ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I lived in Alberta and studied at the University of Calgary, I spent a summer working for what was then called Alberta Historic Sites Services as an interpreter. I was assigned to a new site called Stephansson House Provincial Historic Site near Markerville. We opened the house each day and wore 1920s period clothing in keeping with the decade that Stephansson died.
I spent countless hours in the poet-farmer’s homestead, surrounded by his belongings, whiling away the hours between visitors by attempting to grow a garden or spinning wool. I didn’t get very good at either.
Three things stayed with me over the years. Stephansson’s attic had become home to an enormous bat colony. We could hear and smell them through the walls. Occasionally, one would escape and make its way into the living quarters, and I would discover it when I opened the house in the morning. It was disconcerting.
The second was the tragic way in which Stephansson’s son Gestur died. Who could forget that story and the moving poem that accompanied it? The ghostly photograph of the boy and his nearby grave marker haunted me as I stared out over the prairies where he lay.
The third was the contradiction between Stephansson’s fame in Iceland and his relative obscurity in Canada, owing to the fact that he wrote all his work in Icelandic. I now appreciate how important literary translators are in championing work to new audiences, as well as archivists who keep meticulous records of the past for us to discover. I worked with both during the research of this novel.
In Canada, thank you to Lindsay Ballagray, Red Deer and District Archives; Brooke Henrikson and Marlene Linneberg, Stephan G. Stephansson Icelandic Society; Angie Friesen, Provincial Archives of Alberta; Olga Fowler, Historic Sites and Museums, Alberta Culture and Tourism; Alexa Murray, Stephansson House; and Chelsea Butler, Historic Markerville Creamery Museum. Thank you to the Sigurdson family, and in particular to Ivadell Sigurdson for granting permission to reprint the translated poem called “Gestur” by her late husband, Paul Sigurdson. Thank you, too, to Richard Chase, my book-tour coordinator in Lethbridge, Alberta, who told me about how a clump of trees on the prairies likely means that a former homestead once stood there.
In Iceland, I would like to thank the following: Unnar Ingvarsson, National and University Library; Sólborg Una Pálsdóttirr, Skagafjörður Archive; Lára Ágústa Ólafsdóttir, District Archives of Akureyi; Snorri Guðjón Sigurðsson, District Archives of Þingeyjarsýsla; Bragi Þorgrímur Ólafsson, National Museum of Iceland and National Archives; Valgeir Thorvaldsson, Icelandic Emigration Centre at Hofsós; and the President’s Office of Protocol.
I would also like to acknowledge three books that I pored over as part of my research: Wakeful Nights by Viðar Hreinsson; Stephan G. Stephansson: Selected translations from Andvökur by the Stephan G. Stephansson Homestead Restoration Committee; and Stephan G. Stephansson: Selected Prose & Poetry, translated by Kristjana Gunnars. If you are interested in learning more about this great poet, these are excellent sources.
My firsthand research in Iceland was made possible by a grant from the Access Copyright Foundation, for which I am deeply grateful. I am also grateful to my husband, Peter, to whom I read several early drafts, and who drove me around the Ring Road in Iceland to support my research. Finally, I am indebted to Sheila Barry at Groundwood Books for her many candid insights, which helped me wrestle this manuscript to the ground, and to Emma Sakamoto for her copyediting expertise.
Neville Sharpe was created after a conversation I had with my son, who at the time was a volunteer at the Camp Hill Veterans Memorial hospital in Halifax. Elliott told me about a very nice elderly man who struggled because he had no short-term memory. He didn’t know where he was, from one minute to the next. All he could remember was his career as a butcher and his wife of long ago. He kept telling Elliott that he wanted to go home, and Elliott would have to patiently explain, yet again, why he was living at the hospital for good. The elderly man would listen carefully, and having learned of his situation as if for the first time, would then ask the same question.
“So, what do I do now?”
Heartbreaking.
Standing alongside Stephansson’s monument on the northern coast in Iceland, I knew that I would use this historic hillock in the last scene of my novel. Both Owen and his granddad would be at peace in this place, this final destination. But what, I wondered, would Stephan G. Stephansson and Owen’s grandmother Aileen Sharpe say, having learned about the things Owen wrote? Would they forgive Owen? If they had also been standing on this very hillock, here’s how I think that conversation might go.
EXT. SITE OF STEPHANSSON’S MONUMENT IN NORTHERN ICELAND — DAY
Owen’s grandmother AILEEN SHARPE is jogging in red running shoes along the Ring Road of Iceland toward the Stephan G. Stephansson historic monument perched atop a small hillock. The sun is high and the morning’s fog patches are burning off. There is no traffic.
