The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trailsby Matthew R. AndersonPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$27.95 ISBN 9780889779655 Uncanny timing. I recently completed a pilgrimage walk—the 300-kilometer Camino de Santiago (Portuguese Coastal Route)—and not a week after my return from Europe I was reviewing a book about a very different—but much closer to home—set of pilgrimages. The Good Walk: Creating New Paths on Traditional Prairie Trails, by Swift Current-born and raised educator, author and Lutheran minister, Matthew Anderson (who’s also walked the Camino de Santiago), is compelling, exceedingly well-written and researched nonfiction concerning three ambitious Saskatchewan pilgrimages across Treaty 4 and 6 pastures, valleys, roads, ranches and farms, abandoned homesteads, brush belts, villages, First Nations’ reserves and more via the Traders’ Road/NWMP Patrol Trail (2015), the Battleford Trail (2017), and the Frenchman Trail (2018), and creating “healthy new stories” on the journey. “By walking,” Anderson writes, “our group was attempting to pay attention”. These “good walks” were undertaken by an eclectic assemblage—including clergy, writers, Elders, family members, a hydrologist, naturalist Trevor Herriot, and book dedicatee and Saskatchewan History and Folklore Society president Hugh Henry—to connect to the land and its stories while respecting the…

Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Sceneby Guy VanderhaeghePublished by Thistledown PressReview by Brandon Fick$25.95 ISBN 9781771872584 Because Somebody Asked Me To: Observations on History, Literature, and the Passing Scene is the first collection of nonfiction published by Guy Vanderhaeghe, one of Canada’s most distinguished writers. On offer are essays, reviews, vignettes, and lectures that explore Vanderhaeghe’s beginnings as a writer, the craft of fiction, amusing life anecdotes, the value of art in society, and the nature of historical fiction. It is a feast of compelling material, a peeling back of the curtain sure to enthrall existing fans of Vanderhaeghe, CanLit enthusiasts, and general readers. In his Author’s Note, Vanderhaeghe states that in gathering the pieces together, which span 1984 to 2023, “it struck me that they bore some resemblance to a spotty, desultory archive of my development as a writer and offered a record of my recurring literary obsessions and foibles.” Whether it is a short recollection or a lengthy lecture, each piece stirs the mind, and any reader of Because Somebody Asked Me To will come away with a strong sense of who Vanderhaeghe is. One of the most intriguing pieces is…

A Ticket to the Grand Show: Journeys Across Cultural Boundariesby Neil McKinnonPublished by Your Nickel’s Worth PublishingReview by Toby A. Welch  $29.95 ISBN 9781778690235 Wow! What a fascinating book! I didn’t even need to dig into chapter one to get hooked; the introduction itself sucked me right in and I couldn’t put A Ticket to the Grand Show down.  McKinnon is insistent that this is not a travel book, more like a story collection of cultural experiences in his life. But I loved reading about the places he visited and the encounters he had in them. The book is more about the culture in the places he traveled to than a list of things to do. “Culture” is a multi-layered concept that cannot be adequately explored in a brief five hundred words. It means different things to different people. Culture is often a deeply buried belief that someone may not even consciously be aware of having. A Ticket to the Grand Show is broken into five parts, each one detailing a geographic location: China, Japan, Mexico, Hawaii, and Canada. Some of McKinnon’s experiences took place decades ago but under his skillful hand, they feel like they happened yesterday.  While I enjoyed reading all five parts, my favourite was…

Defining Sexual Misconduct: Power, Media, and #MeTooby Stacey Hannem and Christopher J. SchneiderPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$34.95 ISBN 9780889778092 As Defining Sexual Misconduct is published by University of Regina press, I knew before I even started page one that I was in for a fact-based read that dove extremely deep into the subject matter. I wasn’t wrong. This bookby Stacey Hannem and Christopher J. Schneider takes a handful of high-profile sexual misconduct cases and delves deep into how they are framed by the news media. Readers then get to see how survivors are treated – often horrifically – and the after-effects. The book focuses primarily on the coverage of allegations against former Canadian media personality Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, as well as two comedians: Aziz Ansari and Louis C.K. It also goes into detail about the Weinstein Effect: the phenomenon where some men (Trump, for example) seem impervious to sexual misconduct allegations whereas others (such as the man that the phenomenon is named for) do not. This is fascinating reading! Two other areas that Defining Sexual Misconduct explores are the #MeToo movement and Indigenous women. I’d forgotten how the #MeToo movement started and it was helpful to…

Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step GuideWritten by Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, with Miriam KörnerPhotos by Miriam Körner and Tommy BirdPublished by YNWPReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$49.95 ISBN 9781778690327 In these modern times, when we want information our “Go To” is usually to Google or Youtube it. If one wanted to learn to tan moosehides, for example, they could indeed go online to discover how, but some steps might be missed. If tanning moosehides is indeed your intent, now there’s an excellent resource that you can hold in your hands or spread on a table: Tanning Moosehides the Northern Saskatchewan Trapline Way: An Easy Step-by-Step Guide. The softcover guidebook by northern Saskatchewan residents Tommy Bird, Lawrence Adam, Lena Adam, and award-winning La Ronge writer Miriam Körner takes readers through the twenty-four steps involved in the time-consuming process of tanning moosehides, “a skill passed down from generation to generation since time immemorial”. The book is filled with colour photographs provided by Miriam Körner and Tommy Bird, and it begins with a helpful introduction. If you’re from the north, you may already know the various uses of tanned moosehide. They were and are “sewn into mukluks,…

