Books To Read On A Trapline
When the evenings get longer, we enjoy reading a good book. So here we go with the books to hunker down with on a cold, dark night
Books
The Simple Joys Of Yukon Count
This past Christmas season, Yukoners were introduced to a new children’s book created by local illustrator Tedd Tucker.
A Yukon Mosaic
Eleanor Millard’s story is a familiar one. She came to the Yukon in 1965 and got captured. She has mostly been here since…
River Meets Wolf
Yukon authors Kay Deborah Linley and Kathryn Couture wrote books about a kayaking tour, as well as a fantasy series about wolves.
Yukon Dogs – A Children’s Book
Phil Finds a Friend is a children’s book for youngsters. It tells the story of Phil, who goes adventures around the Yukon, to find a friend.
Fall in love…
Love reading? Your local public library would like to make you a proposal – more free access to ebooks, audiobooks and online learning tools.
Throughout the month of February, the Yukon Public Library (YPL) system will be highlighting these new resources, along with ways for Yukoners to access them, with the New Reasons To Love You Library Campaign.
From the cradle to the grave
Well-Read Books celebrates a lifetime of books with its 20th anniversary and it’s a labour of love for the partners that own the store, which has established itself as a venue for the arts community. Over the years, Well-Read has hosted everything from a wedding to a wake, as well as numerous poetry readings, storytellings, …
Surviving (and thriving) in the great outdoors
You are also cold and you need to find a way to make a fire and warm up. If you have followed the motto of the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared,” then survival is on your side.
Murder and romance in small-town Alaska
With over 225 novels to her credit, Nora Roberts is a bestseller by any definition. Wikipedia says the books are all romance novels, so I’m not sure if that number includes the 47 mysteries in the In Death series. These sit on the light end of being science fiction and are clearly police procedurals, though …
An author’s dream …
Yukon-based writer Joanna Lilley has published her first novel, Worry Stones, after 17 years of working on it. “I wasn´t working on it every day, during that time. There were periods when I put it aside.” She wrote poems and short stories instead. During the past years, she published two collections of poetry and one …
John Henderson: Celebrating the Great White North
When he arrived in Yellowknife, back in 2004, with his wife, Serena, and baby daughter, Janessa, it didn’t occur to John Henderson that he might still be there 14 years later, have a thriving career as chief operating officer at the Det’on Cho Corporation and a side career in the arts as the editorial cartoonist …
John Henderson: Celebrating the Great White North Read More »
For those who answered the call …
“Yukon soldiers are buried in more than 50 cemeteries on four continents.” –Michael Gates Lest we forget … This is why Michael Gates (Yukon historian and Yukon News columnist) and D. Blair Neatby (military historian, Yellowknife) have co-authored the memorial book, Yukon Fallen of World War I, a collection of more than 100 biographies that …
The Northern Seduction
Sebastian Fricke and Rose Seguin share their journey, their “inner compasses” with us as they travel and write on their way through Alaska and the Yukon Having completed our undergraduate degrees, Rose and I were very eager to break free of the bureaucracy and daily grind of city life. We followed our inner compasses north, …
The ecological web: A story of salmon caught in the middle
“Nature is not something else, isolated, out there; it is as much a part of us as we are of it, and neither can be altered without impacting on the whole.” – Adam Weymouth The Yukon River holds many roles—the namesake of a territory, the history of peoples for thousands of years and home to …
The ecological web: A story of salmon caught in the middle Read More »
Herbal passions
When Beverley Gray started her business, over 20 years ago, it began with filling a need for her own family.
Learning from Roy
“When we first came to Canada in 1953 [from Friesland, Netherlands], we couldn’t read or write. I went down to the local bookstore and found this book.”
The Northern Review looks at literature
The Northern Review, which is published by the School of Liberal Arts at the Yukon College, describes itself as “a multidisciplinary journal exploring human experience in the Circumpolar North.
A raw and real experience of the war in Syria
The sad truth was, you could not live in Syria and have a clean heart. How could you, when you live in a place where you’re randomly shot at and car bombs explode outside your home?
Putting Canada 150 between two covers
CBC/Radio-Canada got involved in the Canada 150 sesquicentennial celebrations in a big way, starting about a year earlier with an open call for submissions to be put in a 2017 yearbook.
13 Ways to look at Canada
With I Am Canada – A Celebration (North Winds Press) Heather Patterson has come up with a novel way of assembling an overview of special things about our country.
