The Garden of Eden

Finished August 31

The Garden of Eden by Sharon Butala

This book takes place mostly in 1993, with the character Lannie having experiences as early as 1984. This is when Lannie arrived as a volunteer in Ethiopia. She was deeply affected by the news of Ethiopian famine and was determined to find a way to help there. Without medical or other specialized training, she found a church willing to send her for her reporting on what was happening. Lannie makes herself useful in whatever way she can, picking up knowledge as she goes. 

When she was a young child, she was dumped on her uncle Barney and aunt Iris by her father, Howard, Barney's older half-brother following the death of her mother. Her younger siblings, Dillon and Misty, were left with another relative in Calgary.

Lannie had lived in Chinook, Saskatchewan, and her aunt and uncle had a farm just outside town. Despite the love they had for her, Lannie always felt out of place. 

In 1993 in Chinook, Iris is spurred to leave the town to search for Lannie who has been gone for a decade, with letters petering out soon after she left. The impetus to search for Lannie is a sudden, unexpected loss of her own. Iris thinks about her own ties to the land, living on the farm that her mother and grandmother lived on before her. She has often thought about the indigenous people who lived there before them, protecting the signs they left behind, and spending time in the remaining wild coulee that is part of her property.

The book is separated into three sections: Seeding, Growing, and Harvesting, and there are overarching themes of drought, and land use and conservation.

Both women are also searching for love and belonging, and both have dreams that take them into the past and the future. They also feel a sense of a woman guiding them in these dreams. 

I really enjoyed seeing their experiences, even the difficult ones, and seeing them grow as they realized that their strength was within them, and they needed to love themselves first. A moving story that shows the commonalities across cultures. 

Authentic Letters from Upper Canada

Finished April 21
Authentic Letters from Upper Canada including an Account of Canadian Field Sports by Thomas William Magrath: the whole edited by The Rev. Thomas Radcliff: illustrated by Samuel Lover and Introduced by James John Talman.
[No image as book cover is plain green cloth]
This collection of letters dates from 1832 and 1833, and was originally published in 1833. This edition, with the introduction by Talman was published in 1952.
The letters originate from two families, the Magraths, a family of 8 plus one servant that immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1827, and the Radcliffes, a party of 13 including servants that immigrated in 1832. Both groups were from the wealthier class of Irish, being able to afford more costs associated with starting out in a new country than most. Two of the twenty letters are from a servant girl in the Radcliffe party, but her name was changed by the editor. The editor was the elder Radcliffe who remained in Ireland. The letters provide detailed information on costs, the conditions of the time, and the activities undertaken by those who came to Upper Canada. They also describe the quick growth taking place at the time in the new communities, with the Radcliffes clearing their own land near the planned settlement of Adelaide in Middlesex County, and it being quite populated less than a year later. With letters from several men, one woman and a servant, this is an interesting snapshot of the times.

More Canadian Fiction

Finished January 3
Reading by Lightning by Joan Thomas
This book has had numerous award nominations and wins (amazon.ca first novel award nominee, Book of the Year for Manitoba Reads, and Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book, Canada and the Caribbean) but more importantly it is a really good read.
We follow Lily Piper from her home on the Manitoba prairies in a community of strict Christianity, to England where she cares for her aging grandmother after her grandfather's death and explores her father's origins. She is in Lancashire for the start of World War II and tries to find her place there until news from home takes her rushing back to Manitoba.
It is back home where she takes a closer look at her family's expectations and how they have affected her attitudes and feelings. She also faces the expectations of community and friends, and must decide for herself how she wants to live and choose her own destiny.
Lily is a survivor, but sometimes she survives by being carried along by events, while she dreams a different future. This is a good read about a very interesting character.

Canadian Produce

Finished August 9
Apples to Oysters: A Food Lover's Tour of Canadian Farms by Margaret Webb
This informative, entertaining and often humorous look at Canadian food farming is a gem. Webb, inspired by a carrot, travelled across the country looking at farmers who are being inspired to put taste and nutrition into their crops, rather than submitting to the quantity is king mindset. Webb chooses a food from each of the ten provinces and one of the territories as her focus and finds a farmer to represent that food.
Her book includes not only interesting information about the food and how it is grown and harvested, but also information about the farmers and their struggles and their relationship with consumers, other farmers and the food industry. Each chapter includes recipes for the food focussed on. I found myself inspired to find more foods that were sourced from sustainable farms like these that recognize that taste and nutrition are so important to the foods we eat. (More so, since the last batch of carrots I bought, at the farmers' market no less, were tasteless lumps!)