I notice that Rex has appeared in public to promote subsequent books. And I note with gratitude the fine, eloquent appreciation he wrote after Alistair MacLeod’s death.
Donna Morrissey is a very successful novelist, and a bright, lively figure, and our paths crossed at the Elephant Mountain Festival in B.C. She has many fine stories to tell, especially this one, which explains that anyone from outside Newfoundland is “from away.” As she tells it, she was part of a group of excited teenage girls visiting Toronto for the first time. There was a problem with a camera. So they took it into a store. The man in the store examined it gravely, then announced that he would have to send it away to be fixed. Confusion!
“But,” protested one of the girls, gesturing at the shop around them, “this is away!”
I never met Ray Guy, but I admired him immensely. He was the Newfoundland writer who pushed many boundaries. He opposed Joey Smallwood in print when that took courage. More frivolously, he brought out a collection based on the sturdy habit in Newfoundland of calling sea urchins “whore’s eggs.” The title You Might Know Them as Sea Urchins, Ma’am was published by Clyde Rose in 1975. Clyde, now retired from Breakwater Books, makes his home at Woody Point, and took us for a spin in his boat around the nearby waters of Bonne Bay — although the promised bald eagles failed to show up on time. And we missed the sea urchins.
Ray Guy’s lifetime achievement was to smuggle into print (in a mainstream magazine like Weekend or The Canadian) the most mischievous bilingual joke of all time. Noticing the English possibilities of the French word for a seal, “un phoque,” Ray produced a fake heraldic description for a seal placed horizontally on an ice-field, as in the Newfoundland coat of arms, as being in a “flying” or “volant” position. This piece of heraldry, Ray solemnly assured his readers, led to the adoption of the official Newfoundland motto: “Je ne donne pas un phoque volant.”
Finally, we move all the way east to St. John’s. For me, there were two great moments in my visit there in May 2014. The first was when, thanks to my connection with the fine folk who run sailing cruises with Adventure Canada, I was able to go across the harbour to the secret side opposite downtown. There’s nothing there on the south side apart from security gates and rocks and birches and spruce trees and green fuel pipes slaloming down the steep hill from the giant white fuel tanks. As the Sea Adventurer fuelled up, I helped carry things aboard, pausing to survey the lounge where Alistair MacLeod and I had performed. Meanwhile, across the harbour lay the most glorious view of St. John’s, from the ships along the waterfront all the way up to the twin towers of the basilica. It was an unmatched view, like seeing Quebec City from across the river, and I was among the very few visitors privileged to have it.
Yet for me, forever, the central event of the Writers’ Union AGM in St. John’s in May 2014 was the formal banquet, when I was asked to deliver a toast to Alistair MacLeod. I followed eloquent tributes to Heather Robertson (by Erna Paris), and to Farley Mowat (by Silver Donald Cameron).
Here is what I said — and it’s wonderfully appropriate that Alistair, who famously used to write a last line for his story midway through, then write towards it, has given me this target. It strikes me as a perfect ending for a book about Canadian writers and writing: a toast to Alistair MacLeod.
Mavis Gallant … Heather Robertson … Farley Mowat … Alistair MacLeod. It has been a hard campaign, and we have had our losses. After Alistair’s death, John Vaillant wrote to me from B.C. saying that as a writer he felt like a sailor alone at sea who was finding all of his guiding lighthouses winking out, one by one.
At the age of seventy-seven Alistair MacLeod died as the sun rose on Easter Sunday. This was in the Windsor hospital where he had lain since a hard stroke had felled him in January — something the MacLeod family had carefully kept private.
As an old friend (and Alistair and I last appeared together in public in November at the Harbourfront Tribute to Alice Munro — you could always count on Alistair’s generous help at such events) I was in constant touch with Alistair and Anita, so I knew about his stroke. In fact, at the end of February Jane and I were able to visit him in the hospital. Although the stroke had paralyzed his right side — knocking out the right hand that had held the pen that set his stories aloft, and making speech very difficult for him — he had prepared to greet me with a joke. Had we, he wanted to know, “been dancing at Scotsville recently?”
This was a reference to a summer visit to Cape Breton where Alistair and Anita had taken us square dancing in the Scotsville Fire Hall, and we had seen them happily whirling among their friends and neighbours, clearly part of the community. Yet as Alistair’s fame spread around the world (for instance, thanks to Japanese translations of his books) his Cape Breton neighbours had found themselves directing Japanese pilgrims to Alistair’s house, where he and his admirers from afar, sharing no common language but their humanity, would solemnly exchange silent, smiling bows.
Most of Alistair’s stories — and most of No Great Mischief, his only novel — were set in Cape Breton. But many of you here tonight will recall that the title story in his first collection, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, is set right here in St. John’s. It’s a powerful story about a father, and a son who will never know him. I made the mistake of reading it on the train down to Windsor for the first visitation, on the day after his death, and I’m sure some passengers are still talking about the man with the beard who spent so much time in tears.
