As a nature writer myself, I was curious how Phil would approach his observations on the plethora of wildlife found in this area in his book. I have to admit, I was very pleased.

Ever since I first read Natural Acquaintances, I have had occasion to use it as reference while I was tending to various injured or orphaned animals in my care. I pride myself on being observant of our local wildlife and their life history, but I know I miss a lot as their habits vary from individual to individual. Phil’s observations and readily available facts have helped me out more than a few times.

When the Burkes moved to Kenora area (the Canadian Shield), they came from a part of Ontario where bears were considered extinct and trees were considered the enemy. Once Phil and his family were initiated to the local wildlife, they were hooked.

Natural Acquaintances leads the reader through the seasons and with the seasons, what harbingers to watch for. He explains in delightful detail the aerobatics of courting ravens, and in more graphic detail, the circle of life that takes place, whether we like it or not. To add to our reading enjoyment, Doug Sharpe has included many excellent illustrations of the wildlife of which Phil writes.

I would recommend Natural Acquaintances to newcomers to the Shield, friends of newcomers to this area or even just folks who love nature as much as we do. It will answer a lot of questions that we never thought to ask about the wildlife we share this land with.

Georgina Williams writes great fiction! She has published four books so far, and a fifth is soon to be published. But they are only fiction in the eyes of the wise and just, Justice John Turnbull, as the good judge believes that the events Georgina writes about could never happen in Canada. But Georgina, who will be reading from her memoirs at Word on the Water Literary Festival in Kenora, is speaking of events that actually happened to her mother, Delcina, and herself. Georgina’s tale is not only true, but also horrific, humbling and gut wrenching.

Her first book, Delcina’s Tears tells of how rapists impregnated Delcina, at the tender age of 12, and how her religious family turned against her. She describes with great detail what happened to Delcina and her ‘bastard’ daughter, (Georgina herself), at the Reformatory of the Good Shepard.

The Catholic nuns and priests treated the inmates, these ‘sinful’ children, with anything from toleration to brutal and deadly attacks. Sexual molestation was a normal part of their stay. Torture, humiliation and degradation were part of their day-to-day life as they toiled as unpaid slaves in the lucrative laundry (similar to the Catholic laundries in Ireland described in the Shafia Trials) at the reformatory. If the laundry needed more labour, young girls were ‘enlisted’ by the local constabulary.

This story is a must read! It reveals just one more ‘dirty little secret’ of how vulnerable children were treated as recently as the ‘50’s and ‘60’s in this great country, and how church, government and Children’s Aid aided in keeping these secrets hidden.

Dennis grew up and married. One day, he showed his wife an intriguing ring – Jane Livingston’s wedding ring. It was gold with a deep band of black enamel, out of which rose the words, “IN MEMORY OF”. It was a ring that had fascinated him as a child; he used to watch his grandmother sitting quietly, abstractedly turning the ring on her finger. Although he asked, she put off telling him its story. That would be a tale for another day….

The authors of this book met through Marion and Dennis Dowler’s daughter, who was one of Lyn’s students. Lyn was intrigued by the story of Dennis’ grandparents. They were not obscure pioneers of the West: Sam Livingston is the celebrated founder of the City of Calgary, and his Métis wife was the daughter of Janet Spence and Henry Howse of the Red River Settlement. The writing duo decided to record the stories Dennis collected as a child in the book Tell Me, Grandmother, which was published in 1985 as a book for older children. The Ring is an updated and expanded edition, published in the fall of 2010.

The Ring is an easy read and makes a fine quality-time read for the whole family. Not only is it a great way to introduce youngsters to an interesting period in the history of the development of Western Canada and the role Red River Settlers played in that expansion; it is a wonderful vehicle for fostering an interest in family history in our youth. This new edition contains lots of historic and other photographs along with the original sketches to help hold the interest of children. It also has appended a moving story of how recording our family’s oral history can have far-reaching and amazing consequences for the lives of others – but I won’t spoil the suspense!

Lyn Hancock is a well-known Canadian author/publisher with over twenty books to her credit. In an era when it can be difficult to engage our youth in their history, her book could be a real boon to those looking for a way to introduce children or grandchildren to the stories of our own ancestors.

When he was only 21 years of age, Archibald McDonald was recommended to the Earl of Selkirk as a suitable man to lead the 1812 recruits both to and in their new home at Red River. Selkirk immediately recognized the young man’s potential when the two first met in Ireland, just as the settlers were about to sail. The earl held Archy back from the expedition and instead took him to London to ensure that he received further training that would be useful to him at Red River. As a result of Selkirk’s decision, McDonald left with the 1813 group to begin an eventful career in North America.

