Apostrophe to Halloween, which no longer has an apostrophe

Halloween you are scary signs
Halloween you are so divine
Halloween you are toothsome delights
Halloween you're fireworks fights (should city of Van ban?)

Halloween, you are pumpkins of all hues
Halloween, you make Van Dusen big news, with Alice in (pumpkin) Wonderland
Halloween, you're easier to spell: when I was in Grade 2
The teacher made sure everyone knew
Hallow was short for hallowed and e'en was short for evening

The Northwest Passage 170 years later

Image from National Geographic

In 2009, Brian Payton published a gripping true story based on British naval records that hadn't been opened for a century and a half.
The Ice Passage, a story of ambition, disaster and endurance in the Arctic wilderness begins in 1845, when the HMS Investigator left England, crossed the Atlantic, sailed around Cape Horn, stopped in Hawaii for supplies, and continued north into the elusive Arctic corridor called The Northwest Passage.

The HMS Investigator crew was tasked with learning the fate of the Franklin expedition. As seen above, icy seas froze the ship in place, holding it at an angle for months. This grueling expedition led to no trace of Franklin's ships. Instead, the crew had to abandon their own and be rescued by another. The fate of Franklin was unknown until the 21st century.

Recently, both Franklin's ships were found off Nunavut. The HMS Investigator was found in 2010 in ice-free waters off Banks Island, NT.

This year, during The C3 Expedition, a Canada 150 Signature Project, the Polar Prince (above right) made the voyage from the Atlantic to Pacific via the open water of the Northwest Passage in just 150 days between June and October. Its mission was to inspire a deeper understanding of Canada's land, peoples and nation.

Oil spill photograph from the Gulf of Mexico, seen at the Audain

Edward Burtynsky took this photo of the big oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. A photo of the photo at the The Scarred Earth exhibition includes the photographer's shadow, reminding viewers that we're all engaged in consuming petroleum products.

Afterwards, it was a relief to enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the Audain Art Museum.

Taking coal and copper from BC mountains

In 1985, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky took these pictures of the enormous Westar open pit coal mine located in Sparwood, and the Lornex copper mine in Highland Valley. The depth of these British Columbia mines beggars belief.

Raiding the Canadian Shield and the Peace-Athabasca delta

Taken in 1996, this photo shows how nickel tailings at Sudbury have drastically altered the landscape and waters of the region.
The shots below show petroleum extraction operations at Fort McMurray, Alberta.

Edward Burtynsky photographs our human depredations as we scramble to harvest the treasures of Mother Earth. Exhibited as The Scarred Earth, these chilling photos were recently on display at the Audain Museum.

Feeding the ancient human hunger for marble

Humans have used marble for eons. These photos by Edward Burtynsky, seen at the Audain, show how deep marble quarries can go. Minerals, oil, gems -- the supply is limited. These things take a long time to form. Left is a Portuguese marble quarry, below one in China.

In Carrera, Italy, above, a tiny spider-like human figure in the bottom left shows the enormous scale of this famous quarry.

25th Anniversary edition of SIWC winds down

A panel of three "Whiskey Chicks" authors answered the moderator's questions about their weird and wonderful writing processes (all slightly different). Seen in the photo are authors Mary Robinette Kowal and Susanna Kearsley. Agent Nephele Tempest (moderator) and author Elizabeth Boyle are offstage left.

Below, author, comedian, writing mentor and radio man JJ Lee explains how authors "mess with" with emotions in order to provide the most satisfying reader experience.

Another stellar year at SIWC has ended. Same time, next year!

Chris Humphreys at SIWC

Chris Humphreys, aka CC Humphreys, an actor, author, and playwright pauses for a sip of water while sharing his writerly wisdom with attendees at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. "Your imagination is smarter than you are," says Chris. And the secret of writing is, well -- writing. When you write your way into the story, characters reveal what's really going on, and it's not always what you expected. But that makes the story even better.

I haven't been to SIWC in awhile, and it was stellar as usual. Besides hearing Chris Humphreys, I've attended presentations by Angela Ackerman, Mary Robinette Kowal, Meg Tilly, and Kim Foster (a writer and medical doctor), as well as an informative session with Susanna Kearsley and her U.S. editor (she also has a Canadian one). 

As always, there are plenty of pitch opportunities and lots of blue pencil work going on. Conference anchors Anne Perry, Diana Gabaldon, and Jack Whyte add their own magic. Okay, Michael Slade too, the ringleader of SIWC's traditional Shock Theatre.

Ann Cleeves reads and chats at the Vancouver Writers Festival

"Crime is the most popular genre in the prison library." So says Ann Cleeves. A trained social worker and a prison visitor who leads reading groups, she ought to know. One incarcerated writing student inspired a story featuring a brass belt buckle with a ship on it.

The author of the books behind the popular Shetland series discussed the creation of Jimmy Perez, who is both an outsider and an insider. He was partly constructed based on the story's dictates, and he partly evolved. His surname alludes to an obscure bit of Shetland history, when a ship of the Spanish Armada sank off its coast.

