Category: Other Writers

Exploring the writ­ing life through oth­er writers 

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Of books and bears – Harold Macy launches San Josef

The first time I hiked into San Josef Bay I was wor­ried about bears. Didn’t even see a track. The second time, I woke up one morn­ing and grog­gily wondered why Rick was mak­ing so much noise out­side the tent.

Turns out, Rick had gone to in­vest­ig­ate the sea stacks and a bear was wan­der­ing through camp. Luckily, all our food and toi­letries were safely stowed in an im­pro­vised bear-hang.

I’ve ex­plored San Josef two oth­er times via the prin­ted page. The first was at a week-long writ­ing work­shop at Strathcona Park Lodge. That’s where I met an­oth­er wanna be writer, Harold Macy.

One af­ter­noon, while Harold’s wife and two young sons went for a walk, I sat on the floor of their suite next to a stack of pa­per. Harold poun­ded away on an old IBM Selectric type­writer (com­puters were few and far between in 1986) as I read a draft of his work-in-progress.

I re­mem­ber the evoc­at­ive lan­guage and the strong sense of a wild, wet land­scape and the haunted, hope­ful char­ac­ters that in­hab­ited it. The ma­nu­script began with a man in an oil­skin coat row­ing. For thirty some years I pondered the U.S. civil war deserter’s fate once he reached the strug­gling Danish set­tle­ment on north­ern Vancouver Island in Canada.

This sum­mer I found out when Tidewater Press asked if I’d write a blurb for the back of San Josef. Harold’s story ig­nited memor­ies of my vis­its to the re­mote bay and of the writ­ing re­treat that launched my career.

But most of all, I was struck by the de­vel­op­ment of the plot and per­son­al­it­ies. Both had ma­tured like a boda­cious red wine. Within three pages, Harold cap­tures the soul of a man and the land­scape he finds him­self in.

San Josef is a deep and some­times dark nov­el where hope goes astray but is nev­er lost. The char­ac­ters are as com­plex as a spider’s web, the lan­guage po­et­ic and the en­vir­on­ment a tan­gible force.

Harold Macy is the au­thor of The Four Storey Forest, As Grow the Trees, So too the Heart. His short stor­ies have ap­peared in PRISM International, The Malahat Review , Orion and oth­er publications.

On Saturday, Oct. 26 Tidewater Press and Harold Macy will launch San Josef at the Courtenay and District Museum at 2 pm. in down­town Courtenay, BC.

Admission is free; stor­ies will be filled with Harold’s trade­mark hu­mour and the his­tory that in­spired this novel.

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Drawn to Sea by Yvonne Maximchuk

Drawn to Sea: Paintbrush to Chainsaw — Carving Out a life on BC’s Rugged Raincoast, by Yvonne Maximchuk is an in­tim­ate glimpse of mod­ern day pi­on­eer­ing seen through an artist’s eye.

Drawn to Sea is published by Caitlin Press
Drawn to Sea is pub­lished by Caitlin Press

In the 1980s Maximchuk was a single mom liv­ing in White Rock, BC. She sup­por­ted her two chil­dren by selling her paint­ings and pot­tery and teach­ing art. Then she met crab fish­er­man Al Munro. When Munro shif­ted to prawn fish­ing fur­ther up the coast, he in­vited Maximchuk, as well as Theda and Logan to ac­com­pany him.

Their new home — a float house only ac­cess­ible by boat or sea­plane – was anchored off Gilford Island in the Broughton Archipelago, a wil­der­ness area east of north­ern Vancouver Island.

Maximchuk rowed her chil­dren to the to the one-room school and ad­jus­ted to life with a gen­er­at­or and the fact that the nearest gro­cery store was a two-hour boat ride away. She also soaked up the beauty and tran­quil­ity of the sparsely pop­u­lated area, which soon in­fused her artwork.

But when Munro and Maximchuk split up, she faced a tough de­cision. Remain in the place she’d come to love or re­turn to an easi­er life in the Lower Mainland? If she stayed, two ma­jor pur­chases were re­quired: a chain­saw and a boat.

So began the chal­lenge of be­ing self-suf­fi­cient in an out-of-the-way pock­et of the BC coast. Maximchuk was buoyed by the friend­ship of oth­ers liv­ing nearby in­clud­ing coastal icons Alexandra Morton and Billy Proctor. Proctor, with his “If I can’t do it, no one can,” at­ti­tude was es­pe­cially help­ful and al­ways had whatever part was needed to fix any­thing and knew just how to do it.

