Remember reading? Ahhhhh....
Written by: Julie Ovenell-CarterI’m reading John Le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold right now in preparation for an upcoming holiday to Berlin. Of course, the Lonely Planet Berlin guidebook is right there on the bedside table too, but I really prefer to take the novel approach to learning about a new destination.
Especially in these days of light, bright and trite communication, there’s something deeply satisfying about getting immersed in a culture or community through good old-fashioned story-telling. In Canada, what I have learned about Prairie stoicism or East Coast folklore or Quebec separatism came not from Fodor’s or Rough Guide, but from literature.
I have even planned itineraries around places I’ve read about in novels: without Margaret Laurence’s inspiration, I might never have made it to Riding Mountain National Park or tiny, picturesque Neepawa in Manitoba; without Joan Clark’s guidance, I would never have ventured out onto the bogs to hunt for berries in Newfoundland.
If you’re planning a Canadian vacation, here are my 10 must-reads to prepare you for your travels. Skip the romance novels this time and try one of these books instead for a better understanding of the personality of this place and its people…
1. Spit Delany’s Island, Jack Hodgins (for insight into BC’s coastal culture)
2. The Stone Angel, Margaret Laurence (the Prairie personality explained)
3. Who Has Seen the Wind, W.O. Mitchell (the beauty of the Prairie landscape interpreted)
4. Kamouraska, Anne Hébert (the passion of French Canada, poetically revealed)
5. Surfacing, Margaret Atwood (the CanLit equivalent of the Bible. In a nutshell: geography r us)
6. Latitudes of Melt, Joan Clark (the magic and mystery of Newfoundland)
7. Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, Will Ferguson (funny, insightful essays on the Canadian condition)
8. Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth May (the grandeur and isolation of the North)
9. In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje (set in a young and ambitious Toronto)
10. Raven Steals the Light, Robert Bringhurst and Bill Reid (the mythology of the Haida Nation, richly illustrated)
Over to you: what would you add to the all-Canada book bag?
Margy Lutz
on June 25th, 2009If you are coming to Coastal BC, especially the Sunshine Coast, there is a series of six books by Wayne J. Lutz. It started with Up the Lake about the Powell River, BC, area and living up the lake in a float cabin (you can even rent one to see what it is like). Other books in the series include Up the Main (the back country), Up the Strait (boating on the Strait of Georgia), Up the Winter Trail, Farther Up the Lake, and Up the Airway (flying in Canada). We read about BC before we came to visit and now we live here full time. It’s a great place with mild winters and gorgeous summers.
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on June 25th, 2009Thanks Margy. Do you have a link to where people can buy those books? Are they available through Chapters or Amazon?
Karen
on June 25th, 2009Julie
Thanks for posting this!
The titles you list are good – but I have a copy of one of the best books about Canada’s north that only a few Canadians have read.
James Houston wrote Confessions of an Igloo Dweller, chronicling his life in NWT in the late 40s and onward. Houston was the driving force in recognizing the value of Inuit art and bringing it to southern Canada and the world.
I got my copy via my mom at a garage sale about 8 years ago and had not been able to buy another as out of print. I just now checked amazon.ca and they have some new and used copies.
Houston wrote a number of books, many set in the US. He died a few years ago. His son(s) live in Halifaxx, last I heard, and are great friends with another renowned Canadian family – the Batemans.
If you haven’t read it, I urge you to. Likely you’ll be wondering, as I was, Why is this not required reading in Canadian schools?
Newcomers, too, enjoy this as it tells about a huge part of Canada, and Canadian culture, that is simply not well known.
Best
Karen
Mark Leier
on June 25th, 2009Hi, Julie,
For a great book on Canada, try “May Day: A Graphic History of Protest,” which outlines over 100 years of labour activism in Canada….. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! Another good book on Berlin is Ross Thomas, “The Cold War Swap,” probably long out of print, but the first of a long line of quirky spy/caper/political thriller novels by Thomas.
Are you ever at SFU these days? I never see you.
best,
Mark
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on June 25th, 2009Thanks Karen–I promise to go look for it at the library. You reminded me of another book that I recently discovered and that I had the same “why isn’t this required reading” reaction to: it’s called The Golden Spruce: A true story of myth, madness and greed by John Vaillant. It tells the story of an ex-logger turned environmentalist who felled this sacred golden tree in Haida Gwaii. It reads like a thriller, and it gives profound insight into the clash between aboriginal and colonial culture…absolutely a summer must-read!
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on June 25th, 2009Hey Mark, I think I know the guy who wrote May Day!
How come I haven’t seen my copy yet? I’ll look for the Thomas book. And I’m still at the uni, mostly found on the 7th floor of HC while SCA makes the transition downtown…buy me lunch at Nuba!
Susan Munro
on June 25th, 2009How about The Curve of Time? All about a widow and her family boating up and down the BC coast in the 30s and 40s (I think). Absolute magic.
Christine Hearn
on June 26th, 2009I’ve been thinking a lot about this since I posted my any of the Anne of Green Gables books comment yesterday. I’m now not sure if any book says “Canada” to me. Certain books say parts of Canada.
The Anne books said a great deal to me about my idea of Canada when I was growing up. Even though they were set in PEI, they had a very Ontario WASPy sensibility as did Mazo de la Roche’s Jalana books. Growing up in small town BC with no Canadian television I thought that WAS Canada, at least Canada in my grandmother’s time. BC seemed very much a different place–not part of Canada at all.
Christine Hearn
on June 26th, 2009What a great list you have. A few more thoughts from me: two books that say prairies are Wallace Stegner’s Wolf Willow and Sharon Butala’s Perfection of the Morning. Interesting that they are both written around tiny East End, Sask.
Hugh McLellan’s Two Solitudes sets up the French/English dynamic that we are still living. Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel and Hetty Dorval, as well as Sheila Watson’s Double Hook say BC to me.
Julie Ovenell-Carter
on June 26th, 2009Oh, Christine, you nailed it: in fact, when I was choosing my 10 to recommend, I had to make the decision to dump Two Solitudes (which helped me understand “the Quebec question”), Swamp Angel and Wolf Willow–but they were way up there on the list too.
Yummy. Now I want to go back and re-read some of these!
Peter Rawsthorne
on June 26th, 2009Any book about Robert (Bob) Bartlett. In particular, ‘the ice master’. This books gives good insight into Canada’s (well Newfoundland’s, when it was still a dominion) greatest explorer. It also gives insight into the harshness of the arctic, our relationship to europeans, and inuit… The Canadian equivalent of Shackleton, in fact the two voyages shared some members.
Fiona
on June 26th, 2009Ethel Wilson’s Swamp Angel.
And to give the kids a look into the past (or for a trip down your own Memory Lane): Muriel Dennison’s Susannah of the Mounties.
Stephen Aberle
on June 26th, 2009Farley Mowat: The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be
Mordechai Richler: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
Margaret Atwood: Surfacing
Robertson Davies: Fifth Business
Dennis Lee: Jelly Belly
Robert Munsch: Love You Forever
Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine
Jack Henstridge: Building The Cordwood Home
Leonard Angel: The Unveiling
25th Street House Players: Paper Wheat
Rick Salutin: 1837 : The Farmers’ Revolt
Laura Byrne Paquet
on August 16th, 2009All great recommendations! I would add Hugh MacLennan’s “The Watch That Ends the Night.” One of my favourite books, and it inspired my first trip to Montreal.
Joseph Boyden’s “Through Black Spruce” is wonderfully evocative of the North (at least I assume it is, as I’ve never been as far north as the setting of this book).