art in it itself.

The Nature of Nature: The Photographs of Thaddeus Holownia, 1976-2016
Sarah Fillmore and Peter Sanger
Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and Anchorage Press

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It was Alexis MacDonald’s photographs of African women that drew me in. My senses are numb after years of seeing photographs depicting poverty, sickness and starvation in sub-Saharan Africa, but instead the faces of these women express hope, joy and purpose. There are also photographs of Canadian women bonding with them and although they’re seniors there’s something youthful about them—they positively glow.

So, who are these women? And what’s going on here?

In a word it is “love.” As Stephen Lewis writes, “A cornucopia of sisterly love.”

Upon his return to Toronto following six years as the UN Special Envoy for HIV & AIDS in Africa, Lewis couldn’t stop thinking about the heart-wrenching stories of grandmothers who’d lost their adult children to AIDS and were struggling to raise their grandchildren, many of whom were HIV positive.

In 2006 he and his daughter Ilana Landsberg-Lewis, a human rights lawyer, co-founded Grandmothers to Grandmothers, a grassroots organization through which Canadian grandmothers support their African counterparts. At first they were dedicated to helping women start small businesses and become self-sufficient so they could provide for their grandchildren. But over the years the organization has evolved and shifted focus as African women are empowered to demand their rights to healthcare, pensions, protection from violence, political representation, food security and shelter—all basic human rights.

Author Joanna Henry had been part of a disaster relief team in Africa but was disillusioned with her job, feeling that instead of serving the people she was serving the interests of Western nations. In searching for a better way, she discovered and joined the “feminist, ethical, founded-on-equity” work of the Stephen Lewis Foundation, which led her to write her first book.

Beginning in Zimbabwe in October 2012, Henry travelled to eight countries, interviewing hundreds of grandmothers and recording their stories, then spent the next four years communicating back and forth with them and their support organizations. The process was repeated across Canada with hundreds more grandmothers from more than 50 groups.

What has emerged is a narrative greater than the sum of its parts, one that champions the birth of a social revolution through the voices of the women who lived it.

If you’re looking for a book that renews your faith in humanity, this is it.

Powered by Love: A Grandmothers’ Movement to End AIDS in Africa
Joanna Henry with Ilana Landsberg-Lewis; photographs by Alexis MacDonald
Goose Lane Editions

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It was one of the biggest natural disasters in Canadian history. It caused almost nine-billion dollars in damage, forced the evacuation of nearly 90,000 people and made headlines around the world. Now this tragic event, which occurred in Alberta just over a year ago, is recounted in a poignant, frank and unique way in the new book, Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray, A First-hand Account of Battling the Beast.

Into the Fire is written by Jerron Hawley from Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Graham Hurley of Fort McMurray and Steve Sackett of Calgary. Hawley, Hurley and Sackett are three firefighters, part of a large contingent of Canadian first responders who rushed, without hesitation, into what has been described as “hell on earth” in order to battle multiple, fast-spreading and startlingly dangerous fires, beginning on May 3, 2016.

Hawley describes the scene as they rushed towards the mayhem. “Standing on the back of the truck, I looked at the distraught faces of people in their cars stopped bumper-to-bumper on the highway. People were holding their hands up as if they were praying for us as we headed into that black cloud of uncertainty. I’ll never forget it…It was starting to sink in. This is the one…”

What makes this hard-cover part pictorial a page-turner is its gripping style; all three men have drawn from verbatim field notes and awe-inspiring behind-the scenes photographs taken during many gruelling days over the course of this staggering national-emergency response. The book’s layout and design focuses attention back on what is most important: this rare glimpse into the mind of a first responder as a catastrophic event is unfolding.

Their pictures and words, when combined, paint a raw picture of the unwavering brotherhood and sisterhood among our emergency personnel, the fear, exhaustion and resilience, which is part of their world, as well as the sense of community, commitment and unparalleled concern they have shown for peers, loved ones and complete strangers.

The three perspectives are intertwined with factual accounts of strength, fear and love. Hurley recounts his reaction, deep into the response and while wracked with exhaustion, to finally getting days off:

…I felt guilty on some level for leaving. …The highway was desolate. I had never seen it so empty for so long. I was about ninety kilometres outside of Fort McMurray when my emotions finally caught up with me. I felt my jaw drop. I remember whispering, ‘Oh my god’ to myself, and I wept. What had happened? The things I had seen and done. Was it even real? The pain in my chest, the tears streaming down my face were proof that it was.”