Ms. Cleeves is also behind the Vera TV crime series. Once, while stuck in a story, the author followed the first half of Raymond Chandler's suggestion, to have a door open and a guy with a gun come through. Being British, she doesn't "do guns," but when the door opened, there stood Vera Stanhope, fully realized and ready to begin her detective career.

"I never plot in advance," says Cleeves. "If I knew what was going to happen, writing wouldn't be fun." Her life has been governed by luck, surprises and astonishing coincidences. Her publisher left an early novel, The Crow Trap, out of the print catalogue by mistake. The sales were poor as a consequence. Then a remaindered copy was found by a woman seeking material for a TV series featuring a woman detective, and Vera's TV career was born.

Another example of her luck was to be offered her first chance to visit the Shetland Islands as the result of a chance conversation in a Putney pub. She loved the islands, and got her inspiration for what became the Shetland novels. Later, she married a man she met on that first trip.

Now she resides in Whitley Bay, a Northumberland town on the North Sea. Flanked by Hadrian's Wall, the Scottish border and a lovely national park, this town is quiet today, though its past history has been rather more boisterous. Cleeves gets story ideas by listening to the old folk in her local pub, telling stories.

Whistler Writers hike to Lost Lake for author readings

The 2017 Whistler Writers Festival kicked off with Comedy Quickies, and featured readings by winners of the Whistler Independent Book Awards. The weekend was choc a bloc with writers' events including pitch opportunities with editors from across the country. Sunday morning, we drank hot chocolate before following Grant Lawrence on a walk to Lost Lake, pausing for readings by Leacock medalist Terry Fallis, filmmaker-journalist Mark Leiren-Young and memoirist Shelley O'Callaghan. A great time.

 

Remember Us: Letters from Stalin's Gulag, by Ruth Derksen Siemens

In the Stalin-led Soviet Union of the 1930s, it was impossible for the prisoners in any of the 2000 gulags to send letters out. There was no paper, no post office, no stamps. Yet some managed to write and smuggle their coded words past guards and informers. Remember us was their most common plea.

Ruth Derksen Siemens was given a binder of letters that astonished her. They came from family members who had written from the 1930s gulag. Her shock grew as extensive research revealed that none of the world's large archives believed such letters could exist.

The discovery of these letters launched this author on a road that was "made by walking." This was her secret history. She was born in Russia, but when she went to school, her parents drilled her what to say. "I am Canadian. I was born here." She was exhorted never to reveal that she spoke Russian or German, thought she learned both before English.

Remember Us, her book that included the first group of letters that made it to her relatives in Saskatchewan, led to the production of a film, Through the Red Gate. Eventually, she met a survivor who wrote one of the letters as a child, and was able to show it to her.

Ruth Derksen Siemens enthralled a gathering of Canadian Authors from Metro Vancouver by describing a long forgotten chapter of our nation's history. First, groups of Russian-born Mennonites escaped Stalin's gulags with their lives. Secondly, against enormous odds, they managed to send 463 letters to their relatives in Carlyle, Saskatchewan.

From mummies to mums

We know that ancient Egyptians went in for mummies and pyramids.

It seems that mums are still important in Egyptian culture. These delightful Egyptian ones are on display at the Muttart Gardens in Edmonton, in a show called the Curse of the Chrysantemummies.

photos by Yasemin Tulpar

Australian Kangaroo Paw and Bottlebrush now available here

Native to Australia, Kangaroo Paw is a new arrival in local nurseries. A red and green variety is the basis of one of Ian White's Australian Bush Flower Essences. It helps people who need to shift their focus away from themselves in order to become more aware of the needs of others.

The kangaroo paw is emblematic of Western Australia and comes in many colours. The fuzzy ones seen in the picture taken in 99 Nursery in Surrey are slightly different from the one used to make the essence. Recently, I spotted another Australian plant, bottlebrush, in Cedar Rim Nursery in Langley. The essence made from this plant helps to brush away unhealthy threads that keep us clinging to the past. It also helps to promote healthy mother-child bonding.

These plants are immediately noticeable as they are so obviously not native to this region. They come from beyond the faunal boundary proposed by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in the 1800s. Possibly related to tectonic movement, the Wallace Line line demarcates ecozones in the southern ocean.

A Distant View of Everything by Alexander McCall Smith

Perspective changes everything. It's important to keep the wider context in view, and "everything comes down to ethics." Isabel feels that when we are involved in unequal dealings, the person with the advantage does well to remember what they have that the other does not.

In this delightful book, Alexander McCall Smith shares his unique perspectives on a whole variety of things. As Charlie, Jamie and Isabel's toddler, plays with his toy cars, the narrator notices an old Citroen police car "with miniature metal doors that could be opened and shut," and lying on its side, a "battered red Mercedes that had been the getaway car of some tiny desperadoes."

In Edinburgh, people are fond of their dogs -- think Angus and Cyril. But the idea "that a dog should somehow have the eyes of its owner" is "fanciful anthropomorphism."

