There lived a hobbit…
If you think you’ve also got the chops, YAC is holding auditions for each of these roles on April 17 and 18.
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Well-Read And Well-Loved
Books can have long lives. They might be bought new and kept forever, or they might be loaned to a friend and are never seen again.
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Rat-a-tat-tat … I Smell A Rat
What does a rat even smell like? Well, I have no idea … even though I’ve seen a rat or two in my lifetime…
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The Simple Joys Of Yukon Count
This past Christmas season, Yukoners were introduced to a new children’s book created by local illustrator Tedd Tucker.
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Meals inspired by literature
Many classic stories have food and drinks intrinsically linked to their narratives. The Whitehorse Public Library has taken this idea and run with it, creating Page to Plate – a series of workshops for youth linking literature and cooking.
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Murder and romance in small-town Alaska
With over 225 novels to her credit, Nora Roberts is a bestseller by any definition. Wikipedia says the books are all romance novels, so I’m
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John Henderson: Celebrating the Great White North
When he arrived in Yellowknife, back in 2004, with his wife, Serena, and baby daughter, Janessa, it didn’t occur to John Henderson that he might
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For those who answered the call …
“Yukon soldiers are buried in more than 50 cemeteries on four continents.” –Michael Gates Lest we forget … This is why Michael Gates (Yukon historian
For those who answered the call … Read More »
The Northern Seduction
Sebastian Fricke and Rose Seguin share their journey, their “inner compasses” with us as they travel and write on their way through Alaska and the
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Where the Trump family fortune got started
“I’m a fifty-pager,” says Whitehorse writer Pat Ellis, commenting on her preference for producing short history booklets. Her latest, Financial Sourdough Starter Stories—“The Trump Family,
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A dystopian life near the Blackstone River
The Wolves of Winter is Tyrell Johnson’s first published novel. It’s set in the Yukon, but he hadn’t actually been here until he came to Whitehorse for last month’s Yukon Writers’ Festival.
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Magic on the Trail
Visual artist Hilary Lorenz will take hand-crafted cards along her art adventure on the Chilkoot Trail in July.
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Atlin Lit Up! lights up the Yukon writing scene
The Atlin writers’ festival not only offers music but also offers literature, readings and workshops.
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The ecological web: A story of salmon caught in the middle
“Nature is not something else, isolated, out there; it is as much a part of us as we are of it, and neither can be
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Investigating lost bull semen
Marcelle Dubé has written the fifth novel of her Mendenhall Mystery Series titled The Forsaken Men. Her Mendenhall isn’t a subdivision of Whitehorse, but rather a fictive place in Manitoba.
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The Northern Review looks at literature
The Northern Review, which is published by the School of Liberal Arts at the Yukon College, describes itself as “a multidisciplinary journal exploring human experience in the Circumpolar North.
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A raw and real experience of the war in Syria
The sad truth was, you could not live in Syria and have a clean heart. How could you, when you live in a place where you’re randomly shot at and car bombs explode outside your home?
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Zsuzsi Gartner: Aspiring to the darkly tragi-comic
Zsuzsi Gartner built her early career as a writer in journalism, working as a newspaper reporter, then a TV current affairs producer and then a magazine writer and editor, but has been interested in creative writing from an early age.
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Putting Canada 150 between two covers
CBC/Radio-Canada got involved in the Canada 150 sesquicentennial celebrations in a big way, starting about a year earlier with an open call for submissions to be put in a 2017 yearbook.
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Owen Laukkanen: “Keep writing and edit your own work ruthlessly”
Owen Laukkanen is unabashedly a writer of commercial fiction, also known as “genre” fiction, having produced a novel every year since The Professionals came out (and was nominated for four major genre awards) in 2012.
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Tyrell Johnson: ‘Write the story you would want to read’
Lots of writers can point to a specific event or person that sent them in the direction of a career in writing; Tyrell Johnson isn’t one of those people.
