Saying goodbye to my friend Victor Ramraj

Earlier this month at King’s College in Nova Scotia, one of my grad-student writers, a woman who had spent some years in Kenya, pointed to a passage in one of my Arctic books and said: “Did you study postcolonial theory?” I took a beat and said, “No, but you’re right. The influence is there. My…

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Does anybody recognize this man?

The one in buckskin, standing with Our Hero? He’s proving elusive. As you can see, I managed to lay an arm on him the other night at McMaster University. Fabulous event, by the way, organized by HAALSA (Hamilton Association for the Advancement of Literature, Science and Art). Superb dinner beforehand at a restaurant called Il…

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Rocky 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.…

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Calgary 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…

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Arctic explorer heading for University of Calgary

A big shout-out to folks at the University of Calgary. On short notice, they have found a superb venue for my August 30 presentation on John Rae, the Arctic explorer who discovered the fate of the Franklin expedition. Originally, we had intended to use the Calgary Central Library, but flood damage precluded that. Nothing daunted,…

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