Keriann McGoogan wins Pearson Canada Award
Keriann McGoogan has won a Pearson Canada Award in the Ryerson Publishing Program. The merit award, which carries a $1,000 honorarium, recognizes “academic excellence in completed course work and demonstration of promise in educational publishing.” McGoogan, who holds a PhD in physical anthropology from the University of Toronto, will receive the award at a ceremony…
Read MoreArctic explorer celebrates in Hamilton with Supercrawl
Arctic explorer John Rae is going up against Supercrawl this Saturday night. At first, I felt dismayed. But as a metaphor, a David-and-Goliath, I think the juxtaposition works almost perfectly. Supercrawl is a wildly successful Hamilton street festival that celebrates arts and culture. Last year, it attracted 80,0000 people. What’s not to love? John Rae,…
Read MoreRemembering James Joyce on a lesser anniversary
On this date 109 years ago — September 9, 1904 — James Joyce moved into the Martello Tower in Sandycove, a suburb of Dublin. The place is now a museum — a shrine to some of us — and I snapped the above photo a couple of months ago. Joyce arrived here uninvited, having recently…
Read MoreRocky Mountain High: Yo, Alberta!
Nothing beats a hike from Lake Louise to the Plain of Six Glaciers. See the above photo, shot today by Sheena Fraser McGoogan. But the whole six-day visit was splendiferous. Led by the Clan MacRae, a couple of hundred people turned out to see Our Hero give a slideshow presentation called Return to Rae Strait.…
Read MoreCalgary festivities prove you CAN go home again
Tonight’s the night John Rae turns up in Calgary. The Arctic explorer will be there in spirit, anyway, for my talk at the U of C. The event, sponsored by Clan MacRae, helps kick off the 2013 Calgary Highland Games. Today’s Calgary Herald ran a terrific piece by Chris Nelson, headlined Clan Macrae leads the…
Read MoreThe Great VIA-Rail Book-Launch Extravaganza
OK, that may be putting it a bit grandly. But yes, come October, we propose to launch 50 Canadians Who Changed the World with a cross-Canada, multi-event, book-launch extravaganza. HarperCollins Canada and VIA Rail are co-operating to make this expedition happen. Starting from Toronto on October 12, accompanied by my wife, Sheena, and detraining as…
Read MoreUniversity of Calgary Celebrates Arctic Explorer
John Rae festivities set for Canada, Orkney
John Rae has legs. His contemporaries knew that. They hailed him as the greatest snowshoe traveler of the Victorian era. Here in the 21st century, the peerless Arctic explorer has been carrying Fatal Passage overland for more than a decade. He has turned it into my all-time bestselling book, and for that I am grateful.…
Read MorePlanting a flag for Creative Nonfiction in Canada
It happened in Halifax. They came to plant a flag for creative nonfiction. OK, OK, they came to begin writing their first books. But they did come from across the land, from as far away as Vancouver, and even from across the border, from Washington. And at University of King’s College, under the leadership of…
Read MoreNova Scotia native overcomes a damaging revelation
Veteran author Harry Thurston capped a climactic literary evening at the Grad House in Halifax by reading from a memoir about losing a big, two-hearted river. The Nova Scotia native, who is slated, as vice-chair, to become chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, gave a bravura performance, and so managed to overcome the damaging…
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