Strange things won from the midnight sun
In keeping with this column’s focus on Yukon related material, I’m returning this week to a successful thriller that is set in a version of Dawson City. It’s not quite my town in both geography and details, but Elle Wild didn’t try to pretend it was when I talked with her about it, and even …
A new narrative on gold rush history
“To most people, the pack ice looked like a cold, endless wasteland that spread across one’s entire field of vision. But, if one watched it more carefully, one could see it come to life.” — excerpt from No Time to Bury Them by Mark C. Eddy On the surface of national history, the Yukon is …
Human migrations changed hunting
The discovery of Gold in the Klondike region in 1896, brought huge numbers of people to the Yukon. All these people had to be fed.
A tale of Arctic exploration
Yukon author Eva Holland has taken advantage of Amazon’s Kindle Singles format to produce what might have been a 45-page volume about the early history of Arctic exploration.
Drifting Home covers 3 generations of Bertons
In the summer of 1972 Pierre Berton decided to recreate a trip he had taken with his mother, father and sister back in the 1930s and take his family rafting from Bennett Lake to Dawson City.
The Northern Review remembers World War I
Volume 44 of The Northern Review contains the complete list of the papers from The North and the First World War Conference that was held in Whitehorse, and in Dawson City, May 9-12 2016.
Hunting in the Yukon – Part 1
An excerpt of Manfred Hoefs’ recently released book Yukon’s Hunting History. Yukon’s history, time scale & events are unique.
Three little words on the same little page
Just for the heck of it, let’s take a look at three English words that, on the surface of things, appear to have a lot in common.
What’s your digital footprint?
The editor at What’s Up Yukon doesn’t often receive handwritten letters, but there were two on file when I arrived. We’ve sent Mrs. Schorn a copy of her letter in print and I hope she’s found some new penpals from our efforts. The other letter on file was from Ray, a man who is currently …
People who crafted the promise of Canada
Continuing this series of reviews of books that deal with the Canadian identity and, to an extent, with the idea of Canada at 150, we come to the latest book by former Berton House writer-in-residence Charlotte Gray. It’s called The Promise of Canada: 150 Years – People and Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country. It …
A Satirical Race Through a Parallel Universe
Once again I was about to die. Like every other literary artist before me I was about to die forgotten in a ditch at the side of the Trans-Canada Highway, beneath a blackened train trestle and a faded “dew worms for sale” sign, with a bullet in my brain. At least I didn’t have to …
Slap on a Hat, Slip into this Book
Every summer, Rose and her family pack up and head to their cottage in Awago Beach. There, the long days melt into lake swims and beach fires, counting stars, five-cent candies, watching movies and running around with her summer-sister, Windy. It’s summertime, and the living is easy, right? But this year something feels off. In …
There’s Always a Stack of Books Hidden Under Their Quilts
The Yukon Imagination Library — non-profit organization that gives free books to Yukon children from birth to age four — is turning 10 this year. To celebrate the milestone we have collected reading stories from families who have used the library and from a few well-known Yukoners. We will be sharing them over the next …
There’s Always a Stack of Books Hidden Under Their Quilts Read More »
Memoirs of an Atlin School Marm
Simply stated, the best narrative I’ve read about country lifestyle in the contemporary north and the only one featuring Atlin and the Yukon.
Yukon’s Fictional Geography
Dan Carruthers’ more recent thriller, Anya Unbound (2017), introduces us to Sean Carson, a recovering widower, who stumbles across a 17-year-old Polish girl on the way to his bush cabin. He discovers she is part of a baker’s dozen of girls who have been lured to North America and are bound for the sex trade …
Imagine the Yukon – Part 1
The Yukon Imagination Library — a local non-profit organization that gives free books to Yukon children once per month from the time they are born until they reach age 4 — is turning 10 this year. To celebrate the milestone we have collected stories from families who have used the library and from a few …
An Inspiring Book, Found in a Unique Bookstore
MacLeod’s Books in Vancouver is a book lover’s dream. Books are piled up from floor to ceiling. Fortunately, the friendly staff helps you to navigate through the wide selection of books – some of them quite old and rare. When my partner and I visited this unique store last year, I found a book in …
Grandpa’s Baseball Book – Part 4 of 4
It occurred to me while watching the 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians with my grandchildren – their first World Series – that I wasn’t doing a very good job of explaining the game to them because we were all too busy watching the historical action while eating bad food and …
Remembering Canada’s Centennial Year
I was in Grade 10 in 1967. For some reason my school provided high school students with tree saplings to take home and plant. Why they were willow trees instead of maple trees I have no idea. Mine has been growing ever since, and it was a monster of a thing when I drove past …
Grandpa’s Baseball Book – Part 3 of 4
The kids needed “Baseball 101” It was my duty, as a retired sportswriter, to author it, a kiddie book about baseball(work in progress)
High Adventure
At the age of 82, Peter Steele says he has very little memory of his own parents. That’s partly why he decided a few years ago to write his autobiography. “I didn’t want my own kids to able to say the same,” he explains. “I thought I had enough interesting stories that I’d like them …
Grandpa’s Baseball Book – Part 2 of 4
These kids needed “Baseball 101” before their 2nd World Series. It was my duty, as a 70-year-old retired sportswriter, to author it for them.
