Canadian Cultural Diversity
Travel through Canada with four critically acclaimed books that make manifest Canada’s cultural diversity. The Vermont Humanities Reading & Discussion will be facilitated by Rachael Cohen. Rachael has been a freelance editor specializing in environmental and regional studies, a teacher of writing, literature, and natural history, a caller of contra dances, and a farm hand. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Cornell University and a Master of Science in Environmental Education from the Audubon Expedition Institute/Lesley University. When she’s not teaching for the University of Michigan’s New England Literature Program, held each spring at a camp in New Hampshire, she’s a caretaker in southern Vermont.
Roy McGregor, Canoe Lake (11 January 2025) A troubled American woman travels to a small Ontario town, determined to find the mother she has never known. As she searches through dusty records and stirs up old memories among those around her, three young people emerge from the mists of the past . . . a beautiful woman named Jenny, a shy local boy named Russell, and a dark-eyed painter named Tom, who changes the course of Jenny and Russell’s lives. Historical reality and conjecture are skillfully interwoven with intrigue and suspense as these three move unwittingly toward tragedy.
Emily Carr, Klee Wyck (1 February 2025 - first Saturday only this month) Klee Wyck is Canadian artist Emily Carr’s memoir. Through short sketches, the artist tells of her experiences among First Nations people and cultures on British Columbia’s west coast. The book won the 1941 Governor General’s Award and occupies an important place in Canadian literature.
Alistair MacLeod, Island (8 March 2025) The sixteen exquisitely crafted stories in Island prove Alistair MacLeod to be a master. Quietly, precisely, he has created a body of work that is among the greatest to appear in English in the last fifty years. A book-besotted patriarch releases his only son from the obligations of the sea. A father provokes his young son to violence when he reluctantly sells the family horse. A passionate girl who grows up on a nearly deserted island turns into an ever-wistful woman when her one true love is felled by a logging accident. A dying young man listens to his grandmother play the old Gaelic songs on her ancient violin as they both fend off the inevitable. The events that propel MacLeod’s stories convince us of the importance of tradition, the beauty of the landscape, and the necessity of memory.