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Gearing up to explore ideas and the written word
PHOTO: Dan Davidson The Yukon Writers’ Festival takes place May 2 through 5, with events throughout the Yukon In 1990, a number of organizations
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Poetry Corner: Victoria Peters
A Sea Shell … by Victoria aged 7 [almost 8]. PHOTOS: Nadine Peters
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Bridging the Divide
Author Kate Harris shucked her space dreams and, with her friend, Mel Yule, picked up the courage to embark on a different trip: to cycle the Silk Road from end to end.
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13 Ways to look at Canada
With I Am Canada – A Celebration (North Winds Press) Heather Patterson has come up with a novel way of assembling an overview of special things about our country.
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Strange things won from the midnight sun
In keeping with this column’s focus on Yukon related material, I’m returning this week to a successful thriller that is set in a version of
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A new narrative on gold rush history
“To most people, the pack ice looked like a cold, endless wasteland that spread across one’s entire field of vision. But, if one watched it
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A tale of Arctic exploration
Yukon author Eva Holland has taken advantage of Amazon’s Kindle Singles format to produce what might have been a 45-page volume about the early history of Arctic exploration.
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Through dark to the light
Winter Child, the first novel by Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau to be translated to English, is a lyrical journey through a mother’s grief of losing and outliving her child.
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Yukon writers gear-up for Frankfurt Book Fair
With over 280,000 visitors and 1,000 authors, the Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest book fair in the world and an important event for international trade deals, with over 7 000 exhibitors from 100 nations, according to the fair website.
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The Northern Review remembers World War I
Volume 44 of The Northern Review contains the complete list of the papers from The North and the First World War Conference that was held in Whitehorse, and in Dawson City, May 9-12 2016.
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Canada’s first superheroine saved from obscurity
There’s no need to be a closet comic nerd anymore. The genre has exploded into accepted popularity over the last 10 years and it’s definitely
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What’s your digital footprint?
The editor at What’s Up Yukon doesn’t often receive handwritten letters, but there were two on file when I arrived. We’ve sent Mrs. Schorn a
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At Home at Sea
“Ship’s logs, myths, stories of quiet exaltation and wrenching lamentations can all become poetry when the experience resonates deeply with the rhythm of the human
An Unkindness of Ravens
It is easy to laugh at the antics of ravens. They are quirky, curious and yes, funny. A well-known title they carry among First Nations
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A Satirical Race Through a Parallel Universe
Once again I was about to die. Like every other literary artist before me I was about to die forgotten in a ditch at the
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Slap on a Hat, Slip into this Book
Every summer, Rose and her family pack up and head to their cottage in Awago Beach. There, the long days melt into lake swims and
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There’s Always a Stack of Books Hidden Under Their Quilts
The Yukon Imagination Library — non-profit organization that gives free books to Yukon children from birth to age four — is turning 10 this year.
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Celebrating the Klondike’s Literary Legends
During the week that leads to the Discovery Days weekend, the Klondike Visitors Association, Parks Canada and the Writers’ Trust of Canada celebrate the writers
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From stage to page
When Yukon playwright Patti Flather launched the book of her highly acclaimed play, Paradise, on a warm June evening at Baked Café in Whitehorse, Mac’s
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Memoirs of an Atlin School Marm
Simply stated, the best narrative I’ve read about country lifestyle in the contemporary north and the only one featuring Atlin and the Yukon.
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Ordinary Bones of Extraordinary People
It was the summer he turned twelve, after his failed attempts to save the fox kits, that he began collecting bones, scouring the grass and
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Yukon’s Fictional Geography
Dan Carruthers’ more recent thriller, Anya Unbound (2017), introduces us to Sean Carson, a recovering widower, who stumbles across a 17-year-old Polish girl on the
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Imagine the Yukon – Part 1
The Yukon Imagination Library — a local non-profit organization that gives free books to Yukon children once per month from the time they are born
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Wilderness Living with a Canine View
… A wind was blowing from the mountains, and the surface of the snow was swirling along like snakes, the way it often did on
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An Inspiring Book, Found in a Unique Bookstore
MacLeod’s Books in Vancouver is a book lover’s dream. Books are piled up from floor to ceiling. Fortunately, the friendly staff helps you to navigate
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Remembering Canada’s Centennial Year
I was in Grade 10 in 1967. For some reason my school provided high school students with tree saplings to take home and plant. Why
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Books to Celebrate 150 years of Canada
The Story of Canada in 150 Objects Canadian Geographic & The Walrus Magazine format 130 pages plus pullouts $15 On an older note, there are
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A Naturalist’s Guide to Spirituality
His Naturalist’s Guide to Spirituality, The Road is How, is a lyrical account of Trevor Herriot’s three-day, 40-mile journey
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Beatle Stations
The first volume of Lewisohn’s trilogy The Beatles: All These Years. The main drawback is that at only about 800 pages, it’s over too soon.