A book Canadians “must read”
An attack leaves two girls hospitalized. Two families looking for answers. In the Break Metis writer, Katherena Vermette tells the stories.
Grandpa’s Baseball Book – Part 1 of 4
2016 World Series (Chicago Cubs / Cleveland Indians) – I wasn’t doing a good job of explaining baseball to my grandchildren
All Her Roads Lead to Poetry
Yukon based writer Joanna Lilley has just published her second collection of poetry If there Were Roads by Turnstone Press; she says that there are no roads to the past. “You can never go back.” Inspired by a childhood memory, she wrote “The Devonian Period,” her first poem in her newest book. Lilley says that …
A Contemplative Celebration of Place
“To come here is to travel into a past that still intrudes the present.” –an excerpt from A Walk With the Rainy Sisters: In Praise of British Columbia’s Places, by Stephen Hume Our environment says much to those who will listen, and author Stephen Hume is all ears. Distilled from curiosity and personal ruminations, Hume …
Of Breasts and Beyond
Breasts, boobs, tits, tatas. Mind the title, because, yes, this really is a story about tits, but it’s also, oh! so much more than that. Because, what are breasts to women? I won’t overstep boundaries and assume to know everyone’s relationship with their own; however, whether we have them or we don’t, and no matter …
Chronicling the Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community
I’m very jealous of what Whitehorse based Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly have managed to pull off with their delightful book, Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community (published last month, Lost Moose, 240 pages, $24.95). They’ve taken an idea that I turned into a measly two or three columns in the Whitehorse …
Chronicling the Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community Read More »
Filling the Gaps in Our History
“Everyone talks about the Goldrush. I’m interested in the gaps in history. The points in between,” says Yukon writer Michael Gates, author of From the Klondike to Berlin. Published last month, this book is, perhaps surprisingly, the first to offer an in depth account of the Yukon’s contribution to World War I. Gates says that …
Is That Thing Called a Knick-knack, or Bric-a-brac?
Recently, I was meandering through my trusty Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (shorter, as in not quite as gargantuan as the Encyclopaedia Britannica). This is a habit I acquired in my youth, but indulge less frequently these days, usually when I’m trying to curb my morbid addiction to Facebook. I hadn’t probed far into this two-volume …
Is That Thing Called a Knick-knack, or Bric-a-brac? Read More »
Books to Spring Forward
It’s (hopefully) coming to the last wintery blows before the ice breaks; the spring will soon rush in and soon after we can cast our mittens aside for a season. Enjoy the longer nights – while they last – by burying yourself in one (or all) of these books, based around the “Three R’s” of …
History Offers Timeless Perspectives
Stories are invaluable teachers, says B.C. author Caroline Woodward, they have the ability to “give us whole worlds.” Old stories, too, are relevant artefacts that help us gain perspective on how much, or how little, progress we have made. Fictional stories, the writer continues, are able to relate emotive experiences in a way that nonfiction …
The Grass is Greener Wherever Convenience Resides
“We imagined ourselves free of the hassles and troubles we’d accumulated in Toronto. We imagined a life without rushing, without the subway, without neighbours at each other’s throats, without the noise and frustration of daily commutes. Life with space. Life without the massacre of endless winter, frozen pipes, cracking plaster and mountains of snow to …
The Grass is Greener Wherever Convenience Resides Read More »
A Fable of Feminist Lore
“… but also they were a family, because this story is all about that. About humans and human-ness. Fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters. Love and betrayal and loyalty and madness. Lovers and heroes and the passing of time and all those marvellous baffling things… those things that make us human.” –excerpt from The One …
Bringing Yukon literature to the world stage
Each October, the city of Frankfurt in Germany plays host to the second largest literary trade fair in the world, with 7,153 exhibitors representing 106 countries present in 2016. The Frankfurt Book Fair (known as the Frankfurter Buchmesse (FBM), in German,) is a tradition spanning more than 500 years, with the first book fair being …