Besides being gripping, Into the Fire is also an educational piece; the three firefighters explain in some detail how the fire attacks were done.

Into the Fire: The Fight to Save Fort McMurray
Jerron Hawley, Graham Hurley and Steve Sackett
McClelland & Stewart

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a-vision-in-wood-stone-coverWhen architect and art historian John Leroux’s name is linked with photographer Thaddeus Holownia’s on a book cover you really can judge it by its cover and know this publication, by virtue of those names, will be of the highest calibre.

John Leroux is a graduate of the McGill School of Architecture, holds a Master’s degree in Canadian Art History from Concordia, has worked at award-winning architectural firms, authored books on Maritime architecture and teaches at the University of New Brunswick where he’s pursuing doctoral studies in cultural history.

But don’t let his academic qualifications lead you to think this volume recording the evolving history of the architecture of Mount Allison University is a compilation of dry, dusty facts pulled from the archives. Rather it’s a lively, engaging and thoughtful presentation of the influence architectural design has on the people who live, work and study within it. “While architecture may not change the world in its own right,” he writes, “our best structures certainly create an environment that might nurture the initiatives and ideas that will.”

Leroux’s text is accompanied by Holownia’s refined, elegant, black and white photography. Head of Mount Allison’s fine arts department, he’s widely recognized for the superb quality of his iconic photographs created with large format film cameras. The silver gelatine process he uses to develop them seems especially well suited to architecture, enhancing the strength, beauty and details of the materials and design.

The book also contains archival blueprints, drawings and photographs including an 1843 daguerreotype of the white painted neo-Classical Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, designed by Samuel C. Bugbee of Saint John in response to Charles Allison’s desire to establish an institute of higher learning. Although it was consumed by fire in 1865, it set a standard of excellence which continued through those early years, through the ambitious redesigning and rebuilding of the campus in the 1960’s and on into the post-Modern era with the Purdy Crawford Centre for the Arts (2014) which Leroux calls one of the foremost instances of contemporary design in eastern Canada.

A Vision in Wood & Stone: The Architecture of Mount Allison University
by John Leroux and Thaddeus Holownia
Gaspereau Press

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review-labrador-big-land-coverIf you ever believed that a photography book needs to be a large “coffee table” rendering in order to project the scope and sense of a place, well, think again. Dennis Minty has come up with a simple 80-page book in a modest 8.5 x 6.5 in. format that is not only satisfying and informative, but also gorgeous.

The fly leaf states, in part, “From quiet coves and inlets to sweeping vistas of haunting landscapes, and from living communities to forgotten settlements seemingly lost in time, Minty presents Labrador in all its vivid colour and grandeur …” Readers will be happy to know that the book delivers what it promises.

No doubt the author could have written a weighty tome on the subject of Labrador; instead Minty chose to limit himself to a few words in the introduction, and let his photographs speak for themselves. (The photos are captioned with concise and pithy summations, leaving no questions in the reader’s mind as to where they were taken, or why they were included in the book.)

As you wander through Labrador: The Big Land, you’ll find plenty of birds and wildlife, abandoned settlements, and mournful skies. Each page harbours history — and untold stories. Expect to see alluring photos taken by air showcasing the vastness of the land, down to macro shots such as crowberries tempting you to pluck them off the page.

Altogether it’s a tasty production both in content and style. The photos have room to breathe (as one would expect in Labrador) yet space is not wasted. For anyone who’s not been to Labrador, this book may inspire you to go. If you’ve already visited, or lived there, you’ll be nodding your head, and grateful that the author was able to capture so much in so few pages.

Labrador: The Big Land
by Dennis Minty
Breakwater Books

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AQUA Margaree River
Margaree River, Cape Breton

AQUA: Waterways of Cape Breton, looks at waterways from all angles and links past, present and future

Pat O'Neil
Editor Pat O’Neil

Atlantic Books Today spoke with Pat O’Neil, editor of Aqua: Waterways of Cape Breton. The book is a celebration of water and Cape Breton’s natural history, accented by stunning photos from photographer Barry Morrison. The work draws on expertise from aquatic ecologist Jim Foulds and historian Ken Donovan to explain the modern and historical significance of – as well as the mythology surrounding – Cape Breton’s many lakes, harbours and rivers.

You note in the Introduction “a long-time fascination with the geography and natural wonders of Cape Breton.” Where did this fascination come from?

