Bill Arnott’s latest “Season” memoir takes the reader on an emotional armchair journey through British Columbia’s iconic Okanagan Valley. But it needn’t be armchair for long. This delectable morsel may inspire you to shift from recliner to car seat or bus or even plane. In this historic moment, when Canadians are exploring our nation more than ever before, this wee gem is a must. Just over 4” wide and 6.5” long, it slips easily into a glove box, purse, pocket, or backpack, and Arnott is an expert travel companion. Lush with sensory song, Arnott’s travelogue is an epic serenade to this land he loves.
The memoirish aspect of this book is emotive, revealing the boy who fathered the man—a man raised in lakeside Vernon who grew up to be an acclaimed traveller and writer, speaker, poet, and songwriter. Winner of The Miramichi Reader’s “The Very Best!” book award for nonfiction, Arnott was granted a Royal Geographical Society Fellowship. His award-winning Gone Viking trilogy, researched and penned over a decade, is another timeless lure to adventure.
Anchoring his Okanagan journey are symbols—the hummingbird, the mourning dove, and sour cherry juice—innocent pleasures that haunt him still. And there’s something more. In this time of Reconciliation, Arnott’s awareness that he/we are settlers on this land riffles through the pages in the naming of places, people, and stories he chooses to feature. He honours this Indigenous land and its First People, the Syilx of the Okanagan Nation. On page one is a striking, painted photograph of the Chief, a metal sculptureon horseback at Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre in Osoyoos. It was created by the late Virgil “Smoker” Marchand to celebrate Okanagan/Okanogan culture. The book is seasonally structured around the Four Syilx Food Chiefs—Bitterroot (spring) and Saskatoon Berry (summer), Salmon (autumn) and Black Bear (winter). Arnott trips through summer and fall delighting in Nature’s changing hues.
The energetic text is enhanced with a series of digitally painted photographs taken by Arnott on his “outdated camera phone.” At the launch, he explained his process, but when asked if he would consider teaching a workshop, he humbly declined, saying he didn’t have the expertise. I beg to differ. These striking artistic images enrich and personalize his books in a way a simple picture cannot.
Sprinkled throughout the text are witty anecdotes, conversations struck up with locals, love songs to his Ukrainian grandparents, interviews with Knowledge Keepers, and forays into the history, archaeology, climate, and intricate geology of place. The Okanagan Valley is a lush land of wineries constantly under threat by forest fires, a gritty aspect of life that cannot be ignored. Of course, Arnott tours the cities and towns that have grown up and out: Vernon, Kelowna, Peachland, Summerland, Penticton, Oliver, Okanagan Falls and Osoyoos, offering lyrical suggestions of places to pause along the way.
But, what lies at its heart is a pilgrimage to the past and an honouring of the present. Dedicated to Dad, Arnott’s last acts are to celebrate his mother’s ninetieth birthday and scatter his father’s ashes on the hill above Lake Okanagan. “Where pine needles blanket the ground over pink and orange rock, with cacti and clumps of wild grass. A crow caws as a magpie swoops by.” A gifted bard, he creates a sense of majesty for even the most mundane denizens. Affection wafts from each page, at once, both poem and prayer.
Most Canadians will pick up Thomas King’s latest novel, check out the cover, and think the story involves a tragic accident on a lonely mountain highway caused by an invisible frozen glaze on pavement. Haven’t we all encountered black ice at some point on a Canadian road? But that explanation is way too simple for this King of Metaphors. Black Ice actually refers to a team of government agents whose mission was to collect corporate information but who raised the stakes by demanding scads of ill-gotten money and stashing it in a vault only one of them could access. But I get ahead of myself.
Black Ice is the eighth installment in The DreadfulWater Mysteries, a must-read satirical series set near a Blackfoot reserve in Chinook, Montana. The protagonist, Thumps DreadfulWater, is an ex-cop from Northern California—a ravenous, diabetic, Cherokee photographer who got in his car one fateful day and drove east until his fuel pump broke. His wife and daughter had been murdered, and Chinook “had simply been at the bottom of a long fall.” Due to his policing skills and a lack of trained detectives in Chinook, Thumps has been invited to assist the local law on several occasions. In Black Ice, the sheriff appoints Thumps temporary deputy sheriff when he’s forced to take a leave following his wife’s suicide. Of course, everywhere he goes, Thumps is referred to as that photographer.
King is a photographer himself. As Thumps struggles with modernity—leaving behind his basement dark room and all those killer chemicals to trudge into the digital age, I have to wonder if this is King’s personal experience. As deputy sheriff he has to carry a cell phone that makes him jump every time it vibrates.
Thumps plays straight man to an eccentric cast. The setup is reminiscent of King’s CBC radio show, The Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour (1997 to 2000.) Political satire and black humour define his style, and the Indigenous characters are fair game. Roxanne Heavy Runner is “dressed in a gunmetal-grey, shrapnel-patterned pantsuit. Her hair … held in place with a large metal clip that stuck up off the top of her head like the safety lever on a hand grenade” (129.) Her sister, Deanna Heavy Runner, and Cooley Small Elk, both do police work when they’re not playing Jenga at the station or watching the flat screen from the bed in the jail cell. The enterprising Wutty Youngbeaver surprises them all by entering the qualifying round of the U.S. Open supported by “Wutty’s Warriors” hooting him on from the sidelines in red T-shirts with gold lettering. Cisco Cruise “the ninja assassin” returns to “assist” Thumps in solving the death of a private investigator, and the disappearance of Nora Gage, the woman he’s been investigating. King says of this quirky cast: “They’re friends of mine and I don’t have a great many friends in the world. Those characters are pretty, pretty dear to me.” Fortunately for fans, he continues to create their lives.