When Maximchuk re­united with Munro, they bought land from Proctor and sweated and swore to­geth­er as they built a truly hand­craf­ted house. One that they still live in today and that now in­cludes Maximchuk’s SeaRose Studio and a lush garden.

Drawn to Sea is an hon­est, af­fec­tion­ate story about love, the land­scape and a gutsy wo­man find­ing her way in the ebb and flow of life. Maximchuk re­counts the chal­lenges and re­wards of liv­ing and work­ing in an isol­ated area and trolling with Proctor off the Queen Charlotte Islands. Nature and wild­life is nev­er far away; she’s found cou­gars in her yard, been eye to eye with a killer whale and shared a fin­shake with a dolphin.

The book is funny too. I laughed out loud over the stor­ies of Maximchuk dangling Proctor over­board in or­der to cap­ture an es­pe­cially large Japanese float, the kinks in her wed­ding day that failed to dis­pel the joy and one of her best Christmas gifts ever – an or­ange sur­viv­al suit.

Maximchuk writes with a painter’s eye and a poet’s voice cre­at­ing a richly re­ward­ing sense of place, time and emo­tion. Drawn to Sea is a BC coastal clas­sic that de­serves a place on the shelf next to M. Wylie Blanchet’s A Curve of Time. 

For more in­form­a­tion vis­it www​.yvon​nemax​imchuk​.com.

Paula and Yvonne at a Drawn to Sea book signing. Photo by Theda Phoenix.
Paula and Yvonne at a Drawn to Sea book sign­ing. Photo by Theda Phoenix.

 

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Drawn to Sea by Yvonne Maximchuk

Drawn to Sea: Paintbrush to Chainsaw — Carving Out a life on BC’s Rugged Raincoast, by Yvonne Maximchuk is an in­tim­ate glimpse of mod­ern day pi­on­eer­ing seen through an artist’s eye.

Drawn to Sea is published by Caitlin Press
Drawn to Sea is pub­lished by Caitlin Press

In the 1980s Maximchuk was a single mom liv­ing in White Rock, BC. She sup­por­ted her two chil­dren by selling her paint­ings and pot­tery and teach­ing art. Then she met crab fish­er­man Al Munro. When Munro shif­ted to prawn fish­ing fur­ther up the coast, he in­vited Maximchuk, as well as Theda and Logan to ac­com­pany him.

Their new home — a float house only ac­cess­ible by boat or sea­plane – was anchored off Gilford Island in the Broughton Archipelago, a wil­der­ness area east of north­ern Vancouver Island.

Maximchuk rowed her chil­dren to the to the one-room school and ad­jus­ted to life with a gen­er­at­or and the fact that the nearest gro­cery store was a two-hour boat ride away. She also soaked up the beauty and tran­quil­ity of the sparsely pop­u­lated area, which soon in­fused her artwork.

But when Munro and Maximchuk split up, she faced a tough de­cision. Remain in the place she’d come to love or re­turn to an easi­er life in the Lower Mainland? If she stayed, two ma­jor pur­chases were re­quired: a chain­saw and a boat.

So began the chal­lenge of be­ing self-suf­fi­cient in an out-of-the-way pock­et of the BC coast. Maximchuk was buoyed by the friend­ship of oth­ers liv­ing nearby in­clud­ing coastal icons Alexandra Morton and Billy Proctor. Proctor, with his “If I can’t do it, no one can,” at­ti­tude was es­pe­cially help­ful and al­ways had whatever part was needed to fix any­thing and knew just how to do it.

When Maximchuk re­united with Munro, they bought land from Proctor and sweated and swore to­geth­er as they built a truly hand­craf­ted house. One that they still live in today and that now in­cludes Maximchuk’s SeaRose Studio and a lush garden.

Drawn to Sea is an hon­est, af­fec­tion­ate story about love, the land­scape and a gutsy wo­man find­ing her way in the ebb and flow of life. Maximchuk re­counts the chal­lenges and re­wards of liv­ing and work­ing in an isol­ated area and trolling with Proctor off the Queen Charlotte Islands. Nature and wild­life is nev­er far away; she’s found cou­gars in her yard, been eye to eye with a killer whale and shared a fin­shake with a dolphin.

The book is funny too. I laughed out loud over the stor­ies of Maximchuk dangling Proctor over­board in or­der to cap­ture an es­pe­cially large Japanese float, the kinks in her wed­ding day that failed to dis­pel the joy and one of her best Christmas gifts ever – an or­ange sur­viv­al suit.