The Things that Weather You, Shape You
“As Jack knelt in the bloody snow, he wondered if that was how a man held up his end of the bargain, by learning and
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North Words
“Exploring the Frontiers of Language” will be the theme of this year’s edition of the North Words Writers Symposium, which will be held in Skagway
Playing in the Dark
“Think of magic as a tree. The root of supernatural ability is simply the realization that all time exists simultaneously. Humans experience time as a
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Good Advice
Jamie Bastedo is not new to the Yukon. He first came to the territory 35 years ago as a biology graduate student. “Think Never Cry
Poetry for Change
Sheri-D Wilson, who calls herself The Mama of Dada, is an award-winning spoken word poet, educator, speaker and activist, who has performed in literary, film
All Her Roads Lead to Poetry
Yukon based writer Joanna Lilley has just published her second collection of poetry If there Were Roads by Turnstone Press; she says that there are
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Of Breasts and Beyond
Breasts, boobs, tits, tatas. Mind the title, because, yes, this really is a story about tits, but it’s also, oh! so much more than that.
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Chronicling the Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community
I’m very jealous of what Whitehorse based Lily Gontard and Mark Kelly have managed to pull off with their delightful book, Beyond Mile Zero: The
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Writing as a Full Time Profession
James Bernard MacKinnon, commonly bylined as J.B. MacKinnon, will be coming to the Yukon from Vancouver to be the Yukon Public Libraries’ choice as a
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Using Stories to Make People Think
This is the second of a five part series by Dan Davidson about the professional authors participating in the Yukon Writers’ Festival and the Young Authors
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Domestic Bliss
Do you or someone you know love books almost as much as their pet? These three books draw on the animals in our outer lives
Superhero Highschool
Growing up is hard. And the microcosm of high school — with its changing expectations and responsibilities and the push-pull of social dynamics, while, at
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A Mentor for Yukon Young Writers
Born in England, but transplanted to Newfoundland when she was very young, Kathleen Winter credits libraries with kick starting her interest in writing. “We moved
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Books to Spring Forward
It’s (hopefully) coming to the last wintery blows before the ice breaks; the spring will soon rush in and soon after we can cast our
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History Offers Timeless Perspectives
Stories are invaluable teachers, says B.C. author Caroline Woodward, they have the ability to “give us whole worlds.” Old stories, too, are relevant artefacts that
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The Grass is Greener Wherever Convenience Resides
“We imagined ourselves free of the hassles and troubles we’d accumulated in Toronto. We imagined a life without rushing, without the subway, without neighbours at
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A Fable of Feminist Lore
“… but also they were a family, because this story is all about that. About humans and human-ness. Fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters. Love
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Bringing Yukon literature to the world stage
Each October, the city of Frankfurt in Germany plays host to the second largest literary trade fair in the world, with 7,153 exhibitors representing 106
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A Pioneering Memoir to Keep the Brew True
“This is how you want to talk about your beers — with pride and a bit of humour too — and to do that, you
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Modern-day Cartoons for Historical Folks
How to Survive in the North is a graphic novel where three northern tales — two historical and true, one fictional and set in present-day
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Cedric Wants You
Whoooo the heck is Cedric, anyway? We’ll come back to that later. About a year after Beth Hawkes moved to Salt Spring Island with her
Birdie – Tracey Lindberg
“Maybe she didn’t cry because tears were a currency in her life for so long that holding them back meant she was richer.” Birdie is
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On the Quest For A Good Story
Parents and teachers, do you have a budding Jack London in your midst? Kids in Grades 1-7 are invited to enter the Yukon Quest Short
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Writing Down the Soul
Anyone who has ever put pen to paper knows it can be a daunting experience. To stare at a blank page waiting for the strike
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Life Lines
Faye Ferguson understands the value of documenting one’s life stories, for both the writer and the eventual reader. Ferguson is a personal historian based in
The Wonder builds up slowly to a thrilling ending
You may know Irish Canadian author Emma Donoghue by the fame she has gained from her 2010 novel Room, and its film adaptation. I must
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Birds and Loss
“His mother used to say the soul was a bird that lived in the nape of the neck. At night it flew out of the
The Collapse of Family
“While a part of me was glad I wasn’t like my brother, no part of me wished to be more fortunate than my mother. To
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Doubt, Delight and Discomfort
“That night I went through my reprimand sentence by sentence, word for word, and it got better each time.” “I put on a CD of
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Dawson in a Fictional Sense
About the same time as I was reading Elle Wild’s very entertaining mystery novel, Strange Things Done, I happened to watch a discussion between best
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This is Home
Former Yukoner Jerome Stueart and Yukon author Marcelle Dubé will read together form their books. It will be an evening about fantasy novels.
