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When will Franklin searchers discover that dead body on Erebus?


The next step in searching the Erebus, according to Parks Canada's chief underwater archaeologist, is  "to start exploring the inside in more depth, because that is where 97% of the artifacts are, where all the information that is going to tell us what happened is going to be.” Quoted in the digital magazine Tabaret, based at the University of Ottawa, Marc-André Bernier drew attention to interviews collected in 1879 by American searcher Frederick Schwatka (pictured right).  One of the Inuit Schwatka interviewed, Puhtoorak, "had been on the wreck. He recalled seeing the deserted ship ‘in complete order … seeing many spoons, knives, forks, tin plates and china plates.’ The plates that we recovered would have been close to where sailors had their mess tables, really close to the stove … It kind of corresponds to, ‘things were left in order.’ The fact that these things were found together with the medicine bottle," Bernier said, "in that little niche in that part of the deck, we can already link it to the Inuit accounts and testimony.” What Bernier does not mention is that, according to Schwatka, who conducted interviews with the help of (Joe) Ebierbing, Puhtoorak also came upon a white man dead in a bunk: "The body was in a bunk inside the ship in the back part." Other accounts put the dead body on the floor. We can only wait and wonder.

Ken McGoogan
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Rachel Dolezal inspires renewed call for a book-world revolution




Some of my writer-friends are (rightly) irritated that Rachel Dolezal "admitted" to indulging in "creative nonfiction." She lied, damn it. Writers of creative nonfiction tell the truth. But Dolezal's "admission" reminds me of why, a few years back, writing in the Globe and Mail, Our Hero called for a book-world revolution.
C'mon, surely you remember that? Going forward, I wrote, requires a slow-motion, two-step action plan. First step: we divide fact-based literature into two broad categories -- narrative nonfiction and polemical nonfiction. The first includes biography, memoir, travel, popular history, true crime, you get the idea; the second comprises thesis-driven works, artful jeremiads – political, scientific, philosophical.  Along these lines, we reorganize our world.
Second step: we abandon "nonfiction." Yes, I take a hard line. We cease to define countless literary works by what they are not, and in relation to some other genre. As a corollary, we recognize that, as a concept, "creative nonfiction" has taken us as far as it can. We let it go. End result: we will be left with two fact-based literary genres, Narrative and Polemic, both on par with Fiction. So: biographical narrative, historical narrative, true-crime narrative . . . .
Alas, this well-conceived insurgency attracted few followers. But you never know. If we get a few more Rachel Dolezals "admitting" to creative nonfiction, we may yet change the narrative. We may yet see literary types embracing the book-world revolution.


Ken McGoogan
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150 Canadian authors illuminate a triple-whammy extravaganza


OK, this one has me clasping my head. We're looking at a multi-media project two years in the making. It's going to showcase photo-portraits of  150 Canadian authors. Yup: 150 from across the country! The photographer, Mark Raynes Roberts, traveled 20,000 km to take 22,500 photos . . . and the story hasn't hit the mainstream media? Picture me clasping AND reeling around the room. Roberts is renowned for his intricate, hand-engraved crystal art . . . and a dozen
pieces will turn up at one of the three Toronto venues slated to showcase Illumination, as the show is called. Those crystal masterpieces will form part of the exhibit at the Gardiner Museum (Oct. 26 to Nov 11).  More author portraits turn up at the Toronto Reference Library (Oct. 11-Nov 1) and the International Festival of Authors at Harbourfront (Oct. 22 to Nov. 1). But look around: here we have Sarah Sheard (on horse), Miranda Hill (thinking), Dave Bidini (hat and piano), Jonathan Kay (on stairs), Ray Robertson (hat and stare) and Michelle Berry looking Scandinavian for good luck . . . AND there are 144 more where these come from (143 if we count that one in the lower left). Find out more from the man himself: info@markraynesroberts.com. Honestly, I think we should spread the word.









Ken McGoogan
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Portrait of Evan Solomon as a thirty-one-year-old novelist


(Big shout-out to Linda Richards at January Magazine. She went into her files and turned up an interview she did back in the day with Evan Solomon. Made me think, gee, in 1999, I spun a yarn myself when I was working as a literary journalist and Solomon published a novel called Crossing the Distance. Does it shed any light?. Voila, thanks to the wonders of the digital universe, you can judge for yourself.)