Adventure and Great Powder
Interest in backcountry skiing in the Yukon has taken off, especially among tourists, says backcountry ski expert and guide Claude Vallier. Vallier recently published a backcountry guide book to the Haines Pass, to accompany the guide book he produced in 2007 about the White Pass. The books, Haines Pass Backcountry Skiing and White Pass Backcountry …
A Provocative Gold Rush Mystery From the Other Side of the World
“Mannering was in the august high noon of his life. He was prosperous, and well dressed, and he owned the largest and most handsome building on Revellstreet. There were gold nuggets hanging from his watch chain. He ate meat at every meal. He had known a hundred women — maybe even a thousand — maybe …
A Provocative Gold Rush Mystery From the Other Side of the World Read More »
Double Think Twice
Vurt (Jeff Noon, 1993) A mad romp through a Trainspotting-like drug culture, Vurt features virtual-reality ‘feathers’ that take you to bizarre and forbidden worlds, shadow-creatures that exist in between this world and the virtual who can slip in and out of your mind at will, slobbering man-dog hybrids and cybernetic implants that can render a …
Don’t Ignore that Gut Feeling
“Were the gut solely responsible for transporting food and producing the occasional burp, such a sophisticated nervous system would be an odd waste of energy. Nobody would create such a neural network just to enable us to break wind. There must be more to it than that.” –an excerpt from Gut: The Inside Story of …
Modern-day Cartoons for Historical Folks
How to Survive in the North is a graphic novel where three northern tales — two historical and true, one fictional and set in present-day — are woven together in an artistic cartoon arrangement. While the title suggests the book may provide guidance through an icy winter, it’s more likely to urge you to consider …
Birdie – Tracey Lindberg
“Maybe she didn’t cry because tears were a currency in her life for so long that holding them back meant she was richer.” Birdie is an experience. Here the written word weaves between oral and written history, dreamtime and shared reality; it wraps and warps time and memory, ancient knowledge and new experiences, into one …
McQuesten’s Diary a Historic Treasures in a Box
I have been told the “winner writes history.” Taking this idea a bit further and you might think history is all about battles, economic or ecological, or just about power. But history is much more than that. I recently had an opportunity to touch history. To look at and study a wonderful collection given to …
The Wonder builds up slowly to a thrilling ending
You may know Irish Canadian author Emma Donoghue by the fame she has gained from her 2010 novel Room, and its film adaptation. I must admit, I have neither watched the film, nor read the book. However, when it came to reading Donoghue’s ninth novel, The Wonder, which was published this year, I had a …
The Wonder builds up slowly to a thrilling ending Read More »
Birds and Loss
“His mother used to say the soul was a bird that lived in the nape of the neck. At night it flew out of the mouth, and when you woke it returned; and when you died, it flew away forever. The world outside the glass that night seemed entirely an abstraction, a dream. Here, in …
Doubt, Delight and Discomfort
“That night I went through my reprimand sentence by sentence, word for word, and it got better each time.” “I put on a CD of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, but soon swapped it for one of Sting’s albums, only to switch to Dire Straits and then John Cougar Mellencamp. I didn’t really feel like …
Titles Hot Off the Presses
Every December since 2009, Lise Schonewille, manager of Mac’s Fireweed Books, celebrates Winterval, the start of the holiday season, with local authors in the store. Over the years the event has showcased a diverse collection of Yukon literature, subjects and writers as our literary talent grows. This year is no different with a mix of …
Humanity in a Post-Apocalyptic World
“She was thinking about the way she’d always taken for granted that the world had certain people in it, either central to her days or unseen and infrequently thought of. How without any one of these people the world is a subtly but unmistakably altered place, the dial turned just one or two degrees.” –Emily …
Aisy Doodles, November 16, 2016
Aislinn Cornett is an art therapist, writer, artist and adventurer born in Whitehorse, Yukon. She currently lives, writes and doodles on the beach in Mexico.