Maximchuk writes with a painter’s eye and a poet’s voice cre­at­ing a richly re­ward­ing sense of place, time and emo­tion. Drawn to Sea is a BC coastal clas­sic that de­serves a place on the shelf next to M. Wylie Blanchet’s A Curve of Time. 

For more in­form­a­tion vis­it www​.yvon​nemax​imchuk​.com.

Paula and Yvonne at a Drawn to Sea book signing. Photo by Theda Phoenix.
Paula and Yvonne at a Drawn to Sea book sign­ing. Photo by Theda Phoenix.

 

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111 West Coast Literary Portraits

If a picture’s worth a thou­sand words, 111 West Coast Literary Portraits is in­valu­able. Fifteen years in the mak­ing, it con­tains more than 100 pho­to­graphs of B.C. au­thors, as well as ex­tracts from their work or per­son­al notes writ­ten spe­cific­ally for the book.

The book is an im­port­ant doc­u­ment­ary of B.C. lit­er­at­ure. It in­cludes emer­ging, fam­ous, as well as in­fam­ous au­thors and speaks to the di­versity of lit­er­at­ure, cul­ture and the unique voice of Canada’s most west­ern province. A work of art in its own right, the 8 x 10 heavy stock, glossy pa­per gives a depth and lu­min­os­ity to each por­trait. And the use of black and white film provides a clas­sic, time­less qual­ity to the images.

When Barry began pho­to­graph­ing writers he didn’t real­ize he was start­ing a book pro­ject. He and his wife at the time, Blaise Enright, were new to the West Coast and wanted a pro­ject they could work on to­geth­er while ex­plor­ing their new en­vir­on­ment. By a quirk of fate, au­thors be­came the fo­cal point. But it wasn’t al­ways easy.

R.W. Gray wanted to be pho­to­graphed par­tially sub­merged in wa­ter. Rick and I wanted to in­clude our dog but Bailey thought pos­ing meant run­ning around in circles. Stephen Reid wanted to wear a cop cos­tume and have a gun and some money on the table in front of him. Little did Barry and Blaise know that Reid’s props would later be used in a real life drama.

But per­haps the most dif­fi­cult photo shoot was of poet Al Purdy. The ini­tial im­ages didn’t turn out well. Soon after Purdy re­ceived the proofs Barry answered the phone to find someone scream­ing at him. Purdy, a char­ac­ter with an oc­ca­sion­al crusty edge, de­man­ded the pho­tos be re­taken the next day or he’d black list the pho­to­graph­ers with every writer in B.C.

It was a scramble for Barry and Blaise to get to Victoria from Vancouver on time but they made it. Along the way, Blaise bought an as­sort­ment of squeaky toys hop­ing to light­en up the situ­ation. After the shoot, Purdy said he hadn’t known wheth­er to smile or be of­fen­ded. The photo on page 158 tells it all.

As the col­lec­tion of pho­to­graphs grew, it was titled Lit Happens and ex­hib­ited in a vari­ety of ven­ues to pro­mote lit­er­acy in B.C. A couple of years ago, Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing ap­proached Barry about turn­ing the pho­to­graphs and ac­com­pa­ny­ing text by au­thors into a book.

This fall, Barry has ex­hib­ited prints from the book, at­ten­ded sign­ings and par­ti­cip­ated on pan­els of pho­to­graph­ers through­out the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands. 

Barry’s al­ways been pas­sion­ate about black and white film. “It helps the view­er fo­cus on the sub­ject,” he ex­plains. “There’s no con­fus­ing palette of col­ours and it seems to really high­light the sub­ject. Also, film pho­to­graphs have a depth to them that di­git­al can’t du­plic­ate.” As well as tak­ing the pho­to­graphs, Barry de­veloped all the film, mat­ted and framed the prints and even made the card­board boxes to trans­port them in.

Through 2009 and 2010, Barry and I col­lab­or­ated on a photo-journ­al­ism pro­ject called On the Edge, Putting a Face on Homelessness. Time and time again, I wit­nessed Barry’s easy-go­ing man­ner help nervous folks re­lax, watched him guide people into nat­ur­al-look­ing poses and ad­mired the me­tic­u­lous de­tail that went into the print­ing of film and fram­ing of photo and text.

He’s brought the same at­ten­tion to de­tail to 111 West Coast Literary Portraits. For more in­form­a­tion vis­it www​.barry​peterson​pho​to​graphy​.com or  www​.mother​tongue​pub​lish​ing​.com.