Evan Solmon heard two conflicting voices in his head. He was travelling by bus, a 26-hour journey, between Katmandu and Darjeeling. The year was 1992. Solomon was 24 years old and he'd recently done some volunteering at Mother Theresa's mission in Calcutta: "Grunt work. Anybody could do it."
There, Solomon met people, he said this week [May 15], "who'd dedicated their whole lives to helping others. I knew I'd never be able to spend my life that way. But the experience kicked off an internal debate."
Hence, the two voices -- that of an overzealous relief worker and a too-detached observer. In Solomon's impressive first novel, Crossing the Distance, the two have become flesh-and-blood adversaries -- and brothers. The one has gone beyond self-righteousness into bloody-minded activism; the other beyond detachment into callousness.
As a radical environmentalist, the first brother, Theo, causes the death of a logger in B.C. The second brother, Jake Jacobson, is reminiscent of Jerry Springer -- a TV personality who hosts a sensationalistic talk show called The Jake Connections. He's also the novel's main narrator. And as the story begins, he discovers his girl friend, a celebrity author, shot in the head and bleeding to death.
Jake provides Solomon with an entry into the world of network television, and the author makes the most of it. He paints a broad- strokes portrait of shameless, shallow and exploitive media types ready to abandon any principle, exploit any tragedy or betray any relationship if such action will move them up the careerist grease pole.
Solomon lays on it on a bit thick -- oh, these people are despicable -- yet includes enough authentic detail that the characters and melodramatic narrative become almost believable. But, hey, this is satire, after all: the characters are meant to be overblown. The Toronto-based Solomon, who co-founded and edited Shift magazine, comes by his vision honestly. He has worked for almost five years as a CBC-TV NewsWorld host -- first of Future World, lately of Hot Type.
And before that? Born and raised in Toronto, Solomon attended McGill University in Montreal, where he earned a bachelor's degree in English and religious studies, and a master's in religious studies, focusing on myth and ritual. He also wrote short stories, acted and had three plays produced. After graduation, Solomon and a friend co-founded Shift -- " we wanted to be part of the storytelling culture" -- originally as a quarterly.
Solomon then went travelling for a year, mostly in Asia, though he continued to serve as a long-distance editor. Back in Toronto, he turned Shift into a monthly, landed his first TV job and turned his attention to articulating and dramatizing the internal debate that had begun in India.
Solomon doesn't see his take on TV as being entirely dark, and he refuses to apologize for writing serious fiction while working in television. "We live in a culture that doesn't support writers," he said over lunch. "Writers have to make a living somehow."
Not incidentally, the TV milieu in which he earns his daily bread also provided relatively fresh material for this ambitious novel -- the fast-paced, urban lives of nasty people on the make.
Solomon sees Crossing The Distance as "a redemption story -- not like in Hollywood, but redemption the way a river runs, meandering like a choked-up creek. There's no Niagara Falls at the end of it." What Solomon is driving at, without giving away the plot, is that Jake moves from being the quintessential witness, and nothing else, to becoming "the author of his own life."
And, surprise, the narrator has already announced this theme on the first page of the novel: "Betrayal isn't something you choose, it's something that chooses you. I know that more than ever now, especially when I think about the events that came together to destroy the people I love. Of course, my memory of things is different from that of the police or the newspaper reporters or the producers making a movie of the week; that's no surprise. We're all spinning out versions of the truth until the facts disappear and everything becomes a matter of belief."
There's authority in that opening. And, in everything that follows, a seriousness of purpose, as well as an obvious willingness and ability to wrestle with large themes. Solomon hasn't written a great novel here. But he's 31 years old. And he's announced his arrival with panache. This is no one-book author. Solomon's here to make a mark.
- Crossing the Distance, by Evan Solomon (M&S, 373 pages, $30).
 
Ken McGoogan
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Turns out history is happening in Canada. It's the next big thing.


It's not much to look at, this modest paperback, especially with the stickies hanging out the side. Oh, and the Toronto Public Library bar code laying across the first word of the title. But, well, dare I say it? I find Canadians and Their Pasts, an academic study by The Pasts Collective, subversive and exciting. The message here? Contrary to recent reports, history is alive and kicking. Listen: "The vast majority of people everywhere in the country have turned to the past to help them situate themselves in a rapidly changing present, to connect themselves to others, and to fill their leisure hours." The authors aren't blowing smoke. They surveyed 3,419 Canadians, interviewing them for an average of 22 minutes each. That process yielded a good number of tables packed with information. Consider only the importance of various pasts: 94 per cent of Canadians view family history as "very important" or "somewhat important." What's more, other totals are equally startling: history of Canada, 90 per cent; history of birth country if not Canada-born, 89 per cent; history of ethnic or cultural group, 81 per cent." The passion begins with family history, with genealogy, and grows from there. The digital revolution is really helping. End result: Canadians are keenly interested in "what makes things happen, or what creates the change . . . why the country is the way it is." They want to know how, when, and where they fit. Turns out history isn't dead, after all. It's the next big thing.




Ken McGoogan
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Red Cross certifies Our Hero as set to sail in the Northwest Passage


I know, I know: I shared this on Facebook already. But it's not every day that a guy gets Red-Cross certified. So for the Enduring Record that is this blog (?): yes, I can do CPR. I was all over that dummy yesterday. In truth, the course is no walk in the park: 9 to 5 with 45 minutes for lunch, and nonstop information in-between. But to sail as an author-historian with Adventure Canada, or any kind of "leader," well, a hero has got to have that emergency-first-aid credential. Yesterday was my day. We had a terrific instructor. And, hey, 29 out of 30 on the written test put me in the top tier of finishers. Bottom line: we are good to go Out of the Northwest Passage. The voyage begins in Kugluktuk, aka Coppermine, and takes us through history all the way to Greenland, where in zodiacs, we'll wind in and out among the most spectacular icebergs in the northern hemisphere. Check it out. Tell 'em Ken sent you.
Ken McGoogan
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Before turning mainly to books about arctic exploration and Canadian history, Ken McGoogan worked for two decades as a journalist at major dailies in Toronto, Calgary, and Montreal. He teaches creative nonfiction writing through the University of Toronto and in the MFA program at King’s College in Halifax. Ken served as chair of the Public Lending Right Commission, has written recently for Canada’s History, Canadian Geographic, and Maclean’s, and sails with Adventure Canada as a resource historian. Based in Toronto, he has given talks and presentations across Canada, from Dawson City to Dartmouth, and in places as different as Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Hobart.