The first section of the book details McDonald’s experience on the voyage and with the fever that took so many lives, enduring the bitter winter near Churchill and the long spring trek to York Factory, struggling to deal with the wickedly clever manipulation of the settlers at the hands of the NWCo’s Duncan Cameron, and through the aftermath of the resultant destruction of the RRS in 1815. It is this section that was of most interest to me, but by the time I finished with McDonald’s involvement in RRS matters, I was curious enough to want to see how Archy progressed in his new career as a family man working west of the Rockies for the HBC. The career move was interesting, particularly when the HBC had just absorbed the NWCo. and our hero found himself working with men whose actions he came to despise at Red River!

This book is well written and very readable, although sometimes there is a hint of sentimentality that creeps into it. Jean Cole, who is the great-great-granddaughter of Archibald McDonald, has taken great care to allow her ancestor’s voice to tell his life story; she uses his journals and many letters extensively. She is obviously very fond of her subject, but perhaps not unjustifiably so; McDonald was obviously well loved by his contemporaries, and a man who accomplished a great deal wherever he happened to find himself. He was a man deeply concerned for the welfare of his neighbours as well as one whose desire was to serve his employer to the best of his ability. The result was that he led a very interesting and rich life that makes for excellent reading.

The Strickland siblings Samuel and Catherine Parr have left a solid imprint in Canadian Literary history. Their sisters Elizabeth and, more notably, Agnes were well-known contemporaries on the English literary scene. But it is Susanna, married to John Wedderburn Dunbar Moodie, who is most widely recognized by Canadian readers for her book Roughing it in the Bush.

The Moodies’ daughter, Agnes Dunbar, married Charles Thomas Fitzgibbon, and illustrated Catherine Parr Traill’s famous book Canadian Wildflowers (1868). The aunt-niece duo collaborated again to publish Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885).

Given the family’s propensity for writing, and their predilection for the wild spaces of Canada, is it any surprise that one of them should end up in our neck of the woods just as the railway was being built to open up the West?

The Fitzgibbons’ eldest child, Mary Agnes (born 18 June 1851, she used first one and then the other name during her career) was 25 when she ventured northwest to act as governess to a CPR contractor’s children at the Deception Lake railway camp. Her memoir of this experience, and her first book, A Trip to Manitoba (1880), notes the Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature, has been “praised as one of the best travel books relating to Manitoba”. Sadly, Northwestern Ontario readers often overlook this wonderful work because the title is now misleading. We must remember that, at the time Fitzgibbon was here, Manitoba laid claim to an area much further east than its current boundary with Ontario. So, Manitoba Trip actually provides a first-hand account of life at an important transition in our region’s history!

Open it up and relish it; Fitzgibbon’s is a wonderful narrative.

The Canadian (rear) and British First Editions

Her account illustrates the route people took if they were in a hurry to get from Toronto to Deception Lake in those days: all aboard for Sault Ste. Marie by train, then into the US and overland to the Mississippi, up that river by steamboat, over to the Red and up to Winnipeg once more by steamboat. Then travellers climbed into the waggons for a vertebrae-crushing ride over the corduroy Dawson Trail southeast to Northwest Angle, by boat to Clearwater Bay and overland to the camp at Deception Lake. Her observations of the country and the people she met along the way are personal and lively; full of humour and empathy, too.

One of the most delightful surprises for me was her account of visiting the Darlington CPR camp. Years ago I found the old railway camp site and brought it to the attention of the Regional Archaeologist. What a thrill to read a first-hand account of it alive as a community and of the canoe trip Mary made from there to landmarks I grew up haunting! It also was interesting to learn that the place names hadn’t changed over the century in time separating us.

Most of her narrative centres in Deception Lake, though. She captures with clarity and vivacity the lifestyle and the characters with whom she lived and worked or who visited that outpost. We can see them smiling around their pipe-stems and smell the tobacco smoke, too. Readers will sense that the stalwart nature and spirit of adventure Mary admires in them unconsciously reflects qualities ingrained in her own character.

Just a few people are mentioned by name, and I suspect those were changed to protect identities. Even her employers are mentioned only as Mr. and Mrs. C___ in that annoying Victorian habit. The value of this book would be increased exponentially if only she’d given us their names. Ah, well….

