A rucksack warrior hits the Psychedelic Sixties in Kerouac’s Ghost
OK, so we’re away Into the Northwest Passage. Before sailing, and so going incommunicado, I offer a brief excerpt from my novel Kerouac’s Ghost. This newly revised ebook edition publishes on Sept. 16, but is now available from Bev Editions at the advance price of $2.99. Again it was 1966, Thanksgiving Day, and I had just…
Read MoreNorthwest Passage Voyage Begins Among Icebergs in Greenland
So we’re less than one week away from sailing Into the Northwest Passage with Adventure Canada. Are we excited yet? We’re reversing the voyage I described below, starting among the icebergs of Greenland and wending to Kugluktuk . . . with history all the way! We head north into Smith Sound, and who knows? May…
Read MoreKerouac’s Ghost delivers ‘unrepentant blast from the past’
Author’s Note from the new ebook edition, available here from Bev Editions . . . . “The secret Canadian life of Jack Kerouac.” So said the headline in Maclean’s magazine. A subhead elaborated: “Reading Kerouac’s lost French writings reveals the travails of a Canuck in America.” The date was June 2016, and I could only scratch…
Read MoreArtist John Hall is Travelling Light with a spectacular retrospective
Here we see Canadian artist John Hall at work in his Mexico studio in 1989. I fell in love with his work, and then met the man, a few years later. For years, Hall shuttled back and forth between San Miguel de Allende and Calgary, six months each. These days, the artist is based in…
Read MoreWhirling away to the Northwest Passage, Halifax, and Port Dover
We’re gearing up to go voyaging Into the Northwest Passage with Adventure Canada, departing from Greenland on August 26. Above, we see the three musketeers who figure in Passage, the docudrama based on my book Fatal Passage. Two of them — Inuit leader Tagak Curley and myself — will sail aboard the Ocean Endeavour. The…
Read MoreNarrative nonfiction is what’s happening at U of T summer school . . . .
In recent weeks, I purchased two books written by emerging writers who had passed through one of my University of Toronto workshops. And I had long since collected The Monks and Me by yet one more: Mary Paterson. I would like to say that all of these publications are down to me. But I don’t…
Read MoreKen and Sheena’s Excellent Adventure in the Scottish Highlands
In Perth, we had dinner at the Hightower Hotel with my long-lost, DNA-found cousin Jim McGugan. In Sutherland, we visited Dunrobin Castle, the most politically incorrect edifice in Britain. In Helmsdale, by about an hour, we missed coincidentally encountering our Orcadian pal, historian Tom Muir . . . and so failed to meet his new…
Read MoreCelebrating Farley Mowat at his boat-roofed house
To kilt up or go Arctic. That’s the dilemma I face. It’s prompted by the moving of the Farley Mowat boat-roofed house in Port Hope. Come October, an international crew of professional stone-wallers will arrive in that town, 100 km east of Toronto. They will dismantle and then reassemble the boat house, placing it at…
Read MoreU of T summer course in narrative nonfiction . . . .
In the past couple of weeks, I have purchased two books written by folks who passed through one of my University of Toronto workshops. I would like to say that these publications are down to me. But I don’t dare. People would call me out. Put it this way: at least I didn’t get in…
Read MoreAt last we hear the ringing voice of an ex-Montrealer
At last we hear the voice and see the vision of a Montreal expatriate! Film-maker John Walker, who earned well-deserved kudos with his docudrama Passage, has worked magic again with Quebec My Country Mon Pays. Down through the decades, we have heard countless francophones and many an “anglo” speaking to the outside world from within…
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