Love Big Country: Tales of Wildfire, Wildlife & Wild Timesby Mark FletcherPublished by YNWPReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$29.95 ISBN 9781778690471 At 398 pages, I harboured reservations about reviewing Love Big Country: Tales of Wildfire, Wildlife & Wild Times, a memoir conveyed in storiesby Mark Fletcher. What if it was dull and/or poorly written? Then I began reading, and before I’d turned the first page, I was rapt, as Fletcher—wildland firefighter, smokejumper and adrenalin junkie extraordinaire—not only writes exceptionally well, this natural storyteller’s lifetime of intense experiences could make for blockbuster movies. He was in a helicopter that “flew directly through a residual cottonwood tree” and crashed. He’s shared rivers with grizzlies, was threatened by armed criminals, and, most terrifyingly, experienced burnovers: “fire penetrated the surrounding green fuels in a rush of flying embers, licking flames and loud, thick, wind-driven smoke. Burning trees fell close with muted thuds. The dragon was upon us.” His “beloved profession … nearly killed [him] a number of times,” and he earned ten concussions in the 1980s. “Parachuting into forest fires and firefighting in general come with risks,” he asserts. “Everyone knows I push boundaries.” But there’s no braggadocio here: the author regularly credits his associates,…

Another Leaf: A Refugee Storyby Marg Epp as told by Ma They YarePublished by YNWPReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9781778690310 Ten years ago, while backpacking around Thailand, I visited a Karen village to photograph a woman with gold rings elongating her neck. I knew nothing of Karen culture and was shamelessly after the sheer spectacle. While that experience deserves to be in a “How Not to Be a Culturally Sensitive Traveler” file, it did have me especially eager to read Another Leaf: A Refugee Story, the memoir of a Myanmar-born Karen woman, Ma They Yare, as told, with the aid of translators, to her friend, Marg Epp. A small reparation, yes, but a step in the right direction. Epp and her refugee sponsorship group at Wildwood Mennonite Church in Saskatoon were responsible, with assistance from the Mennonite Central Committee, for the immigration of single mother Ma They Yare and her five children to Saskatoon in 2016. Ma They Yare bravely fled war-ravaged Myanmar (formerly Burma) with her family, and they remained in Thailand’s Mae Ra Mu Luang refugee camp for fourteen years before their arrival in Canada (sans the children’s father), where everything—food, clothing, currency, weather, customs, language—was new…

U ALIVEby Chelsea CoupalPublished by Thistledown PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9781771872836 Chelsea Coupal’s second book, U ALIVE, is the most enjoyable poetry collection I’ve read in many moons. The rural Saskatchewan-raised writer and new mother documents—through sensorial and beautifully imagistic poems, mostly written in formal styles (couplets, tercets, quatrains)—a quintessentially prairie childhood; the transition from adolescence to motherhood; our often inexplicable attractions and attachments to people; the vagaries of the months and seasons; a close connection to the natural world; and a concern about the environment. The book possesses a self-reflective, questioning tone. Each of the twelve sections begins with a stylized poem named for the months of the year. Coupal has split these calendar poems into two columns, and rather than reading straight across the horizontal lines, the poems are best read down the left column, then down the right. In “March,” Coupal contemplates breastfeeding (“The second week I get mastitis”) and philosophizes about her life: “I could have as much time ahead/as behind me, maybe less./I wonder if everything I’ve done/equals good or bad.” Her breast milk “is the colour of salmon,/dyed by [her] own blood.” There’s plenty of blood in these poems, ie: “Tongues wet/as…

Stitching Our Stories Together: Journeys into Indigenous Social WorkEdited by Jeannine Carrière and Catherine RichardsonPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$34.95 ISBN 9781779400574 The stimulating essays in Stitching Our Stories Together: Journeys into Indigenous Social Work—edited by Métis scholars and thesis supervisors Jeannine Carrière and Catherine Richardson—reveal how nine Métis social work graduate students from across Canada are incorporating individual Indigeneity, histories and experiences, plus “Indigenous ways of knowing and being,” into their research in innovative ways, from using dance as a method to learn Michif to beading. The essays are disparate, imaginative, frank, and encouraging. The anthology includes an introduction and conclusion from the editors. They’ve chosen the culturally resonant metaphor of “stitches” in their title, as “Métis have stitched together blankets, quilts, fishing nets, and clothing[,] as well as mended relationships and kept families on track.” They hope the book will inspire “Indigenous undergrads who are contemplating entering a post-graduate program,” and that future students will find a few of “the possibilities offered by Indigenous research” in this handsome collection. The editors point to the importance of “meaning making … the process of how we take the gifts of participant interviews or other information to…

The Haunted Hornby Edward WillettPublished by Endless Sky BooksReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.99 ISBN 9781998273706 Wow: Regina’s Edward Willett has done it again. He’s written a book—this time a light-hearted, middle years’ horror—that’s certain to keep young readers transfixed. The longtime multi-genre writer and publisher’s cracked the code to literary success: his plots zoom; his characters are credible and maintain distinctive voices; and he understands literary craft. In The Haunted Horn, the American Civil War meets present day and reality meets the supernatural, and it’s all more fun that a bunch of bugles. This engaging, republished novel (first edition, 2012) is set in “Oak Bluffs, Arkansas,” where Union soldiers defeated the Confederates in a fiery battle that closed out the Civil War. It revolves around eighth-grader Alex, a creative only child—he fancies himself “a future best-selling novelist”—small for his size, smart in science and English, and a French horn player in the school’s marching band. Willett notably reveals that Alex’s family is upper middle class: antique-obsessed Mom picks Alex up at school in a Lincoln SUV; Dad recently left retail management when elected to town council. Alex is a target for bully Sammy Findlater and his gang, and Sammy’s on…

