Canada

Canadian wildfires and planning

Many years ago, I visited Fort McMurray to tour the Canadian Oil Sands. The community is in northern Alberta, perhaps a five and a half hour drive from Edmonton. A few days ago a horrific wildfire began, which has been made worse by the fact that Tuesday this week the temperature was nearly double what is normal at this time of year. The sheer scale of the blaze is hard to comprehend without viewing the videos. This slideshow by NBC gives some sense of the size of what is happening. Citizens have been videotaping their dramatic experiences escaping from the town. Many people have been traumatized trying to flee on the one main highway that connects Fort McMurray to the rest of Alberta. I have read a figure that perhaps 1,600 structures have gone up in flames, but I think that it will be a long time before anyone can know the actual figure. It is heart-breaking to hear people lamenting the loss of their homes as they drive out through a highway with a wall of flames on one side. …

In honor of Halloween: A Book Review of Haunted Girl

Every Halloween I look at an international mystery or folklore. This year, I’ll review a book by Laurie Glenn Norris and

Leon Trotsky spent time incarcerated in Amherst, Nova Scotia after World War One.
Leon Trotsky spent time incarcerated in Amherst, Nova Scotia after World War One. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Barbara Thompson titled Haunted Girl: Esther Cox and the Great Amherst Mystery. The book examines events surrounding one of the most famous poltergeist cases in Canadian history, which took place from 1878 to 1879. As the authors note, these events have been the subject of a 19th century non-fiction book, a novel, a mural, a play and a doll. At the core of this tradition is the biography of Esther Cox, who was an 18 year old when she claimed to experience a series of terrifying incidents, which included moving furniture, bodily wounds, and spectral writing on a bedroom wall.

Norris and Thompson place these events into the context of Nova Scotia at the time, and Esther Cox’s own troubled personal life. The work is scholarly, and the authors have investigated all aspects of Esther’s world in impressive detail. Still, the authors never wander from their focus on Esther herself, which makes for an engaging work. The book also benefits from a plethora of photographs, which allow us to visualize key actors and locations. Having written my own book on Canadian folklore (Dangerous Spirits, which is available in the US and in Canada) I can imagine the amount of time that these photographs must have required to locate. …

David Groulx, Wabigoon River Poems

David Groulx is a poet of Indigenous and French-Canadian heritage who was raised in Elliot Lake, Ontario in Canada. His recent book of poetry, Wabigoon River Poems, has Canada’s Indigenous experience at its core, but places this history into a global context. A single poem can leap from Algeria to Vietnam, always within the context of a post-colonial viewpoint. The name of the book comes from the Wabigoon River near Kenora, Ontario, which suffered mercury pollution from a pulp and paper plant, with tragic results for local peoples.

The final poem in the first section is a meditation on a picture of the poet’s mother taken at the “St. Joseph Residential School for Girls.” In Canada, perhaps 150,000 Aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed in Church-run and government-financed schools, which were designed to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture. They failed, but caused immense suffering. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has sought to document this history, and has issued recommendations to address this legacy. Still it remains to be seen whether these findings will be truly embraced by the federal government, educational institutions, churches, and average Canadians. Although Canada is a developed country with a progressive reputation, the nation has always had a curious blind-spot regarding its own history of colonialism, as though colonialism was a European sin eradicated with Confederation. …

Fort McMurray and the Canadian Oil Sands

Years ago I toured the Fort McKay and an Oil Sands production facility. I was struck by the sheer scale of all aspects of the facility: the trucks the size of a small house; the tailings of sulphur, which formed a bright yellow block the size of an apartment building, and the pit, which seemed to stretch to the horizon. The oil company took my group to view some reclaimed tailings, which had been replanted with vegetation, and now had a small band of buffalo. If I remember correctly, the buffalo were cared for by the local aboriginal people.

