Muskrat Ramble by William Wardill Published by DriverWorks Ink Review by Shelley A. Leedahl $14.99 ISBN 978-1-927570-34-0 Eatonia’s William Wardill has been writing stories and poems for decades, and now the veteran historian, writer, diviner, and small-town Saskatchewan aficionado has penned his “swan song” collection of poetry, Muskrat Ramble, which includes previously published work, photographs, and, interestingly, brief, conversational-style introductions to many of the poems. The “almost autobiographical” and fictional poems (with “roots in reality”) are straightforward narrative tributes to people, places, and pre-Facebook ways of life long behind us now. Readers will appreciate the poems’ preambles: reading them is akin to hearing a writer present his or her work at a public reading. Many readers (including yours truly) will also appreciate the larger-than-usual print. Wardill has lived a rich life across his nine decades. He stretches back to his boyhood re: acknowledgement of an Alsask teacher for helping him to realize “that a little boy who liked to arrange words in patterns, paint pictures, and sing songs could be as useful in the world as the little boy who excelled in athletic competitions.” At the other end of his life, in a poem titled “Homo Emeritus,” he reflects that…

Rear-View Mirror by Eleanor Moline Sinclair Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by William Wardill $19.95 ISBN 978-1-894431-64-4 Eleanor Moline Sinclair isn’t a social historian. Instead, she is a keen observer of history as she has lived it. In a memoir written for grandchildren who were living in Taiwan at the time, she identifies herself as the daughter of Swedish and German immigrants, the eighth in a family of ten children, student, nurse, farmer’s wife, and mother. Her slice of history begins with what she knows of her grandparents and continues with the stages of her own life to 2010, when, although more comfortable with a simpler lifestyle, she makes use of the products of technology’s headlong race. Sinclair is not an academic making clinical conclusions. She has been, and still is, a participant. Her colloquial account is touched by love and tinged with longing. In the Epilogue, she writes ( for her grandchildren): “Survival, rigour, grit and determination brought us to what and where we are today. Life has dictated that. But we won’t be going back …Grandpa Mac and I Grammy El, are 70 years old now, and hope that reading this story will provide you with…

That’s Raven Talk by Mareike Neuhaus Published by Canadian Plains Research Centre Review by William Wardill $34.95 ISBN 978 -0-88977-233-5 The title of this book attracts readers who know about the place of Raven in Native spirituality. This book is identified on its cover as literary criticism. It was written primarily for those who understand the terminology of linguistics and for whom the study of languages is both a science and a passion. That’s Raven Talk began as a dissertation and, through the editorial judgement of Canadian Plains Research, became a book which expands on the use of the holophrase (one-word sentence) in the translation of Indigenous languages into English. Neuhaus examines carefully and at length excerpts from works by a bevy of writers who are familiar with Indigenous languages and culture. These are Ishmael Alunik ( Call Me Israel), Alootook Ipellie (Artic Dreams and Nightmares), Richard Van Camp (The Lesser Blessed), Thomas King (Green Grass, Running Water), and Louise Bernice Halfe (Blue Marrow.) In company with these authors, Neuhaus takes her readers into a half-lit world where everything familiar is subtly different. Although she writes for scientists, any word-lover can journey through her book to a deeper understanding of…

Within the Stillness: One Family’s Winter on a Northern Trapline by Keith Olsen Published by Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing Review by William Wardill $16.95 ISBN 978–1–894431–61-3 This book encapsulates deeply etched memories of Keith Olsen, whose grandfather came to the United States from Denmark in 1910 at the age of thirteen. When he moved to Canada, he settled in the Big River district of Saskatchewan, where he married Anna Ethier in 1914. After the birth of two daughters, she became a victim of the 1918 influenza plague. The elder daughter, Florence, became the mother of James Edward Olsen, who was born out of wedlock in 1934. Florence Olsen married an English immigrant, Thomas Edward Nicholson, in 1937. After only nine years in the Nicholson family, James Olsen’s relationship with his stepfather became unendurable, and he set out on his own. He was twelve years old. In the late summer of 1960, James Olsen, his wife (always identified as Mum), and their young sons Clarence and Keith went to Little Mahigan Lake for a winter on the trapline. What follows is a colloquial account of living off the land. Aside from a few purchased necessities, they ate what forest and lake…