She spots a man up ahead near a swift brook that runs behind the hillock. He is plucking up, then discarding, small objects from the ground.
Aileen detours off the road and picks her way through the moss-dressed rocky field until she reaches the man who is bent down at the brook. He does not spot her at first, so lost in his task while reciting a poem out loud to himself.
MAN
How deeply I love you, heath of my fathers, / covered with birch bushes, sparkling with streams. / The swans on your waters sing every morning, / building their nests on the ruins of farms.
The man turns to look at Aileen. It is STEPHAN G. STEPHANSSON, an Icelandic poet. He is thin and wiry, with black hair, full mustache and ice-blue eyes. He’s cleanly dressed as if he is between stops on a book tour.
AILEEN
(out of breath)
I thought I recognized you from the old photographs! You’re Stephan G. Stephansson!
STEPHAN
(delighted)
I am. And you are?
AILEEN
Aileen Sharpe. So nice to meet you!
They shake hands. She unstraps her empty water bottle from her belt, steps to the edge of the brook and begins to fill it.
AILEEN (CONT’D)
Gunnar’s right. Iceland is beautiful.
STEPHAN
(peering past her down the road)
Gunnar Ingvarsson? My Alberta translator? Is he with you?
AILEEN
No. We traveled to Iceland together, but after shopping for an itchy Nordic sweater, I left him at the archive. Now he’s knee-deep in your letters.
STEPHAN
Well, he is my biggest fan.
AILEEN
(taking a drink of her water)
This glacial water is delicious. Want a sip?
STEPHAN
No, thanks.
AILEEN
So, what are you doing here?
STEPHAN
I like to come back from time to time. My old family horse was buried here, somewhere along this creek.
AILEEN
Oh?
STEPHAN
That was so long ago. Even the stone cairn I built to honor him is gone. I loved that horse. We named him Skór. It means shoes. He had a white hoof.
AILEEN
Fond memories.
STEPHAN
Yes, fond memories. I tried to capture as many as I could in my poems.
AILEEN
As did my grandson, Owen. He tried at any rate.
STEPHAN
Ah, yes. Owen. What a shame. But then, we’ve all done things we’re ashamed about, haven’t we?
AILEEN
True. I’m ashamed of how badly I behaved when Neville rented that sailboat on our honeymoon. I’m sorry I never did apologize to him for that.
STEPHAN
But Owen has apologized, which I accept.
AILEEN
You’re very understanding.
STEPHAN
As I said, we’ve all done things for which we’re not proud.
AILEEN
Even an accomplished poet like you?
STEPHAN
Of course. I’ve had plenty of shameful moments. There’s one moment in particular that this place reminds me about.
AILEEN
Oh? What happened?
STEPHAN
(after a beat)
Back when I lived here as a child in the 1850s, I was out in this very field, minding our small flock of sheep. It was a cool day, the winds were biting, but it was not yet winter. My mother was at home, tending to my younger sister who was sick in bed. My father was away getting supplies.
AILEEN
Were you worried to be on your own in such a remote place?
STEPHAN
Not particularly. Actually, I had a book with me and found a place to read behind this hillock and out of the wind but where I could still watch the sheep. I settled in and was quite content with having time to myself. Then, at some point, I heard voices.
AILEEN
Voices? From ghosts?
STEPHAN
No, real voices. Voices that carried in the wind. I got up and climbed to the top of this hillock to have a better look. That’s when I spotted them. Three neighbor farm boys walking on their long journey south to Reykjavík.
AILEEN
Why were they going to Reykjavík?
STEPHAN
That’s what I wanted to know. When I asked, they told me they were going to school. To learn. They told me about the teachers, the books, the classes. They were thrilled. They even invited me to come with them.
AILEEN
You wanted to go, didn’t you?
STEPHAN
Desperately. More than anything. But I knew I couldn’t. I had one book in my hand and a few more back home, but that was it.
AILEEN
Your family had no money.
STEPHAN
No money for school at any rate. We could barely pay our rent to the church that owned our croft.
AILEEN
So what happened?
STEPHAN
The boys wished me well and left me standing atop this barren windy hillock. All I could do was watch them until they disappeared from my view. One minute I’m lost in my book. The next minute I’m absolutely and inconsolably heartbroken. I think I wanted to die. I curled up in the lee of this hillock and wept. I wept for hours.