What the company’s tour guide did not discuss was the issue of water, and the huge pools of contaminated water that no technology can currently clean. While most attention with the oil sands has focused on the issue of carbon, the issue of local environmental destruction is also pressing, and the impact that this industrial scale development has on regional communities. Amongst these communities are the indigenous peoples of the region. Much as is the case with fracking from North Dakota to Texas, how people view environmental issues is often influenced by their economic interests. For this reasons, many aboriginal communities have been divided not only by the Oil Sands, but also by issues of pipelines or mining.

I am teaching an online “Introduction to International Studies” course this quarter, and the most popular course materials have not been articles, podcasts or videos, but rather storyboards. Students love the interactive aspect of these media, which are often also beautiful. The Guardian has an excellent story board on the tar sands, which examines both the environmental and human questions raised by this development, which I highly recommend.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University.

Ellen Wild wins 2015 Arthur Ellis Award

I am a mystery fan, so I am delighted to say that my sister, Ellen Wild, just won the 2015 Arthur Ellis Award for the best unpublished first crime novel in Canada. What is surprising is that this is the same prize that my mother, Phyllis Smallman, won during the very first year that the prize was awarded. Apart from that, the two novels are dramatically different. My mother’s Sherri Travis series is set on the West Coast of Florida, while Ellen set her debut novel, Strange Things Done, in the Yukon. After reading the list of prize winners, I am planning to add many of these books to my summer reading list, while I also look forward to celebrating the publication of Strange Things Done.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University

First book review of Dangerous Spirits

"Typical Canadian Shield" by P199, Wikipedia Commons
“Typical Canadian Shield” by P199, Wikipedia Commons

As an author, it’s always exciting (and anxiety provoking) to get your first book review. Nelle Oosterom, the senior editor at Canada’s History, has just reviewed my book Dangerous Spirits: the Windigo in Myth and History. While I was delighted to read such a positive review, there was a deeper meaning for me in this coverage, because Canada’s History came into existence as the Beaver, an official publication of the Hudson’s Bay Company. This journal chronicled the lives of many of the traders whom I discuss in my book. I drew on old articles in the Beaver not only to cover some early windigo cases, but also to document how the idea of the windigo evolved through time. For this reason, I couldn’t be happier that the book’s first review was in this magazine. For me, to have moved from doing research in the Beaver, to reading the book review in Canada’s History, almost felt like coming full circle. Curious to read the book? In the United States you can find it here on Amazon, and in Canada here or at Chapters. Or if you want to read about a true unsolved mystery, please read my post about the ghost ship called the Baltimore.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University.

Book talk: Dangerous Spirits

Invite to Book Talk
Invite to Book Talk

If you live in Oregon, I will be giving a free book talk at Powell’s bookstore on Hawthorne in Portland this May 7th. Please note that it’s the Southeast store, not the main branch of Powell’s downtown. In this talk, I’m going to talk about my most recent book on an evil spirit in Northern Algonquian belief. I plan to discuss why I became interested in such an unusual topic, and then trace the history of the windigo through time. I will begin discussing the windigo in the early records of the Jesuits, through 19th century murder trials, before finishing with a discussion of the windigo in contemporary popular culture. Throughout, I will focus on how different generations used and adapted the idea of the windigo in response to colonialism, which has become a common theme in recent indigenous literature. I’m looking forward to this event, and want to welcome anyone in Portland who would like to attend.

Are you curious about the book, but aren’t able to attend? The book is available in print from Amazon in the United States now. You can also find the book in Kindle in the United States and Canada, as well as other formats such as Google Play BooksNookKobo and iBooks.

Shawn Smallman, Portland State University

Canada’s Project Habbakuk: the Strangest Military Technology ever

"Ice Wall" by CNaene at freedigitalphotos.net
“Ice Wall” by CNaene at freedigitalphotos.net

Military history is filled with strange ideas, which are often created out of extreme necessity. Sometimes they work, such as Hannibal’s ruse of tying torches to the horns of cattle, in order to mislead the Roman army regarding the direction his forces were moving. More often they fail. Still, of all the strange, mad ideas in military history, none was ever so odd as Project Habbakuk. During World War Two, the survival of Britain depended upon victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. An island nation, Britain could not obtain the raw materials and food that it needed to survive if it could not defeat German submarines. As the sea battle moved to a moment of crisis, a strange man of questionable genius named Geoffrey Pyke conceived the idea of building warships out of ice. As bizarre as the idea sounded, a memo on the idea was brought to Churchill in December 1942. He loved the concept and and ordered that research on the project move forward.