Wîhtamawik/Tell Them: On a Life of Inspirationby Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky DancerPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$27.95 ISBN 9781779400840 Award-winning Saskatchewan writer Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer is renowned for her candid, Cree-infused poetry and presentations. Her latest book, Wîhtamawik/Tell Them: On a Life of Inspiration, braids memoir, poetry and essays to reveal where the author’s found inspiration and, I would say, contentment, after a tumultuous early start. In the eloquent introduction by the author’s daughter, Omeasoo Wahpasiw, the latter writes: “My mom dances with both her bones and the bones of our people, and when they poke and punch her with their insistent rattling, she does us all a favour, as painful as it is, and leaves them naked in the wind.” Until age seven, Halfe lived with her family in a log cabin on the Saddle Lake Reserve and practiced traditional Cree ways of life. She doesn’t pretend that it was perfect. Her father drank and was emotionally volatile (“His heart was a cave of stalactites.”). Her parents “stooked hay, picked rocks/in white farmers’ fields”. Halfe “learned to hunt, skin, and butcher game through non-verbal methods. [She] also watched [her] grandparents work…

Blue thinks itself within meby Kim TrainorPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$27.95 ISBN 9781779401205 I knew I was in for a different kind of book when I read the author’s dedication, which begins: “For the flying beings, the ones with sharp teeth,/the ones who swim, the fire stones, the trees, the rain.” By the end of prize-winning Vancouver writer Kim Trainor’s text, Blue thinks itself within me, I can affirm that her dedication tracks. Trainor sees, hears, experiences and questions with the intensity of a scientist and the detail of an artist as she draws readers both into the forest at the two-year Fairy Creek blockade near Vancouver Island’s Port Renfrew—where she joined other protestors to protect old growth logging—and through her elegiac and philosophical quandary re: how best to approach writing a long lyric poem about the oldgrowth specklebelly lichen (a rare and threatened species found on yellow cedar in ancient forests) in a kind of respectful co-making with this oldgrowth resident. Trainor describes artist Natasha Lavdovsky’s discovery of “over sixty trees draped in glittering specklebelly,” and explains that “The finding of such a large community of oldgrowth specklebelly was evidence of the age of…

The Chorus Beneath Our Feetby Melanie SchnellPublished by Radiant PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$25.00 ISBN 9781998926329 Regina writer Melanie Schnell’s debut novel, While the Sun is Above Us, earned her the Saskatchewan First Book Award and The City of Regina Award at the 2013 Saskatchewan Book Awards, and I expect her recently released second novel, The Chorus Beneath Our Feet, will also garner attention, particularly for its ambitious plot. Schnell’s braided several surprisingly disparate elements and parallelled the relationships between two sets of siblings in this crime story set in “Ravenwood,” Alberta. The first brother and sister were among the 100,000 Barnardo’s Homes’ children shipped from England to Canada to labour on farms between 1869 – 1948. These 100,000 “home children” were ripped from their families and treated extremely poorly in Canada. Ravenwood rumours suggest that the bodies of these separated siblings are buried beneath the massive oak tree (the “Harron Tree”) in the city’s central park. A local construction company is razing the tree for the construction of a mall, and protesters are rallying around the stately oak. The second set of siblings are Jes, an army Sargeant who’s returned home after eight years in Afghanistan—he’s accompanying his fellow…

Something for the Darkby Randy LundyPublished by University of Regina PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$19.95 ISBN 9781779400888 I’ve reviewed four of Randy Lundy’s transcendent poetry collections, and each time I’ve come away thinking surely this is as good as he gets. Then a new title’s released … and the ceiling rises again. Something for the Dark, Lundy’s latest, follows Field Notes for the Self (2020) and Blackbird Song (2018) in a trilogy of meditative books that address the whole of it: life and meaning; connections with people and place (he’s often “on the back deck” with cigarettes and coffee, and his poems surreptitiously venerate the prairies he long resided on); seasons; his beloved creatures (particularly dogs and birds); nothingness and silence; and writing poetry (“These lines are getting the/discussion nowhere”). I built a fire in the woodstove, lifted the old dog up onto the couch, and, in silence and solitude, let the words nourish me. Lundy possesses the artist’s gift of seeing, certainly, but he also exhibits the rare ability to render images and experiences into something other, something that borders on the holy—a crow feasting on the rib of a “road-killed deer” holds “a strip of meat/in its beak,…

Into the D/arkby David EliasPublished by Radiant PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$22.00 ISBN 9781998926381 Into the D/ark is the dream-like and aptly-titled new novel by veteran Winnipeg writer David Elias, as all is not well for blacksmith/artist Clarence; his wife, Rose; and their fire-disfigured sons in rural Manitoba circa 1963. Indeed, Rose’s best friend, Martha—who inadvertently photographs JFK’s assassination while on holiday—and her fanatical, ark-building brother, Abe, are also battling demons. Like the snow-whipped landscape, the characters are driven toward a frenzy with their disparate obsessions: Rose’s love of women’s magazines; her self-exiled sons’ non-stop watching of American TV programs (their panacea in the rough shack they’ve named “Bachelor’s Paradise);” Martha’s black and white photography, and her secret love for Rose; Abe’s ark project; and Clarence’s shift from welding farm implements to creating nonsensical metal monsters. The key to this original book’s success is manyfold. Firstly, the distinct characterizations and the author’s ability to credibly portray madness are remarkable: an entire, almost fantastical chapter is dedicated to Clarence’s unravelling, which coincides with the removal of his welding mask: … he now bathed in glorious unending light, all because he kept his naked eyes fixed on the dazzling blaze of metallic…