300,000 to gather in Ireland . . .
DUBLIN MIXES GUINNESS, JOYCE, AND THE STONE AGE Ireland by Ken McGoogan 300,000 people are set for the Gathering in Ireland. Some will be tracing their ancestors. Others will come to see the monasteries, or to follow in the footsteps of the writer James Joyce. Many will make their way to the Guinness Storehouse, where…
Read MoreOnline Course in Creative Nonfiction
That online course I teach through the University of Toronto? I call it The Art of Fact: An Introduction to Writing Nonfiction. It runs ten weeks, starting September 17, and sounds like this: The hallmarks of Creative, Literary or Narrative Nonfiction are truth and personal presence. The genre includes subjective and objective streams, and encompasses…
Read MoreMaking history in the High Arctic
Okay, this was last year. The story turned up on that fabulous website Travel Thru History. Next week, another voyage begins. Stay tuned. . . CANADIAN VOYAGE MAKES HISTORY Greenland by Ken McGoogan None of us expected our voyage to make history, not when we boarded the Clipper Adventurer in Kugluktuk (Coppermine), near the west…
Read MoreIrish archaeologist shows way to Viking site
“As archaeologist Ned Kelly stood in a field sixty kilometres north of Dublin,” the article begins, “describing how the Vikings founded a “longphort” or fortress-settlement at this spot nearly 1,200 years ago, I realized that he was talking about the ancestors of many Canadians, including possibly some of my own. Kelly, keeper of antiquities at…
Read MoreWhere Elisha Kent Kane spent two Arctic winters
The June issue of Up Here magazine contains a piece about visiting the spot on the coast of Greenland where explorer Elisha Kent Kane spent two years trapped in ice. Written by yours truly, it begins . . . . At last I could see how it unfolded. From where I stood, on a small…
Read MoreThe Arctic Journals of John Rae
So here’s an enticing book that has just gone to the printer: The Arctic Journals of John Rae. The finished work will surface in September. Before that happens, I will sail Into the Northwest Passage with Adventure Canada, bent on leading a zodiac-sortie to the spot where John Rae discovered the final link in the…
Read MoreIreland’s Islands
Ireland’s Islands. The Aran Isles, the Skelligs, Inishbofin, Tory Island. What, with Irish music all the way? Yup, it was quite the adventure.
Read MoreUntitled Post
Did someone mention Irish music? Here’s a 4:30 video I put together featuring the versatile Daniel Payne and Matt Malloy of the Chieftains. Some I shot at the Cliffs of Moher, but most happens at Matt Malloy’s pub in Westport on the west coast of the Emerald Isle. Payne was sailing as a musician with…
Read MoreWe’re looking for Arctic history in the wrong places
The June issue of the Literary Review of Canada finds Yours Truly responding to an LRC article published last month under the headline What Does Franklin Really Mean? This August, sailing with Adventure Canada, I am hoping to return to the site that marks John Rae’s discovery. Adriana Craciun is right to question the wisdom…
Read MoreA Discovery of Vikings
The next issue of Canada’s History magazine will feature a piece I’ve written about the Viking roots of Canada. To whet your appetite, I’ve created a four-minute video, A Discovery of Vikings. Here we find Dr. Ned Kelly, keeper of antiquities at Ireland’s National Museum, talking about locating what promises to be the most spectacular…
Read More