Going to Seed: Essays on Idleness, Nature & Sustainable Workby Kate J. NevillePublished by University of Regina PressReview by Michelle Shaw$30.95 9781779400000 In this award-winning collection of essays, Kate Neville melds the different areas of her life into a fascinating perspective on our perception of idleness: personal reflections from living in an off-grid cabin in northern BC and her academic life as associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the School of the Environment at the University of Toronto. Neville draws from a wide range of poets, writers, researchers and scientists to reconsider the notion of idleness in a world where our reaction to problems is invariably to accelerate and advance. What if instead, she asks, we “step back and slow down?” In 2020, when Kate Neville found herself living fulltime in her off-grid cabin during the pandemic, she began to ponder the accuracy of the perception that “going to seed“ was something to be avoided at all costs. As a gardener friend protested — “the seed phase… is a time of so much activity. Plants send out compressed packets filled with the energy and nutrients needed to sow new life.” The fact that I was reading this…

Squandered: Canada’s Potash Legacyby Eric ClinePublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch  $27.95 ISBN 9780889779693 Squandered: Canada’s Potash Legacy is another thoroughly researched and super interesting read by University of Regina Press. As a bonus, as a Saskatchewanian I always welcome a book that is so geared to our province. That said, it makes sense as fifty percent of the free world’s potash reserves are in Saskatchewan.  I learned so much reading Squandered. Granted, I didn’t know a lot about Canada’s potash industry before I cracked the book open. But I was floored to read about mining companies replacing their petroleum businesses with potash drilling as they made more money than they ever could with oil and gas. Also, Canada is the world’s largest producer and exporter of potash. And potash is the second most important value of production mineral in our country, second only to gold. As for Saskatchewan, potash is our largest export and our potash is the richest in the world.  By the end of the book, I’ll admit I was furious. It’s too lengthy to fully clarify in a review – which is why I highly recommend you read the Squandered! – but the Saskatchewan government did not manage this…

Trust the Bluer Skies: Meditations on Fatherhoodby paulo da costaPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Michelle Shaw$27.95 ISBN 9780889779921 Trust the Bluer Skies is a sensory-rich journey through a brief and distinct moment in time. Our daily lives so often pass in a blur, and we can reach the end of the day wondering what we actually did. In this book, paulo da costa slows us down and shares with us a leisurely, poignant kaleidoscope of memories and experiences as he details the six months his family spent in Portugal, his childhood home. The author, his wife Heather, his four-year-old son Koah and his baby daughter Amari travelled from their home in Victoria, British Columbia to spend six months with his family in Vale de Cambra, Portugal where he grew up. While they were there, Paulo recorded his thoughts on “pastry receipts, train tickets and advertising flyers” to create a detailed account of their time. The book is written in the second person in the form of letters to Khoa. paulo details the everyday events they experienced and intersperses them with recollections of his own childhood, family memories and musings on life. Yet the book is grounded in concrete…

“nēhiyawēwin awāsi-masinahikanis: A Little Plains Cree Book for Children: A Reference for Teaching the Plains Cree Language”by Patricia Deiter, Allen J. (A.J.) Felix and Elmer BallantynePlains Cree Translations by Elmer Ballantyne, Inez Deiter, May Desnomie, Allen J. (A.J.) Felix and Joslyn WuttuneePublished by YNWPReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$74.95 ISBN 9781778690044 I recently reviewed awāsi-nēhiyawēwin masinahikanis: A Little Plains Cree Colouring Book—Plains Cree People, by Saskatchewan’s Patricia Deiter, Allen J. (A.J.) Felix, and Elmer Ballantyne. The colouring book complements the learned trio’s reference guide for teaching the Plains Cree language, nēhiyawēwin awāsi-masinahikanis—A Little Plains Cree Book for Children, which I have also now read and learned from. “Plains Cree is spoken in 43 First Nations communities in Saskatchewan alone,” and the authors hope is that they, “as Plains Cree people, will still have [their] language for [their] future generations”. In her opening acknowledgements, Deiter (White Buffalo Woman)—a “non-fluent Plains Cree speaker” and English teacher—extends gratitude to the six Elders who “provided the majority of Plains Cree translations” for the reference guide, including her mother, Inez Deiter, “who provides ongoing support for [her daughter’s] efforts to restore the Cree language to our youth”. The reference book follows the themes established in the…

Eroding a Way of Life: Neoliberalism and the Family Farmby Murray KnuttilaPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Toby A. Welch$39.95 ISBN 9780889779457 I admit I had to look up the definition of neoliberalism before cracking into this book. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explained it in a way I could almost understand: “The philosophical view that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state.” In terms of reform policies, we are talking about eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, and lowering trade barriers. With that in mind, I dove into Eroding a Way of Life.  This book looks at the history and trajectory of farms in Western Canada and specifically Saskatchewan. Once that is established, we see how that intertwines with national and international political economy. Social class is an essential component in these chapters as it is a vital factor at play when understanding the transformation of rural Saskatchewan.  Knuttila begins with a look at merchant capitalism from the 1500s through to the Industrial Revolution. We move onto industrial capitalism, the period from the 1770s to the end of the American Civil War in 1865. Then we delve into conditions…