Category: Book Review

Over the weekend, I had the time to read Sanctuary: the biography of Mary Majka, written by Deborah Carr. Mary was born in Poland in 1923. She was sixteen when Hitler invaded Poland at the start of the Second World War. Eventually, she arrived at Pier21 with her husband, Mike, in 1951. They moved to New Brunswick in 1961.

“Mary Majka has done more to preserve the natural and cultural legacy of the Bay of Fundy than anyone in our time.” Harry Thurston.

“Through the example of her life, she has shown that by simply following our true nature, the nugget of passion that resides in each heart, we change our world. It doesn’t have to be large or grandiose; it just needs to be true”
Carr p.227.

On Sunday, Heather shared with me a Zoom talk given by Bob Howard to the Annapolis Royal Shambhala Group on biodynamic French intensive horticulture and the work of Alan Chadwick. This led to some preliminary online research. I found two books of Chadwick’s talks plus a memoir by Paul Lee on Chadwick and the organic movement in California. The memoir excerpts look very promising. I contacted Bob and he suggested that I check the YouTube video, Garden Song.

Meanwhile, Heather continues to organize our book collection. This brought to my attention, Mike Carr, Bioregionalism and Civil Society: Democratic Challenges to Corporate Globalism. It looks relevant today and should sustain me this week.

Footnote

Happenstance Books and Yarns is an independent bookstore in Lakefield, Ontario. They also sell knitting supplies.

Acknowledgements

Bob Howard for the reference to Alan Chadwick and the link, Garden Song. Heather for her attempts to put order into the book collection. Edward for his graphics contribution.

References

Deborah Carr, 2010. Sanctuary: The Story of Naturalist Mary Majka. Goose Lane.
Mike Carr, 2004. Bioregionalism and Civil Society: Democratic Challenges to Corporate Globalism. UBC Press.
Paul Lee, 2013. There is a Garden in the Mind: A Memoir of Alan Chadwick and the Organic Movement in California. North Atlantic Books,
Alan Chadwick, 2008. Performance in the Garden: a collection of talks on biodynamic French intensive horticulture. Logosophia
Alan Chadwick, 2013. Reverence, obedience and the Invisible in the Garden. Talks on the biodynamic French Intensive system. Logosophia

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Even before the events in Portapique last weekend, the church in Middleton had displayed the sign, in relation to the COVID-19 restrictions.

Things that matter are hard.

For several days, the thought of writing a blog seemed impossible.

Eventually, I turned to the bookcase, and rediscovered the biography of Mary Majka. She was a naturalist, living on the shores of the Bay of the Fundy in New Brunswick. She was the driving force behind Mary’s Point Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve.

Harry Thurston makes the following comment on Sanctuary by Deborah Carr.

“Sanctuary is an engaging and clear-eyed portrait of her indomitable spirit – a celebration of a courageous life – and an important book”

This led me to pull down my collection of Harry Thurston books. Thurston lives in Tidnish Beach.

I recalled meeting Thurston at the annual meeting, last Spring, of the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia in Great Village. He attended, along with Sandra Barry And hence, I searched out her books too.

I hope you find enjoyment in these books.

Acknowledgements

To those writers who choose to describe life in small communities.
Heather for encouraging me to spend more time outdoors this week.
Edward for his helpful support. Sandra Barry for her encouragement.

References
Deborah Carr, 2010. Sanctuary: The Story of Naturalist Mary Majka.Goose Lane.
Harry Thurston, 2004. A Place Between the Tides. Greystone Books
Harry Thurston, 2005. The Sea’s Voice. An Anthology of Atlantic Canadian Nature Writing. Nimbus Press.
Harry Thurston, 2009. Animals of my own kind: New and Selected Poems. Vehicule Press.
Allan Cooper and Harry Thurston, 2013. The Deer Yard. Gaspereau Press.
Harry Thurston, 2015. Keeping Watch at the End of the World. Gaspereau Press.
Barry S., Davies P., Sanger G. (Ed.), 2001. Divisions of the Heart: Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Memory and Place. Gaspereau Press.
Sandra Barry, 2011. Elizabeth Bishop: Nova Scotia’s “Home-made” Poet. Nimbus Press.
Sandra Barry and Laurie Gunn (Ed.), 2013. Echoes of Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia.

In the last few days, David Quammen’s name has come to my attention, twice. The first was a podcast, available through Emergence Magazine. The second was from Sandra Barry about an article in Orion magazine. In both cases, they refer to his book, Spillover: animal infections and the next human pandemic. It was published in 2013.

My interest in Quammen’s writing goes back to the mid-’90s. After finishing graduate work in Biogeography, and spending time in Indonesia, I could not resist the Song of the Dodo, with its subtitle, Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction. Today, we continue to divide our landscape into islands. For example, consider the continued forestry practices in Nova Scotia.

This Tuesday (March 31st) Heather and I were scheduled to visit grandchildren in Iqaluit. Talking to Andrew (my son) on the weekend, the current procedure for visitors to Nunavut is two weeks quarantine in a designated hotel in Ottawa (or another transit centre) BEFORE travel. If the quarantine is successful, then one can visit. This provides a clear measure of the vulnerability of these Northern communities from the COVID-19 virus.