Enjoying the outdoors has always been an important part of my life in Cape Breton. The island’s natural beauty is its greatest asset and it’s all so accessible. My children grew up hiking, camping, swimming and exploring – that’s how we spent our family time. Over the years I wrote other books (hiking and travel guides) and those projects provided me with a familiarity with the island’s geography as well as a deep appreciation for its natural aspects. The fascination has stayed with me and probably always will.

You worked with Dr. Jim Foulds (on natural heritage facets) and Ken Donovan (who wrote about shipbuilding and ferries) to create a book that looks at water from many varied perspectives. What can you tell us about that collaboration?

Collaborating on a book was a new experience for me, and I was a little nervous at first because Jim and Ken are both highly qualified in their fields. I felt a little out of my depth. But once I realized how reassuring it was to have their expert input, writing the book became easier for me. They were both very congenial to work with and their contributions made the book so much more informative and interesting than I could have accomplished on my own. Also, the photographer, Barry Morrison, was an important member of the collaboration, as his beautiful photos added the finishing touch.

What is unusual about this book on water is it looks at its subject from so many perspectives: geologic, ecologic, anthropological, historic and sociological. What do readers gain when so many ways of understanding these waterways come together?

By learningAQUA more about the geology of our island, we can’t help but gain a better appreciation for our natural surroundings. When we realize that these waterways resulted from geological activity that took place 500 million years ago, it puts their existence into perspective and makes us want to protect and preserve them.

From the human history viewpoint, the fact that these waterways were vital to human existence right from the beginning is incredible. Archaeological evidence found in Ingonish in the 1970s proves the existence of Paleo-Indians, or their descendants the Archaic peoples, on Cape Breton Island at least 2,500 years ago and possibly as long as 9,000 years ago!

The waterways were also vital to the European pioneers who began settling here in the 1600s. I think when we look at the waterways from these aspects (geological, historical, anthropological, etc.) we don’t just see a body of water, but a living link that connects the past, present and hopefully the future.

In your research, what did you learn that surprised you most?

I was truly surprised by what I learned about the island’s geology. I didn’t have a true appreciation for just how long ago these rivers, valleys and lakes were formed. For example, the Mira River Valley resulted from 320-million-year-old Carboniferous and 500-million-year-old Cambrian and Precambrian formations. 340 million years ago, the Middle River watershed was at the bottom of the ‘Windsor Sea.’ These facts were revelations to me.

AQUA wood turtle
The Wood Turtle

My favourite learning experience writing the book was the story of the wood turtle, an endangered species found in very few places in Nova Scotia, one place being a protected area along the River Inhabitants. These turtles are so adorable that people will often pick them up and take them home for pets. It takes 15 years for a wood turtle to mature and breed, and some live for over 30 years in the wild. The removal of even one adult female turtle can be disastrous.

 

You say in the Introduction that your intent is to “entertain as well as to inform.” Can you tell us a bit about why this entertainment aspect is important to you?

Not everyone is able to get out and enjoy a walk along a river or a canoe trip on a lake. One of my hopes for the book is that it will provide people with an opportunity to enjoy these beautiful places just by reading about them and seeing the photos. We subtitled the book “A Casual Reference” to highlight the fact that it is not a guidebook and not intended to be used only by those who are able to go out hiking, fishing and boating.

We want it to be a book that everyone can enjoy, including armchair explorers, and hopefully they will learn a little something along the way. As I said before, I believe the more all of us know about our natural surroundings, the more we appreciate them and see the value in protecting  them.

 

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Nancy Rose w/ camera

At home with photographer Nancy Rose and her furry subjects

Nancy Rose may be well known for her photographs of squirrels, but stepping through the front door of her comfy suburban Halifax home is more like a trip down the rabbit hole.

Inside, the decor is skewed toward “tiny chic,” with miniatures in every room: a Barbie-sized wooden church sitting by a hall table that holds a tiny clay bowl of even tinier clay fruit; a bite-sized birthday cake surrounded by tea cups laid out on the floor of the formal living room; a little sign on the credenza warning, “Caution! Squirrel X-ing”.

“My husband is a saint,” says Rose with a chuckle as she gestures towards the dining room table covered with craft supplies and toy cars. She proceeds into the kitchen/family room space that doubles as her studio. The room opens onto a small deck where a camera is set up on a tripod. The camera is pointed at a fist-sized jack o’lantern suspended by copper wire above a table. “He thought I was crazy when I started this, but he’s totally on board now.”

The ‘this’ that Rose rMerry Christmas Squirrelsefers to is her passion for capturing images of wild squirrels using adorable props. It’s a passion that has resulted in the publication of The Secret Life of Squirrels and Merry Christmas, Squirrels with Penguin Canada.

