Write what you know. That’s what writing coaches tell us. In the case of former small-town journalist Maureen Brownlee, the advice rings true. Her latest novel is set in the interior of British Columbia, 1995 – “Cache Creek to Kamloops and north” (65) – an area close to where Brownlee grew up and worked at her own small-town newspaper during the time the mountain pine beetle was rampaging through the forests of western North America, destroying millions of acres of pine forest. Brownlee’s insider’s view breathes life and truth into this literary text.
“When the beetles attack, they bring a fungus with them, and the fungus spreads into the tree and makes it easier for the beetles to chew through the cambium . . . It stains the wood, blue streaks all through it. The lumber buyers downgrade it” (156). With its blue cambium, prices drop, even though there’s nothing wrong with blue wood if it can be harvested before it dries out and cracks. There’s a metaphor here somewhere.
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/
An unscrupulous developer (aren’t they all?), smelling the potential for a quick buck, comes to Beauty Creek to romance the Creeksters into letting him cut the timber and build his townhouse development before it’s too late. The problem with development is that the locals end up being priced out of their own land. We’ve seen this time and time again as gentrification has crept through this province. But what else can you do when you’re about to lose the only resource that keeps your town alive? And so the debate begins.
The narrative meanders through the distinct voices of three central characters: Maggie, the widowed editor of the Chronicle, struggling to keep her late husband’s dream alive; Stevie, a bright, uneducated single mother of two, bent on independence; and Nash Malone, poet, junk aficionado, and veteran of the Spanish War of 1935. These three strong, independent characters come together when Maggie offers Stevie a decent job at the Chronicle and sends her off to interview Malone. In an unlikely pairing, the older wounded veteran and the young wounded woman strike up a friendship. When the gloves come off and the town experiences its own insidious violence, we are reminded that evil manifests itself in many forms and doesn’t always appear as strangers or insects. Small towns have a unique heartbeat, sometimes fluttering, sometimes pounding with the force of an axe.
As the mountain pine beetle threatens the economy of this small resource-driven town, we see how quickly a community can be brought to its knees. With a voice and writing style reminiscent of Barbara Kingsolver, especially her Prodigal Summer and Poisonwood Bible, Brownlee spins a tragically beautiful tale. A monstrous blue sadness chews its way through these pages, while the haunting memories of Nash Malone weave through the text like a magnificent memoir. I must confess that I was captivated by Malone’s richly sensual writing, but found the typeface, which I know was intended to evoke an old-fashioned smudgy typeface, very hard on these aging eyes. But that has nothing to do with Brownlee’s brilliant eco-fiction, and Nash Malone is a truly tragic hero.
Cambium Blue is a slow-burn winner and destined to become a B.C. classic. It has been shortlisted for the George Ryga Award, an annual literary prize for a B.C. writer who has achieved an outstanding level of social consciousness in a new book.
A sexy, captivating read, Prodigal Summer is as important now as when it was first published twenty years ago. I read it then and just reread it again. Kingsolver is an artist, poet, biologist, eco-warrior, and extraordinary storyteller. She wraps her words around these intriguing characters like vines on a frontier trellis.
Over the course of one verdant summer, we dwell in the farms and mountains of southern Appalachia with three intensely independent woman who, like Kingsolver, are all enmeshed in an eco-myth. These timeless women take it upon themselves to change their worlds and the disparate men who enter their lives.
Deanna Wolfe is a forty-something forest ranger living alone atop the mountain in her woodsy cabin until a charismatic sheep farmer turns her life around. As sexy and fulfilling as he is, Eddie Bondo has invaded Deanna’s mountain to shoot coyotes–a bane to his existence but treasures to our forester. Deanna does her best to educate Eddie on the perils of killing off predators at the expense of prey.
Lusa marries into the old Widener family then a freak accident leaves her burdened with a farm and no husband. Using her wits, she devises a way to make a living on the farm without giving in to growing fields of tobacco and being puppeted by her brother-in-laws. At the same time, Lusa worms her way into the hearts of the Widener sisters, their husbands, and children—especially her sexy seventeen-year-old nephew, Rickie. Lusa, whose passion is bugs, teaches us about the insect life in Appalachia.
Nannie Rawley mothered Deanna way back when. Nannie tries desperately to convince her neighbour old Garnett Walker to stop spraying his chestnut trees with chemicals. Nannie farms organically and his poisons are killing everything on both sides of the fenceline. A feud turns into something beautiful and we learn all about why it’s crucial to farm organically. While he’s learning a new way to be in the world, old Garnett teaches Lusa how to raise goats. All of the characters are as interconnected as Nature herself.
Kingsolver offers us a feminist tale starring maid, mother, and crone in this charming book. A tribute to Rachel Carson, writer of Silent Spring, Prodigal Summer is a classic with a timely and meaningful message.
Saltspring Island is one of the most unique and beautiful places on Earth. Today on our morning ramble, we discovered a pathway of poppies glittering in the sun. Is there a better way to begin a day?
p.s. The Rainbow Road is where I’m staying;)
I tend to live in seven-year-cycles. So, it’s no surprise that I’m returning to Saltspring Island this summer to research a new book. My dream dog, Puddy, came with me last time. It was his last trip. Puddy loved to travel, especially aboard the ferries. This summer, I’ll be taking Skaha along. Puddy was eleven—Skaha is ten-months-old.