AILEEN
Such a bitter disappointment.
STEPHAN
That wasn’t the worst of it. My mother came out to search for me. She was terribly worried. As soon as she found me, I quickly dried my eyes, but I knew from my mother’s expression that she knew. She could see my disappointment, my tear-streaked face.
AILEEN
She believed she was to blame for your situation, your bad fortune.
STEPHAN
That’s right. But my parents couldn’t help their lot. I knew that they were doing their best for me. They were not to blame.
AILEEN
No. They were doing their best, as you say.
Stephan pauses to stare up at his monument. He clears his throat.
STEPHAN (CONT’D)
My mother was devastated. And I was the cause of her devastation, not our family’s poverty. It was that shameful unspoken moment between us that I shall never forget.
Stephan continues to stare past Aileen toward his monument.
STEPHAN (CONT’D)
On the day we left Iceland for North America, I vowed to myself that I would become a great poet, even if I had to farm every day for the rest of my life. I would make my mother proud. And so I became the farmer-poet of the Rockies.
AILEEN
All because of what happened on this windy hillock.
STEPHAN
Yes. Decades later, I was finally invited back to Iceland for a book tour. I traveled from Reykjavík all the way up the northern coast, visiting villages along the way until I came here, to where we first farmed. We stopped for the night. In the morning, I got up early and took a long walk on my own.
(smiling)
Even back then, our croft was in ruins, but I found this very hillock.
AILEEN
How did that make you feel? Coming home after all those years?
STEPHAN
In a word, triumphant. Like a little fish who crossed a great big pond and somehow made it back.
Stephan extends his hand to Aileen and opens his palm.
STEPHAN (CONT’D)
Look what I found.
He drops a large but twisted and heavily corroded iron nail into her hand. She studies it.
STEPHAN (CONT’D)
It’s from the Viking era.
AILEEN
Holy smokes. What a remarkable find!
STEPHAN
Not really. This land has been occupied for over a thousand years. Nails like this are more common than you’d think. They’re often found among the collapsed turf walls of Viking longhouses.
Aileen hands the nail back to Stephan. He digs a small hole in the ground, drops the nail in and buries it. He stands, wiping his hands on his pants.
Aileen takes a long drink of water from her bottle and as she does, she turns away from Stephan to look up at his monument. He looks up at the monument, too.
AILEEN
It’s an impressive tribute.
STEPHAN
(sighing)
There’s a typo on my plaque.
AILEEN
(turning to face Stephan, shocked)
No!
STEPHAN
(pained)
And some punctuation errors, as well.
AILEEN
(hand on chest)
Ouch!
She bends to tie a shoelace that has come undone.
STEPHAN
(whispering)
We have visitors.
AILEEN
(standing up, following his gaze to the monument, her voice cracking)
Those are my boys. Neville and Owen. I miss them so.
She hugs herself as if suddenly chilled by the distant snow-capped mountains. She watches as Owen digs out his camera and takes a photograph of his granddad, his granddad unaware that his portrait is being taken.
They are both looking her way.
STEPHAN
(softly)
How poetic. If only they could see you.
Aileen doesn’t answer. Instead, she takes a bold step toward Neville and Owen, and blows two heartfelt kisses that carry to them in the wind.
FADE TO BLACK.
JESSICA SCOTT KERRIN is the author of The Spotted Dog Last Seen, a finalist for the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and the John Spray Mystery Award, and The Missing Dog Is Spotted (“a poignant companion to the previous volume” — School Library Journal). She is also known for the Lobster Chronicles series and the best-selling Martin Bridge series. Born and raised in Alberta, Jessica now lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
GROUNDWOOD BOOKS, established in 1978, is dedicated to the production of children’s books for all ages, including fiction, picture books and non-fiction. We publish in Canada, the United States and Latin America. Our books aim to be of the highest possible quality in both language and illustration. Our primary focus has been on works by Canadians, though we sometimes also buy outstanding books from other countries.
Many of our books tell the stories of people whose voices are not always heard in this age of global publishing by media conglomerates. Books by the First Peoples of this hemisphere have always been a special interes
t, as have those of others who through circumstance have been marginalized and whose contribution to our society is not always visible. Since 1998 we have been publishing works by people of Latin American origin living in the Americas both in English and in Spanish under our Libros Tigrillo imprint.
We believe that by reflecting intensely individual experiences, our books are of universal interest. The fact that our authors are published around the world attests to this and to their quality. Even more important, our books are read and loved by children all over the globe.
The Things Owen Wrote Page 10