Book Fair Fever in Frankfurt
British artist David Hockney displayed his latest piece here: a complete collection of his artwork in a huge book. The book costs about 2,500 Euro and contains 62 years of Hockney’s work. It was set up on a stand so visitors could browse through it. The Arts+ exhibition shows that books are not only about …
F*ck Feelings
“There’s no ‘should’ or ‘should not’ when it comes to having feelings. They’re part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings.“ -Fred Rogers. From, The World According to Mister Rogers. …
The Threads that Hold Us Together
“Stories are not only words, you know. Words are just the clothes that people drape on stories.” – Brian Doyle, author of Mink River I was drawn to Mink River without knowing the author or the story. But at that time, and since then, it’s reminded me of the lyricism of life and the love of home …
The Sourtoe celebrated as a “Hidden Wonder” of the World
Just a week or so ago the newly published Atlas Obscura, subtitled, “An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” arrived on my desk sporting an enthusiastic recommendation from fantasy and comic book writer, Neil Gaiman. That’s not true any more, there have been at least half a dozen substitute toes since that time. One was …
The Sourtoe celebrated as a “Hidden Wonder” of the World Read More »
Collective Nouns For Animal Groups- Near and Far
A Late Middle Ages hunting fraternity began a game of inventing animal group names. Some were collected in The Book of Saint Albans
A Good Read for Halloween Night
Do ghosts exist? For some they do. The main character in Marcelle Dubé´s novel, Shelter, moves into a haunted house in a small town in Ontario. Dubé started the story as a gothic novel and in the end it became a ghost story. Marcelle Dubé is well known in the Yukon and she usually publishes …
Engaging Historical Fiction
I am not one who likes to read dry historical tomes. I like to absorb my history through the sugar coated pill of historical fiction, written by an author whose research is meticulous. And in this genre, Louis de Bernieres is a master. His works include books such as Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. …
Not for Novices: Beyond Beginner Picking
After you’ve picked your first few batches of mushrooms, and haven’t landed in the hospital, you’ll find the mushroom conversation branches into themes of field testing, drying, and alternate uses, such as medicines, dyes and crafts. The best mushrooming advice I ever got was from experienced mushroom picker Esa Ekdahl. She told me to start …
How Two Pierres had an Adventure in the Yukon
Steve Pitt came to the Yukon in 1982 to attend his sister’s wedding. She was marrying Dal Fry, son of Art and Margie Fry. That’s part of how Art ended up as a character in Steve’s book, The Wail of the Wendigo. The book is a young adult adventure novel that brings two kids named …
Searching for Inner Truth on the Chilkoot Trail
Whitehorse resident Maureen McCulloch wrote her debut novel to bring a message into the world. She wrote the book under the pseudonym, Maureen Senecal. “I used Angels and Aliens to bring the message that mankind needs to work together for the survival of our planet,” McCulloch says. “The book also points to the critical need to …
Celebrating Fathers and Gay Pride
June brings summer and Father’s Day, and is also a time of special significance to the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer community (LGBTQ). June was chosen as Gay Pride Month to serve as a reminder of a pivotal moment in the fight for gay rights. It was June 28, 1969 in New York City …
Fresh Words and Deep Roots
Writing poetry since she was a child, Nova Scotia based author Shauntay Grant says she has always loved creative writing. “The oldest poem I’ve kept is from fourth grade,” she says. The vocalist, poet and author began a residency at the Berton House Writers’ Retreat in Dawson City in April. She is working on Proof, …
Mark Zuehlke and the Remittance Men
Mark Zuehlke grew up in the Okanagan, hearing tales of Remittance Men – those eccentric British immigrants sent here in the late 19th century by their families who didn’t know what else to do with them. They were called Remittance Men because of the funds they received from their families to support them. The funds …
A Candide Account of Voltaire
For years I have heard the name Voltaire and have not had a chance to locate any of his works. Then the fateful day came when I went into Well Read Books and came across Candide. As I flew through the first couple of chapters at the Gold Pan, I found the charm of …
Dawson and the Harrison Effect
I’ve been enjoying a couple of relatively new books about the work of the latecTed Harrison. They are Ted Harrison Collected (Douglas & McIntyre) and A Brush full of Colour (Pajama Press). The first one is a trade paperback collection of the 91 serigraph posters he created and sold. The second is a hardcover children’s …
What We Eat When We Eat Alone
No, this is not a book of maps to the McDonald’s in your area. Or a guide to the best Chinese food takeout combinations (that’d be a short book – there are no bad combinations!). It also doesn’t contain coupons for chips, dip, and Oreos (note to the authors – possible improvement? For a second edition?). …