Saltspring is the largest of the Gulf Islands in the Salish Sea. An artist’s haven, with an agricultural and environmental legacy, it is wildly beautiful and inspiring. Memories of 2011 below. What awaits us in 2018? I can’t wait to find out.
Sweet smokes seeps from your mouth to mine Filling me, willing me, to come, with you Shaman farmer crafter chef poet eco-warrior I want to know you; grow with you Dirty my fingers in fecund folds Drop seeds, bulbs, words, deep in sea-rich soil Then wait through sun and wind and rain Gestating magic cradled by leathered hands You are man and woman, yin and yang, androgynous lover Mesmerized by diamond shrouded seas, sun-kissed hair blowing free My flesh accepts your strong and briny light, your long and silent night Braid my hair with gems and blossoms, bound fast with vines Amber, sapphire, scarlet, peach, cobalt, pearly white Scrape my skin with black slate stones transfusing flesh and blood And when rootless I dance off, leaving only my bare footprint in your sand Fill it with Byzantine light, a beacon to lure me back.
Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga by Chris Czajkowski, 2017
My review is out now on the Ottawa Review of Books site, but I’m offering it here as well. I want to add pictures. Listening to Chris Czajkowski speak is always a pleasure. Meeting her is a thrill. Chris Czajkowski is one of my heroes. I have dreamed of living in a log cabin my whole life. The closest I got, was chopping wood to keep the stove going, when I lived on an acreage in Ontario many years ago. This amazing woman has not only lived in a log cabin, she’s built several. Chris is a writer, artist, photographer, and storyteller, AND she grows her own organic food! Moreover, she’s saved the lives of several dogs. In this, her latest book, those dogs tell her story.
October 17, 2017. Burnaby Library. The room is packed.
“Do you have a dog?” author Chris Czajkowski asks each person who queues to buy her latest book, Harry: A Wilderness Dog Saga. She autographs a copy from her and her dogs, signs it to you and yours. Old friends appear; laughs and memories are shared. Four decades of her life in the Canadian wilderness is neatly laid out in piles across tables at the front of the room. Before she begins her slideshow, Chris introduces each of the eleven books, always leaving us with a smile and a chuckle.
Chris’s latest book is narrated by Harry, a street urchin, who arrived in 2009 at the age of two. It begins like this: “The first time I met Chris I was wearing a diaper.” Many of Chris’s dogs are rescues destined for the needle or a bullet, but after a week or two at one of her cabins in the B.C. wilderness, their lives are resurrected.
Badger
Her canine characters are archetypal. Badger (who is now twelve and accompanied Harry and Chris on this book tour) is the wise old man, the Dumbledore of dogs.
Taya is a poet. Sport, a chicken-chomping hunter. Nahanni, a princess:
“Nahanni was a very pretty girl—snow white with a long pink nose that she kept quite firmly in the air. She was a purebred, she immediately had me know—a designer white Husky born in the Arctic. She really could not be expected to associate with anyone of lesser ilk.”
The book is sweet, charming, poetic, and practical, told in the viewpoints of many dogs who’ve lived with Chris, some for briefer times than others. There are moments of tears, terror, and laughter. For example, Taya, a bearish husky, leaves an eccentric smoking spinster who trains packs of sled-dogs in the Arctic, to join Chris and Sport when Lonesome must retire. (Chris always keeps a pair of dogs, sews them large backpacks, and trains them to carry her hiking supplies.) They arrive at the cabin by floatplane and will winter there alone for three months, occasionally hiking through the snowy mountainous terrain. Taya seems poetic in these moments: “Our enormously elongated shadows stretched smoke-blue in front of us on the pinkish ice. Our legs were like enormous trees tapering to a vast distance; our heads were no bigger than pieces of dog kibble.”
Chris jokes that there will be special guests this evening, but not until the end of the show. “When they come in, everyone stops listening to me.” And, this is exactly what happens when the door opens. Harry walks calmly down the centre aisle through the tangle of outstretched hands; while, Badger collapses on the floor to have his belly rubbed.
Harry
In this historic moment, when there seems to be no place unknown to man, Chris Czajkowski and her canine pack, explore a barren and beautiful world, threatened only by the forces of nature. Fire is the worst threat. Prompted by lightning strikes and weather change, summer fires have threatened her cabins since 2004.
I will admit, Chris is one of my heroes. She built her cabins. “It was the only way to get what I wanted,” she says. And, because she suffers with food sensitivities, she grows her own food. “You can’t get organic food there.” She shops in bulk two or three times a year; the first item on her list being dog kibble. How did she manage to build cabins, raise dogs, run an eco-tourism business, and become a published author? The answer is in her books.
Harry is a charming book. Chris has included a hand drawn map (she loves to sketch), several black and white photographs (she is a wonderful photographer), and a canine timeline that reflects the building of her six cabins in the West Chilcotin. Chris’s life is not measured by clocks or jobs; her moments sync with nature and survival.
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