Grace, the spiritualist housekeeper, is always interested in the goings-on of the "other side." For Jamie, one of her comments raises a momentary alarm at the possibility that the "grudges and battles of this side" might imply "the existence of arguments and feuds lasting for all eternity, with petty disputes stretching out over the centuries, waged from whatever trenches people could dig for themselves in such firmament as the other side afforded." Isabel, meanwhile, muses that "Christianity had unfortunately taken wrong turnings" until "a lovely message of love and redemption had become one of threats, fear and institutional self-preservation."

This conversation leads the couple to meditate on lies; then they move on to a discussion of Churchill's speeches. While Isabel is more interested in the content of his metaphors, Jamie, the musician, "loved Churchill's growl."

With her friend Peter, Isabel considers the vagaries of the Internet. He puts forward the idea that not looking for someone online is "a breach of civility," because it implies "that they aren't interesting enough to have...an online presence." Isabel then reflects on "our narcissistic times."  Unable to see the attraction of "leading one's life in public," Isabel, who has never taken a selfie, admits ruefully that she may be out of date." Before they move on to a new topic, Peter observes that the culture of selfies has "made being the Pope or Prime Minister a very demanding job. The moment you meet somebody, they want a selfie."

The friends go on to discuss promises and mottoes, and how "Latin adds dignity" to such things. They observe how saying "Love you" at the end of a telephone conversation has "become the equivalent" of goodbye, but "could be awkward if you made it too automatic," and you used this form of farewell on your bank manager, your child's teacher, or the plumber.

Later, a meditation on the possibility of a future edition of her Applied Review of Ethics devoted to the ethics of sleep evokes images of Victorian art and Victorian aspiration for "the elegant swoon...the well-timed and graceful collapse into unconsciousness."

Closer to home, Isabel is thrown into panic at the suggestion of serious illness in the house, facing what "we all secretly feared," the knowledge that life hangs by a thin and tenuous thread. Her emotional consternation leads her to reflect that "to say something is unfunny raises and often irresistible temptation to laugh...the humour being in the need to conceal our true feelings."

We hear the characters' thoughts on the natures of women, men, foxes, and historical revisionism. And as Isabel is obliged to consider that "her flights of fancy were not for everyone," we are invited along with her to entertain thoughts about information and power. When her niece Cat withholds information from her about a new employee at the delicatessen, Isabel observes that knowing something but not disclosing it" makes on feel "stronger than the one denied the information."

As always, her thoughts turn to moral proximity. This time, though, a sudden threat makes her realize that she also has "a moral firewall" which must be kept in good repair. We are invited to consider forgiveness, and love, and remembering the past, and the possible location of the soul.

Against the grosser grain of common practice, Isabel thinks of reproach and censure as "powerful weapons" to be used only when there was no alternative, lest they "cut the ties of good will that kept people together," or damage "a relationship that had taken years to establish."

Through her encounter with the hapless Rob, she faces the almost incredible fact that some people "slipped through the net" and "had never had anything nice said about them," an omission she attempts to ameliorate with a kind and sincere compliment.

In the final scene, Isabel's return home to cook and converse with her husband re-establishes the secure world of daily doings, still so very important in the greater theme of things. Alexander McCall Smith never disappoints. Like his others, this book was an absolute joy to read.

Resistance, the writer's enemy: a behind-the-scenes exposure

Steven Pressfield's book is absolutely the best-ever realistic look at the dirty little secret shared by writers: resistance to doing what our higher creative selves want and need to do.

Creative writers tend to feel guilty and alone in their struggle against this pernicious enemy. But we aren't alone, Pressfield tells us. "Everyone who has a body experiences Resistance."

He also shares this all-important rule of thumb: "The more important a call or action toward our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it." And make no mistake, the force of Resistance means business. "When we fight it, we are in a war to the death."

Though Resistance keeps coming up with new weapons to use against us, we can learn to combat it effectively. First, we need to learn and apply the Principle of Priority. We must differentiate between the urgent and important, and do what's important first. That is the work.

Pressfield's profoundly important message is seen in lines like this. "The more Resistance you experience, the more important your unmanifested art...is to you, and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it."

Yet the book is fun and easy to read. It feels light even though it's serious, and on several occasions, it made me laugh out loud with rueful recognition. Bad news: the pursuit of healing, support and workshops can all be insidious forms of Resistance, but we must face facts. "It's one thing to lie to ourselves. It's another thing to believe it."

Here's the good news: Even though "Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were meant to be, equal and opposite powers are counter-poised against it." We all have "allies and angels" who stand ready to help as long as we invite them in.

Stephen Pressman opines that "above the entire human race is one super-angel, crying 'Evolve! Evolve!'" Angels, he says, are like muses. They want to help. Unfortunately, they're "on the other side of a pane of glass, shouting to get our attention. But we can't hear them. We're too distracted by our own nonsense."

The only cure is to begin, and then continue the work. Thus we "get out of our own way and allow the angels to come in and do their jobs."