I heard that there were many tears at his funeral in Broad Cove, Cape Breton. In fact his cousin Kevin, a pallbearer, told me that he wept so copiously that a Cape Breton neighbour was highly impressed. “Kevin,” she said, “when I die, I want you at my funeral.”
Laughter and tears.
As you know, Alistair’s greatest pride was for his family, Anita and their six children, and the grandchildren he used to scandalize by saying, “See you later … crocodile!”
And this, of course, was the beloved writer whose death was mourned across Canada and around the world. The New York Times, for example, devoted half a page to a fine obituary — which unfortunately targeted a villainous publisher who travelled to Windsor to seize the manuscript of No Great Mischief. (And I should tell you that Heather Robertson was part of that story. That fateful day I met her at the Toronto airport and told her that I was off to Windsor to grab Alistair’s manuscript. Heather was torn: her natural instinct was to defend a writer against a bullying publisher — but what if the publisher was acting for the common good? Tough call. A year later, Heather was part of the jury that unanimously awarded the Trillium Prize to No Great Mischief.)
And Alistair, as some of you may know, went on to describe my beneficent visit as “a home invasion.” That is, when he was not employing what, after last night, we might call “The Vanderhaeghe Variation,” where he claimed that for months he had tried in vain to get Doug Gibson to read his novel.
And now he’s gone. And no authors’ festival will ever be quite the same, because to be with Alistair was to be in touch with greatness disguised by modest, friendly decency. As I told the Canadian Press, he was a great writer, and a great man.
And yet … he’s not really gone. Because as everyone in this room realizes — and as Heather and Farley certainly realized — writers have found a way to cheat death, to allow you to meet them long after their death. The work lives on. And what also lives on is the impact of lines like the unforgettable final words of No Great Mischief: “All of us are better when we’re loved.”
ENVOI
So many discoveries. A proud love-child. A careful suicide. An admired writer killed, in effect, by a jealous sister. A PEI woman who changed her name because of Spit Delaney’s Island. A future prime minister who used arson to win a student debate. Stories about wolves, bears, hockey players, and bush pilots. A little bird hitching a ride on a salmon’s back. A moment of inspired grace from David Johnston, when he was
the principal at McGill. And Jane Austen appearing out of a crowd in Queen Charlotte City.
In Stories About Storytellers, my first book, shrewd readers spotted that a theme was how much I enjoyed travelling around Canada, getting to know the country and its people. Can you imagine how much joy it brought me to be able to promote that book by taking my show about it on the road, travelling to all ten provinces?
Memories crowd in. The sound of a solitary sandpiper as we walked across the open prairie with Trevor Herriot, and the silence inside W.O. Mitchell’s boyhood home in Weyburn. The taste of the lobster supper in PEI, the dulse on Grand Manan, the wild saskatoons in Nelson, and the raspberries I gathered in Jasper with a bear around the bend on the trail. The shock of being plunged into shadow as the Queen Mary 2 glided past us into Halifax harbour. The feel of my last hug with Don Starkell in Winnipeg.
Or performing my show on a barstool in Toronto’s hip Ossington district, or on the stage of Quebec City’s ancient Morrin Centre, or in Moose Jaw’s grand old theatre, or fighting the sound of snow-making machines offstage at Collingwood’s Blue Mountain, a local hazard — not to mention striding unzipped around the Improv Theatre stage in Vancouver, or properly clad among great paintings in the Windsor Art Gallery, or in the Sunshine Coast’s giant log auditorium, near Gibson’s, where later I posed with my arm around the oilskin-clad central statue of George Gibson.
So many stories, as you’ve seen. What they have in common is the Canadian book world. My wonderful tour was always created by book festivals, or bookstores, or libraries, or universities, or schools, or book clubs, or other authors, who were often our generous hosts. I hope that you’ve enjoyed meeting some of our finest authors, and being reminded of their books, and tempted by them. Books supply a special sort of passport in this country, and I’m proud to be a part of that world.
A suggestion for everyone, if you’ve enjoyed this book. Canada is a country with a remarkable history and spectacular geography. Get out there and explore it.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
So many people right across Canada helped me with this book that I’m certain the list that follows will be incomplete. My apologies. You know who you are, and how you helped, and that I’m grateful.
Province by province, I was helped and encouraged by hosts, guides, advance readers, and friends, including authors quoted here who may not have been aware of the help they were giving. Special thanks go to my volunteer readers and advisers, Silver Donald Cameron, Andreas Schroeder, Don Nichol, Trevor Herriot, Gordon Sinclair, Mark Abley, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Hal Wake, and above all, Jack Hodgins. All remaining errors are my own.