It all started when Rose, a high school guidance counsellor, took an interest in photographing the wildlife that visits her back yard. Squirrels proved to be particularly photogenic, but Rose eventually found the shots repetitive.

Then, a light bulb went on. Why not use her considerable skills as a crafter to create sets and props for the squirrels to interact with? Rose constructed a little mailbox, added some tiny envelopes and hid peanuts inside. The resulting photo of a squirrel “mailing” letters was a huge hit on Flickr.

More photos meant more Flickr fame, and soon Rose was being contacted for interviews by media outlets from around the world. Eventually, Jackie Kaiser, an agent with Westwood Creative Artists, called Rose and said, “I think I see a book here. Would you be interested?”

All the while Rose is relaying this journey from amateur photographer to published author, she keeps one eye on the kitchen door. Blue jays are sparring over the peanuts she has spread on the table, but no squirrels have appeared.Nancy Rose on set

“The most difficult thing about taking photos from here is the light,” she explains. “There are places in the yard with better light. But I’m not willing to give up the comfort of being able to wait indoors to capture a shot.”

As if on cue, a bushy-tailed squirrel appears on the deck and chases the blue jays away. He sniffs the table tentatively and stretches up towards the pumpkin in which a peanut is hidden. Rose readies herself at the camera. Her subject sticks his head up through the bottom of the jack o’lantern and dances hilariously on his toes. Rose laughs out loud as she snaps several shots.

It’s clear that Rose is a woman who loves what she’s doing. She shakes her head and says, “How could anyone ever imagine this?

“I tell the students at my school who are desperately trying to figure out what they want to do, ‘Just make a start. The world changes fast and what you do now probably won’t be what you do later.’

“I mean, who ever thought I’d be a squirrel photographer?”

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Wagg MacAskill

Looking through the lens of a photographic legend

Wallace R. MacAskill.

The name evokes imagery of sailing ships heeled over with waves splashing as the bow digs in, of sailors from a bygone era toiling in the open sea, of majestic tall ships coming out of the fog.

In the days of captains and crew MacAskill was master of the camera. For over 50 years he photographed the salt-water world around him and the people that made up the world. From the image on a stamp that became the basis for the image on the Canadian dime the majority of his work was centered on the sea. He also traveled the province by boat and car, capturing the province and the people.

Growing up in rural Cape Breton, training in New York, then returning to Nova Scotia, his work became commonplace on walls, as wedding gifts, and as part of Nova Scotia tourism department.

It would seem with his work so widely published and a career spanning fifty years that following in his footsteps would be an easy task.Then & Now

It wasn’t.

Gone are the Fundy traders and harbours filled with wooden masts, gone are the bustling harbours filled with trade destined for bigger ports and gone are some of the structures that were icons in the smaller communities. The Nova Scotia Archives on University Avenue in Halifax is home to the MacAskill collection that is not held in private hands. Online, I searched through thousands of digital files looking for images that would give me a glimpse into his world. With the sailing era over I was left with communities with winding dirt roads and pictures taken from vistas that may not exist anymore. From the thousands of files the edit was down to a little over 200 and I headed out with printouts in hand.
Some days I would search down dirt roads and try to find the exact location and came up empty. Other days I found the exact spot and was able to quickly see the scene that his eyes saw almost 100 years ago. Patterns started to emerge. I realized that the differences between our styles caused me to search for his location in the present and not as was the past. Where I would want to scamper or move up a hill to get a better view he had huge cameras that weighed much more than my equipment. He traveled with his equipment on roads and sometimes by boat from port to port.

The search took a turn as I started to see his world as it was 100 years ago and how he would have done it. Some of the roads would have changed but the locations were there. Erosion played a part as over and over again I saw the coastline changing, some subtle, others, like Cap La Ronde in Cape Breton almost gone completely, the lighthouse, barns and structures erased by time.

Standing on World Trade and Convention Center in Halifax near the end of the journey I looked out over the city and studied the changes, a mix of old and new. I closed my eyes. I could imagine what it was like for MacAskill a century ago: the smell of chocolate from the Moir’s chocolate factory permeating up from below him, the Schwarz spice company just over the hill and the fish drying down on Water Street.

The smells are gone and when I look over again I am left with only a taste of the then and now.

Then and Now
Photographs of Nova Scotia by Wallace MacAskill & Len Wagg
$29.95, hardcover, 112 pp.
Nimbus Publishing, 2015