NaNoWriMo Memoirs
It was one of my former writing students who managed to shame me into signing up for NaNoWriMo this year. If you’re not familiar with
Titles Hot Off the Presses
Every December since 2009, Lise Schonewille, manager of Mac’s Fireweed Books, celebrates Winterval, the start of the holiday season, with local authors in the store.
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Humanity in a Post-Apocalyptic World
“She was thinking about the way she’d always taken for granted that the world had certain people in it, either central to her days or
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Book Fair Fever in Frankfurt
British artist David Hockney displayed his latest piece here: a complete collection of his artwork in a huge book. The book costs about 2,500 Euro
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The Threads that Hold Us Together
“Stories are not only words, you know. Words are just the clothes that people drape on stories.” – Brian Doyle, author of Mink River I
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The Importance of Numbers in Our Lives
As humans we are obsessed with counting things. We keep track of the numbers in our lives. We are always keeping score, measuring, recording and
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Long Live Print! Long Live What’s Up Yukon!
Ever since the advent of the internet, pundits of all description have been predicting the demise of print journalism. Traditional newspapers and magazines, once so
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Just Write
I have been writing for this paper for three years, now. I remember the day my first piece was published. It was my first publication
Engaging Historical Fiction
I am not one who likes to read dry historical tomes. I like to absorb my history through the sugar coated pill of historical fiction, written
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Learning how to Live Joyfully
Ever since she was a little girl, Teva Harrison drew. She studied art after high school. But, as it often goes, “needing to make a
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Rooted in the Yukon
Toronto-based poet Claire Caldwell’s role as writer-in-residence at the Berton House in Dawson City ends this month. Caldwell is no stranger to the Yukon. She
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The Trail of 98 Shows Another Side of Robert W. Service
Though best known for his 15 collections of verse (a term he preferred to poetry in reference to his own work) Robert Service also wrote novels.
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Strange things make a great story
Inspired by the Yukon winter and the road closures that lead to a feeling of isolation, Elle Wild wrote her first crime novel and set
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Searching for Inner Truth on the Chilkoot Trail
Whitehorse resident Maureen McCulloch wrote her debut novel to bring a message into the world. She wrote the book under the pseudonym, Maureen Senecal. “I
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The Joys of Reading Aloud
Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is not a particularly long book. A mere 70 pages, perhaps a few more in a version with
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Fresh Words and Deep Roots
Writing poetry since she was a child, Nova Scotia based author Shauntay Grant says she has always loved creative writing. “The oldest poem I’ve kept
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Mark Zuehlke and the Remittance Men
Mark Zuehlke grew up in the Okanagan, hearing tales of Remittance Men – those eccentric British immigrants sent here in the late 19th century by
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The Last Word in Wordsmithing
Most writers would be delighted if something they wrote could survive 10 minutes after they shuffle off this mortal coil. But 400 years? To use
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Nurturing Good Writing
Unlike many a published author, Saskatoon writer Sandy Bonny didn’t study to become one. It just happened. “I haven’t got an English degree,” she says,
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