“The Story Begins”: Dorothy Colby and the Sleeping Giant gang, Miriam Toews, Richard Scrimger, Paul Inksetter and Penny, R.H. Thompson, Molly Thom, Bill Houston, Charles Gordon and Nancy (the Business Manager), Gordon Sinclair, the late George Swinton and Don Starkell, and Jake McDonald, who took me to see the bush planes heading north from Selkirk.
“Hogtown Heroes”: Stuart Woods, Antanas Sileika, Judith Skelton Grant, Jennifer Surridge, Peter Paterson, Matie Molinaro, William Toye, Don Gillies, Martin O’Malley, Jack McLeod, W.J. Keith, Cathleen Morrison, Bruce Cockburn, Jonathan Manthorpe, James Bartleman, John Gordon, Ruth Panofsky, my hip surgeon Dr. Earl Bogoch, Rev. Doctor Malcolm Sinclair, Mike Spence and the Arts and Letters Club, Bob Missen, Janet Inksetter, George Fetherling, Ben McNally, Aaron Milrad, Mark McLean, Betty Kennedy, Doug Knights (another of Jane’s cousins!), Peter Kent, Anna Porter, Margaret Atwood, the memory of Larry Gaynor, Helen Walsh, and Alistair Chan and the other Literary Review of Canada people.
“Saskatchewan Pioneers”: The Robertsons from Arelee, Ron Graham, Frans Donker, David Carpenter, Nik Burton, Stuart Houston, Bill Waiser, Sherrill Miller, Gail Bowen, Maggie Siggins, Guy Vanderhaeghe, Ken Dryden, Harold Johnson, John Vaillant, Jalal Barzani, Bob Currie, Trevor Herriot (and the white-faced ibis), Bob Luterbach, Kam and Megan at the Weyburn Library, and Jamieson at W.O.’s boyhood home, and Joanne Bannatyne-Cugnet.
“Alberta and the Mountains”: David Cheoros, Jean Crozier, Sharon and Steve Bodnarchuk, Scot Young, C. Anne Robertson and the Fairview family, Pauline Gedge, Bella Pomer, Fred Stenson, Noah Richler, Peter and Heather Brenneman, Sherrell Steele, Myrna Kostash, Erna Paris, Peter Oliva, Aritha van Herk, Anne Greene, Ken McGoogan, Stephen Smith, Sid Marty, Brian Brennan, Roddy Doyle, D.M. Thomas, Lynn Krause and the Elephant Mountain organizers in Nelson, Anne DeGrace, Gail Bowen, and the Mosaic Books people in Kelowna.
“The Coasts of B.C.”: Hal Wake, Alma Lee, Bill Richardson, Anne Giardini, the late Carol Shields, Jim Douglas, Scott McIntyre, Howard White, Jean Baird, Paul Whitney, Jim Munro, Robert Wiersema, Ralph Hancox, Alan Twigg, Jane Davidson, Sally Quinn, Jack and Dianne Hodgins, Andreas Schroeder and Sharon Brown, Graeme and Ann Young, Angie Abdou, Caroline Adderson, Maude Barlow, Pauline Holdstock, Derek Lundy and Richard Wagamese, Debbie Frketich and her Denman gang, Stewart Giddings, Del Phillips, John and Marion Dillon, Peter Karsten, Richard and Nancy Self, Noel Wotten, Susan Musgrave, Jane Austen, and Angus Wilson.
“Alice Munro Country”: Alice Munro, Lena Jordebo and Sven-Ake Visen from Sweden, Elizabeth Waterston, John and Monica Ladell, David Worsley and Mandy Brouse, Martin Dowding, Ross Procter in Wingham, Rob Bundy in Clinton, and Mary Swan and Mary Brown in Bayfield.
“Hugh MacLennan’s Country”: Bill Weintraub, Dick Irvin, the shrewd folk at Paragraphe Books, David Wilson, Mary Friesen, Charles Foran, Andrew Westoll, Lynn Verge, Simon Dardick, Mark Abley, Patricia Claxton, Desmond Morton, Ted Phillips, Gregory McCormick, in Quebec City Elizabeth Perreault, Peter Dubé, Neil Bissoondath, Peter O’Donohue in the Eastern Townships, Pat and Norman Webster, Ruth McKinven, Alison Pick, Michael Ogilvie, Graham Fraser and Barbara Uteck, Linda Morra, and Michael Goldbloom.
“In the Middle of Canada”: Lawrence Hill, Anita MacLeod and the family, Dan Wells, Alana Wilcox, Paul and Sheila Martin, Nino Ricci, our Sarnia hosts Sue Brighton and Chris Curran, Paul Wells, Susan Chamberlain and her staff at The Book Keeper, Peter Edwards, Peter Stokes, Barry Penhale and The Other Jane Gibson, Sheila Lui and her London Library colleagues, Mary Lake and Robert Collins, Anne Dyer-Witherford and Nick, Doug Minett and the folks at The Bookshelf in Guelph, Jonathan Webb, Dorothy Scott, Tim Struthers, Stephen Henighan, Elizabeth Ewan, Graeme Morton, Daniel MacLeod, Tom King, Richard B. Wright, and William Thomas.