Today, Heather was noticing the lack of traffic on Highway #201. We were able to hear the songbirds that are arriving back in the Valley. On a beautiful morning, I had to break the silence, by getting the chainsaw out of the garage. There were yard chores — cutting off the larger dead branches from the Apple trees and trimming the silver maple in the front yard before it extends upwards to the Nova Scotia Power lines. The privet hedge contains too many old dead branches at their core.

The end result was a full day outside. If we can use this month of April (normally spent in the North) to clear out the old growth, then we can begin to imagine a larger garden and greater food self-sufficiency. At the same time, we add biomass to the compost pile and additional wood and kindling for the woodshed. This will warm us, sometime, next Winter.

Acknowledgements

Sandra Barry for resurrecting memories of David Quammen’s writing. Heather for sharing both the hard work and dreaming of a different future. Edward Wedler for his weekend blog, as well as his support and good humour.

References

David Quammen, 2013. Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic WW Norton & Co.
Emergence Magazine podcast. Shaking the Viral Tree.
Orion Magazine. 17 March 2020. Why David Quammen is nor Surprised.
David Quammen. 1997. The Song of the Dodo. Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction. Simon & Schuster.

Over Christmas, we visited my brother’s family in Toronto. While there, I chanced to pick up Jane Jacobs’ book Vital Little Plans. One of the essays centres on a conversation between Janice Stein and Jane Jacobs at the ‘Grazing in the Commons’ conference in Toronto, November 15,2001. It is titled ‘Efficiency and the Commons’. In particular, I appreciated the following exchange.

p 379. Stein:

“I think we need to think about citizenship not just as voting in an election. We need to start thinking about citizenship as a part-time job that we all have. And then ask ourselves.
‘OK, which job am I going to take on?
Am I going to go to work in my local school?
Am I going to go help out in the local clinic?
Am I going to help out with a community issue?
Because it seems to me that’s what crosses that bridge that we build between states and markets.

We know states do some things and markets do others. How do we fit this part-time citizen into our economy ?”

Jacobs:

“I think what you are describing has a great deal in common with art, which has always been a big question mark. Art done for art’s sake is outside of economic life. Artists do need, somehow or other to eat, but that’s not why they do art. They do it because they’re driven to do it. And it’s a gift. And I think that community things are done not for livelihood and not for power. That’s where that work belongs.”

Before heading home from Florida, Edward forwarded this link from The Atlantic.
Anne Applebaum The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff.

Another perspective on the current crisis can be found in Paul Kingsnorth contribution to this week’s Emergence Magazine. The op-ed piece is called Finnegas.

Finally, at the end of the week, Charlie Hunter forwarded a photograph of our St. Patrick’s Day meeting, with the caption ‘You and I received more compliments on our social distancing than on our good looks !’

Reading time should allow us some ‘deep thinking’ about government, capitalism and citizenship. On Sunday morning, CBC The Sunday Edition included interviews with both Robert MacFarlane and Rebecca Solnit, a couple of my favourite authors.

Acknowledgements

Edward Wedler for forwarding The Atlantic link, before heading home to Nova Scotia (now in mandatory self-isolation). Charlie Hunter for the photograph. Heather Stewart for her feedback.

References

Samuel Zipp and Nathan Storring(Ed) 2016. Vital Little Plans. The Short Works of Jane Jacobs. Vital Little Plans. Penguin Random House Canada.
Anne Applebaum. The Coronavirus Called America’s Bluff. The Atlantic.
Paul Kingsnorth. Emergence Magazine. March 20,2020. Finnegas.

This week, I have been busy reading the five hundred page novel, The Overstory by Richard Powers. It was a challenging but worthwhile reading experience. The book is divided into four sections: roots, trunk, crown and seeds. The roots section introduces us to the lives of eight individuals. Each person has a relationship to trees on the earth.

The trunk brings together these individuals within the context of activism and the Timber Wars in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is a challenge to keep track of inter-twining of these individual stories (roots). The final sections play out the outcomes from their collective activist events (seeds).

The importance of trees, their inter-connectivity and their relationship to global climate change offers a sobering alternative to traditional scientific thinking.

My next book on the bookshelf is Sacred Soil: Biochar and the regeneration of the earth. On our small acreage, we need to develop a better understanding of the soils and their fertility.

Visiting the COGS Library, I discovered the biography of Dr. John Mitchell: The Man who made the Map of North America, written by Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. Mitchell was a botanist, born in Virginia in 1711.

‘It was at the request of Lord Halifax and the Board of Trade that he made his famous map, one of the period’s outstanding cartographic achievements and perhaps the most important map in the history of North America.’

I thought that perhaps the book was part of the Walter Morrison collection at COGS. But apparently, that is not the case.

Acknowledgements

Andrew Hannam for his help at the COGS library. Heather for her empathetic reading. Edward for his graphics.

References

Richard Powers.2018. The Overstory. W.W. Norton and company.
Robert Tindall et al. 2017. Sacred Soil: Biochar and the regeneration of the earth. North Atlantic Books.
Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. 1974. Dr. John Mitchell: The man who made the map of North America. University of North Carolina Press.