King must be an animal lover as critters always make it into the story. Gage leaves a massive dog named Howdy at the pound when she bolts, and Thumps, in a shrewd move, rescues the beast and drops him off with the grieving sheriff—an outcome that seems to suit them both, more or less. Thumps doesn’t think Howdy will survive his cats. It’s doubtful whether the sheriff will survive Howdy.
King takes a jab at various contemporary trends from Amazon bashing to Moses Blood’s analogy on global warming: “too many gophers in the box.” His relationship with Claire suffers when she’s forced to take her daughter to Canada to access decent health care.
King can get away with this type of political commentary. A member of the Order of Canada, he’s won a string of prestigious awards for his work including: The Governor General’s Literary Award, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. His book, Indians on Vacation, won the 2021 Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Deep House, book Six in the DreadfulWater series, won the Crime Writers of Canada Whodunit Award for best traditional mystery in 2023. King wears the title, professor emeritus at the University of Guelph where he taught for many years. Oh, to have been in one of his English classes.
Really, if you’ve never read Thomas King, you must. Charmingly witty—wittingly charming, and laced with black ice that’ll keep you on your toes.
I fell in love with Brigid many years ago, long before I sipped from her sacred well in Ireland. Long before, trembling, I tied a rag on her prayer tree on the Hill of Tara and begged for help. Brigid is the ancient Celtic goddess of healing, poetry, and metal-crafting. She is my source of strength and inspiration.
First pilgrimage to Tara, Ireland
People venerated Brigid, as Mother Goddess for thousands of years. Much later, in the fifth century, an abbess took her name. Along with her nuns, this Brigid built a monastic settlement in Kildare, which means Church of the Oak. She prayed. She healed. She performed miracles. And in time, the people proclaimed her a saint. Brigid appears in my stories. Even lends her name to one of my major characters.
“And you are?”
“Dylan McBride.” He reluctantly shook the outstretched hand.
The tall, muscular priest was a good head taller and as he pumped Dylan’s arm, the veins in his neck stood out. “McBride. That means, follower of St. Bride. I wrote a paper once on Bride or Brigit, which is her other name. She’s the patron saint of Ireland.”
“Aye, she is. St. Brigit founded thirty convents in Ireland. Her flame burned in Kildare until her nuns were raped and driven out in the Twelfth century.” Dylan cleared his throat and spit sideways into the shrubs. “I’ve written papers too.”
Sunday, February 2nd is Brigid’s day. In the ancient pagan calendar, this marks the midpoint in the Dark Times between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox for those of us in the north.
Fifteen hundred years after her death, Brigid is still beloved in Kildare. Last year, her devotees marked her death anniversary, and Ireland proclaimed her the first Irish woman to be commemorated with an annual public holiday. Over centuries of strife, her bones had been scattered, but last year fragments were returned to St. Brigid’s Parish Church. If ever you visit Kildare, Solas Bhride is a Christian spirituality center led by the Brigidine Sisters who welcome “people of all faiths and of no faith.”
Brigid symbolizes the divine feminine, the beauty of art, the healing of the sick and injured, and veneration of the land, the trees, the animals, and all sentient beings. If you seek solace in this shifting world of shadows and feel fearful in these tenuous times, look to Brigid. Find a willing tree (always ask first) in a nearby wood and create your own Rag Tree. Tie a ribbon infused with your prayers upon her branches and ask for what you need. She helped me one day in Ireland when I felt all was lost, and she’ll help you too.
Author News
On February 25, I’m launching The Witch Killer. This series rebranding is an incredible journey I’m undertaking this year. Inspired by a talk given by thriller writer, Jonas Saul, on the island of Amorgos in Greece last September, I made the decision to change my pen name and re-release my books updated, reformatted, and re-covered, for a new audience. Of course, now that I’ve opened up to Estrada again, he’s started whispering about book six, which he wants to set in Greece.
It’s a heap of work, but the revitalizing of my books has given me new life. In many ways, I am my books. It’s inspired me artistically and creatively, and given me back my youth—or maybe that’s the Clinique kit I bought in the Black Friday sale. Hmmm …
Here’s a sneak peek at the new print cover for book 1 and a few links to my new self. Please follow me where you can. Alas, I’m a reborn author with few friends;)
Goodreads @183384153-harper-carr to read my latest reviews.
Actually, I listened to James Marsters (SPIKE of Buffy the Vampire/Angel fame) narrate Jim Butcher’s Stormfront, Book 1 of The Dresdan Files. Wow. I was hoping for Marster’s English accent but, alas, I’m impressed, both with his ability to portray Harry Dresden, a casual, demon-fighting American wizard who traverses Chicago’s streets and investigates strange murders, and with Butcher’s masterful writing style.
This is the 25th Anniversary of Stormfront. If you’ve never heard of it, do look it up, crime and urban fantasy fans. There’s a fanpage here but that’s kinda cheating. Dresden reminds me of someone I know intimately. Yep. That’s right.
The Dresden Files
I love how Butcher handles the whole question of technology—whether to use it or not. I hate writing technology, especially because it’s changing so fast it dates your work almost immediately. Although Butcher wrote Stormfront in the days of the VCR, he avoids this sinkhole by making Dresden’s wizarding aura interfere with technology. Harry Dresdan is old school, a brooding bad boy who’s awful good, shy around women, and an intelligent, masterful fighter. And bonus—there are seventeen audio volumes, all but one which have been narrated by James Marsters.
Oh, Lord. Sorry, Estrada. Did you say something? I’m listening to Harry.