“The On-to-Ottawa Trek”: Linwood Barclay and Neetha, Ian Elliot, Richard Bachmann, Bryan Prince, Andrew Pyper, Terry Fallis, Shelley MacBeth, Jonathan Vance, Lewis MacLeod, Stephanie Forrester and the Lakefield Festival people, Orm and Barb Mitchell, Norman Jewison, Kathleen Winter, Lauren B. Davis and Ron, Linda Spalding, Jane Urquhart, the rowdy ghost of Al Purdy, Carolyn Smart, John McGreevy, Charles Wilkins, Steve Heighton, Phil Hall, Christopher Moore, David Baker and Birthe Jorgenson, Mary Lou Fallis, Molly Stroyman, Flora MacDonald, Sean Wilson, Amanda Hopkins and Mary Osborne, Jeffrey Simpson, Eddie Goldenberg, Charles Gordon, Amy Castle, Diana Carney, David Dollin, our Ottawa Valley hosts Dave Stein and Alison, Gwen Storie, Doyne and Frank Ahearn, Roy MacGregor, Araby Lockhart in Thornbury, and Hope Thompson and Phil Haines next door.
“Good Times in the Maritimes”: Silver Donald Cameron and Marjorie Simmins (who gave us a Halifax base), Graham Pilsworth and Jamie Pratt (ditto), John Houston and Ree Brennin, Jim Lorimer, Suzanne Alexander, Lesley Choyce, Ami McKay, Christl Verduyn, Chris Paul and Krista in Sackville, Dawn Arnold and Danielle LeBlanc in Moncton, Andrea Schwenke Wyile, Herb Wyile, the late Alex Colville, Alexander MacLeod, Harry Thurston, Brian Flemming, Harry Bruce, Philip Slayton, Cynthia Wine, Calvin Trillin, Marq de Villiers, Sheila Hirtle, Bob Whitelaw, Kiloran German, Stephanie Tompkins (our perennial Bridgewater hostess), Lewis MacKinnon, Corky and Andrew Horwood, Dyanne and Alex Frame, Arthur Herriott, Will Ferguson, Duncan McIntosh, Wade MacLauchlan, Karen Smith, Doug Smith (and his St. F.X. students, and especially the elderly audience member who remembered Brian M
ulroney’s inflammatory debating style), Richard Lemm, Don Desserud (cousin alert!), Norman Finlayson and Heather, and, of course, Maxine Delaney.
“Rock Talk”: Don Nichol, Richard Gwyn, Michael Enright, Gary Green, Bill Evans, Cedar Bradley Swann, and Bill Williams of Adventure Canada, Gordon Pinsent, Michael Crummey, John C. Crosbie, Claire Mowat, Steve Brunt and Jeanie MacFarlane, Shelagh Rogers, Gary Noel, Des Walsh, Rex Murphy, Donna Morrissey, George Goodwin, and many kindly ghosts.
For this very Canadian book I’ve been encouraged by the interest shown by friends in Scotland, especially my sister-in-law Amanda, and Kate and Robert and Richard, and by Keith Christie and Cynthia (a B.C. girl!), and Janet and Walter Reid. In Mexico (Hola!) Jane and I were pleased by the enthusiasm of Doug and Janet Clark, and by Alison Wearing and Jarmo (who once showed us a tree adorned by five different types of oriole).
At home, more general thanks go to all the friends and neighbours (“How’s the book going?”) who were encouraging, and to supportive friends like Bill Harnum and Kathy Lowinger, Brian and Nancy Anthony, Michael and Jennifer Barrett, Bob and Sally Lewis, Avie Bennett, Diana Massiah, Marc Coté, and dozens of old publishing colleagues astonished by the spectacle of a publisher dog walking on two legs.
As with Stories About Storytellers, I am working gratefully once again with my friends at ECW Press. As always, I was expertly treated by my suitably demanding editor, Jen Knoch, who ushered the book through to completion. In this she was assisted by the keen-eyed copy editor, Nathan Whitlock, who is learning to love puns; proofreader Steph VanderMeulen; and the ECW team, led by Jack David and his distinguished successor, David Caron, including Rachel Ironstone and the production group and Erin Creasey and the sales gang. Once again I was pleased to have Sarah Dunn handle the publicity for this new book by a shy and retiring author.
As with the previous book, I’m delighted that I persuaded the brilliant Anthony Jenkins to enrich my work by providing his superb portraits of some of the major authors featured here. He really is a national asset, and I hope that this book will help to spread his fame.
Across Canada by Story Page 35