It soon became clear that ice was an unsuitable building material. Fortunately, scientists soon learned that by mixing wood pulp with ice an incredibly strong material could be created, which would also resist melting. The plan was to create an immense aircraft carrier, many times larger than any other in existence, out of this new material. According to L.D. Cross (Code Name Habbakuk, p. 52) it would have reached two million tons, and have stretched more than the length of two football fields. Its sheer mass would have helped –at least in theory– to make the ship unsinkable. The work of of designing and building the ship was given to Canada, although Canadian Prime Minister McKenzie King thought, as revealed in his famous diaries, that this was “another of those mad, wild schemes (that started) with a couple of crazy men in England” (L.D. Cross, Code Name Habbakuk, 63). Nonetheless, the government decided to build a small prototype on Patricia Lake in Alberta, Canada. Of course, in practice the idea was impossibly complex, and by 1943 Britain had nearly won the Battle of the Atlantic. The project was finally abandoned in December 1943. …

Dangerous Spirits now available

Dangerous Spirits, forthcoming from Heritage House.
Dangerous Spirits, forthcoming from Heritage House.

I’m happy to announce that Dangerous Spirits is now available for sale in print in Canada. You can find it on Amazon.ca here. The American launch is set for April 2015, so if you are in the States (or Britain) you will have to wait a little longer for a print version. But the book is already available in Kindle in the United States and Canada, as well as other formats such as Google Play BooksNookKobo and iBooks. I spent eight years working on this book, which studies narratives told in Algonquian culture about an evil spirit, the windigo. The book traces these narratives through time, from the rich traditions of Algonquian peoples to its modern incarnation in novels, films, and boardgames. How is it that a being from northern Algonquian tradition can be found in movies set in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, and board games created in Britain? I also look at how different outside groups understood the windigo through time, based on the records of Jesuits, explorers, fur traders, missionaries, and murder trials.

I want to thank Sara Loreno, who worked to create the maps for me (and thanks to David Banis who worked with her), Anne Lindsay who tracked down countless archival materials, Robert Brightman, who answered endless linguistic and cultural questions, and Heritage House, which did an outstanding job editing this book. Grace Dillon, a Professor of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State (and great colleague) wrote a preface that is both insightful and funny.  …

Ancient Migrations: the evidence of Oceania

Moai at Rano Raraku by Aurbina at Wikipedia Commons
Moai at Rano Raraku by Aurbina at Wikipedia Commons

In earlier post I talked about the fact that some places that appear remote -such as the Arctic- have long experienced globalization. Norse traders left their signs in the Canadian High Arctic centuries before Columbus, while an Inuit artist carved a small wooden statue  of a European visitor with a cross on its chest, and European style clothing. But a Chinese coin in the Yukon, and a Viking outpost in Newfoundland, Canada, are not the only relic of these ancient cross-oceanic movements of people and goods.

Perhaps no location on earth is as remote as Easter Island, an island located over 2000 miles to the west of South America in the Pacific. But there has long been evidence that before European discovery in 1722, the islanders had already made contact with the Americas, given that they cultivated sweet potatoes, a crop from the Americas. But now we have more direct evidence, in the genetics of the Rapa Nui, the indigenous peoples of Easter Island. A recent study has found that genes from the native peoples of the Americas entered the Rapa Nui population between 19 and 23 generations ago. In a sense this is unsurprising, because the Polynesians were such incredible travelers that they had settled remote islands throughout vast areas of the Pacific. If they could reach New Zealand -and the sub-Antarctic islands to its south, including the Antipodes- why not South America? If you are curious about learning more about these people -and their amazing navigation skills- please see Tom Koppel’s work, Mystery Islands: Discovering the Ancient Pacific. While people know about the strange statues of Easter Island, they may not be familiar with Nan Madol and other wonders. …

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