Next Stop, Serab
I love to travel; seeing new places, meeting new people. Experience, after all is priceless. I also love to knit. Imagine my delight when I purchased Silk Road Socks by Hunter Hammersen, with 93 pages of history and knitting. The book is published by Cooperative Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 2010. Hunter Hammersen has designed 14 sock …
A Very Literate Year (Part 2)
July: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe by Carson McCullers (American, 1951) Hopefully hopeless, Anna Karenina details the rise and fall of a Russian beauty who is ultimately destroyed by the strength of her desires and her willingness to seek out her own sexual and romantic happiness. While it has been interpreted as a morality …
The (Book) Case for Real Books
There are six bookcases in my study, and two of those are arranged so that I can shelve paperbacks on both sides of them. On those shelves I still have books that I bought and first read 50 years ago and, as new books enter the house, I periodically have to decide which ones I …
Literary Fisticuffs
Local Yukoners will face-off to defend their favourite books as part of the Northern Lights Writers Conference, running Jan 23-23. Author of Best Laid Plans and 2013 Canada Reads winner Terry Fallis will be “refereeing” the event. The winning book goes home with the glory, the winning contender goes home with money for a charity …
So much for the death of the printed book
I was very pleased to read recently that the L.A. Times reported 571 million print books were sold in 2015, 17 million more than in 2014. So much for the death of paper and print books. You might think that someone who’s been writing a book review column for nearly 40 years and lives in …
A Very Literate Year (Part 1)
Dark satire about one of the most hopeful and ultimately oppressive revolutions in history, Animal Farm cuts deep into the heart of Soviet communism while simultaneously exposing disturbing parallels to our own fragmenting culture. Plus, at a slim XX pages, the book fits right into your pocket and can easily be read, say, in an …
The Good Ol’ Days of Squatting
Pat Ellis first arrived in Whitehorse in the early 1950s. She was a 19 year-old art student from Winnipeg and Whitehorse was a much different city then. Ramshackle cabins and tiny derelict homes made up the downtown waterfront replacing today’s S.S. Klondike and Rotary Peace Park. The downtown riverside areas went by names like Whiskey …
Marching in remembrance of things past
Mark Zuehlke was a writer-in-residence at Berton House in 2003. At the time he had just finished several books on the history of the Canadian Forces actions in Italy during World War II and had brought along copious file boxes full of material for his work on the D-Day offensive on the other side of …
A dispatch from the Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest book fair in the literary world. Publishers, agents, authors and readers from all over the world come to the five day event. It is a place for business, readings, culture and discussion. This year 300,000 visitors came to the book fair. During the event there are many literature …
Three Books for a Haunted Hallowe’en
I don’t mean to alarm you, but it’s almost Hallowe’en, which, as all Yukoners know, means winter will soon descend upon us with the stumbling, frozen fury of a zombie horde from The Walking Dead. If that’s not scary enough for you, here’s three creepy books you can read to get yourself in the mood …
The Ultimate Guide to Yukon Sport
John Firth’s massive Yukon Sport: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, published in November 2014 by Sport Yukon, is a heavy book. It must weigh 14 pounds. If you’re brain isn’t strong enough to read all of it, mine wasn’t, you can throw out your old barbells and dumbbells and incorporate it into a new fitness program. Little …
New Novel Portrays Dire Future
Imagine it’s the year 2036 and the Government of Canada is bankrupt. This is the stage Norm Hamilton has set for his first novel, From Thine Own Well. The book is a pertinent piece of eco-fiction, dealing with the aftermath of unrestricted mining and hydraulic fracturing. As the story goes, in 2012, the federal government …
The Atheist Doth Protest Too Much
I’ve come to realize that atheism sure ain’t that sexy. When you compare all the trappings and incentives that other belief systems have, we come up pretty short. You don’t hear of teens packing an arena to hear the latest atheist rock band. “Here’s our next song – How entropy will bring about heat death …
They Keep Coming Back
The departure of yet another Berton House writer, Jeanne Randolph, brought to my mind the number of writers in residence who have come and gone – and come again over the last few years. This happens to quite a few people other than writers, and is referred to locally as the Dawson Boomerang Effect. Randolph …
Early Adventures in Yukon Tourism
Watching visitors to town wander about taking pictures of things that seem quite ordinary to those of us who live here is a reminder that Dawson is a rather special place that still has a hold on the imaginations of people who come to see us in all seasons. It started early. Not counting the …