Another interesting element in Manitoba Trip’s history is related through one of the stories the book tells. On March 26, 1877 Fitzgibbon’s notes were burned when a fire started by sparks from the chimney engulfed the C___’s Deception Lake home. Without those notes, the author was forced to work from memory. The details she weaves into her account are convincing; her experiences must have been deeply imprinted!

Fitzgibbon remained at Deception Lake for a year and a half before returning to civilization in Southern Ontario. She refined her story for her publishers in London, England. A slightly later Canadian edition appended the subtitle “Roughing it on the Line” just to underscore her literary roots.

She continued in her mother’s footsteps by helping her great aunt Catherine Parr Traill prepare her last two books for publication: Pearls and Pebbles (1894) and Cot and Cradle Stories (1895). Fitzgibbon didn’t stop writing herself, though. In 1894 her biography of her grandfather, A Veteran of 1812; The Life of James FitzGibbon was published. It remains the book for which she is best known, although she wrote or co-wrote numerous other articles and at least four other books over the span of her career.

Throughout her life Mary maintained that women offered an important perspective and possessed unique opportunities through which to preserve history. She strove to engage her sex in what was then a male dominated area of interest. To that end, along with Sarah Anne Curzon, she established the Women’s Canadian Historical Society of Toronto in 1895 and served as its first Secretary. She certainly proved her point through Manitoba Trip. It remains one of the only preserved written accounts of its period in Lake of the Woods’ regional history – a wonderful legacy – and, unarguably, a railway history written from a very different perspective!

Detail view of the pictoral giltwork on the Canadian First Edition's front board.

Mary Agnes Fitzgibbon died on 17 May, 1915, aged 63, of a cerebral haemorrhage. She was just six months into her own presidency over her beloved historical society.

Manitoba Trip is out of print now. The original edition runs up to about $160, but print-on-demand copies are available for much less. Since there are no illustrations in the book (illustrations seldom reproduce well in print-on-demand copies), the latter option makes for a reasonably-priced cottage read!

Twenty-one years ago, I was busy working in a cubby-hole at Scott Books when an upset, bearded man came up to my window, wanting to talk to the manager. “What can I do for you?” I asked.

He was struggling to keep his anger in check as he demanded to know why his book wasn’t on the shelves of the only book store in the very town it was written about. It was a great story – proof being that it had won the Governor General’s Award (1987) – and it dealt with issues that were important to the people of this community to understand. He’d spent a lot of time researching it right here in Kenora, and the characters were based on people who actually lived here, although he wasn’t going to tell me or anyone else just who those people were. The very title was plucked out of an obscure manuscript found right here in the local library.

I assured Mr. Kelly that I would get some copies in, and we parted on friendly terms. I even bought one and read it, which won’t surprise any of you!

A Dream Like Mine is a bizarre novel. Arthur, a sober but possessed/crazed First Nations man (a Windigo?), kidnaps the Dryden paper mill manager (Arthur holds him responsible for poisoning the region with mercury), and a journalist, who narrates the story. The kidnapper hides with his victims among the myriad of islands on Lake of the Woods while an elder fully aware of the situation does nothing except to say of Arthur, “He has to do it.” What follows is a repetitious ordeal of torture and murder, almost Mad Trapper style, until finally, Arthur throws the mutilated mill manager into a raging river and releases the journalist, who is subsequently picked up by the RCMP.

The book is no literary masterpiece; knowledgeable readers will experience a sense of unreality and frustration throughout. The Lake of the Woods area and its people are portrayed without depth, sympathy or respect. It is truly surprising that A Dream Like Mine was ever considered the cream of Canadian literature!

And yet, the book has an interesting history. It was the foundation for the 1989 film Clearcut, starring Graham Greene as Arthur, who is actually the personification of a trickster spirit. By that time, though, the mercury poisoning of the English River system was no longer an environmental issue in vogue. The movie centred instead on clear-cutting of the northern forests by logging companies. Bruce Cockburn was asked to write a song for the movie soundtrack, which he did, never having read the book. The song A Dream Like Mine was rejected for use in the film, but was quite successful for Cockburn. It certainly gilded Arthur’s philosophy (good tune, though)…

I’ve thought a great deal about this book over the years – about the elements that have bothered me: erroneous geographical details that left me disoriented as I read, unnatural dialogue and an unrealistic plot. I didn’t find a single character I could identify with or admire; they were all ugly in their own right.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a book written by an outsider briefly looking in on the Kenora area and thinking he’s got his subject all figured out. And because his ideas fit so comfortably with a stereotype fixed in the psyche of his wider audience, Kelly experienced success. That’s the only explanation I can fathom that makes sense to me.