The Black Joke

By Bruce | Published: February 11, 2010

One wind-whipped summer day in the year 1735, a black-hulled ship came storming in from seaward toward the mountain walls which guard the southern coast of Newfoundland. All the canvas she could carry was bent to her tall spars, and she was closing on the rock-ribbed coast at such a furious pace it seemed inevitable she must meet destruction in the surf that boiled and spouted at the foot of the sea-cliffs.

Farley Mowat, The Black Joke (McClelland & Stewart, 1962).

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The old scrivener

By Bruce | Published: February 7, 2010

I vaguely remember seeing a particular episode of Murder She Wrote years ago. A character was trying to sell Jessica some sort of plotting software. This got caught in my mind because the idea of plotting software (in the mid-‘80s) struck me as both frightening and magnetically appealing.

For anyone who knows me, it will come as no surprise that I never quite got around to trying any of this software. I suppose I might have, if I’d heard of somebody else using it. Outlining is a topic that comes up pretty quickly when writers talk. There is no perfect method. There is no universal method. Most writers, like me, have a variety of different systems and tricks depending upon the need.

I was finally driven to try software while dreaming up a complex plot. I’ve been tinkering with this plot now and then for months.

I’ve now spent the weekend playing with Scrivener. I do believe it’s working for me. I’m, ah, already starting to clip together the index cards. Or whatever. It’s pretty cool. There’s still no perfect method of outlining, but Scrivener just took me a step closer.

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Finding time to read

By Bruce | Published: February 4, 2010

Reviewing the footnotes in the story about the HMS St. Lawrence that I just added to the Solid Gold Box took me back twenty years. I remember spending all day poring through the primary source documents (usually in maddeningly-pale photocopies), and then “relaxing” in the evening with the secondary sources that rounded out my understanding of the subject.

To write, you must read. You must read nonfiction and fiction, across all genres and styles, always learning. It is an oft-quoted axiom. I read for hours every day. What is never mentioned in this is that a writer seldom has the opportunity to read for simple enjoyment.

I suppose that one would expect this to be true of writing nonfiction. If I am writing a piece about the Haida canoe, you can be assured that I am reading not just about canoe-making but in fact every scrap I can find about the culture and geography of the Haida people. What is frequently overlooked is that writing fiction has the same requirement.

If a story were set on the Cornwall coast, I would read everything I could find even if I had wholly invented the exact setting. I would be looking for authentic colour. If the same story involved Arthurian legend I would be re-reading Thomas Malory and already branching out as far as Geoffrey Ashe. And if the story were young adult—as most of my writing is, these days—I would be finding every YA story set in Cornwall that I could find.

Every once in awhile (often between projects) I indulge myself with a story that has nothing to do with anything I’m working on. On airplanes, possibly because I am unlikely to write anything beyond musings in my writing notebooks, I usually allow myself to select books with complete freedom.  On my last flight home from New York I read The Lair of the White Worm, by Bram Stoker.

This isn’t to say that I don’t thoroughly enjoy any good story—no matter why I’m reading it. Right now I’m writing a young adult fantasy story, and I’m devouring A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L’Engle. It speaks to me no less powerfully than it did when I first discovered it as a child. But I sometimes wish I could read what I want, when I want to read it. Whenever I think of this I grow determined to carve out more library time for myself—though I never do.

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The eulachon

By Bruce | Published: February 2, 2010

The eulachon was first recorded from British Columbia waters in 1866 by A. Günther on the basis of 4 specimens 8 to 9 inches in length, collected near Vancouver Island by C.B. Wood, surgeon on H.M.S. Plumper, and presented to the British Museum. The eulachon is common along the whole coast of British Columbia, particularly in the larger inlets, and enters large rivers during March, April and May to spawn… The eulachon is taken in considerable numbers in gill nets for the fresh-fish market and is a very choice fish because of its flavour and richness. In recent years a considerable portion of the catch has been utilized as food for animals on fur farms. It is used extensively by the Indians for food and the production of oil for cooking. Previous to the advent of manufactured candles and other lighting devices these fish were dried, fitted with a wick and used as candles, hence the frequently used name candlefish. In 1877 a factory was built on the Nass River for the manufacture of eulachon oil which for the most part was sold to the local Indians although a small amount was shipped to England. The eulachon fishery reached a maximum production in 1903 of about 600 tons and has declined since then to one of minor importance. The Chinook jargon name eulachon is most frequently used as the common name for this fish and the above spelling should be adopted in preference to such variants as: oolachon, oolichan, oulachon and ulchen.

W.A. Clemens and G.V. Wilby, Fishes of the Pacific coast of Canada (Fisheries Research Board of Canada Bulletin No. 68, 1961).

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The coldest and bleakest

By Bruce | Published: February 1, 2010

If your readers only kept in their minds the very vague ideas they entertained of what this Province of Manitoba was like as short a distance of time back as ten years ago, I think most of them will remember that Manitoba was then classed with the Hudson Bay itself in being only fit for habitation by the Eskimo, Northern Indians and fur traders. We inhabitants of the Northwest are particularly interested in the climate and resources of the Hudson Bay country. It is very clear to intelligent men at this date that the employees of the Hudson Bay Company are the last people to whom we must look for practical information of the navigation of the Hudson Bay and Strait, and the resources of its waters and surrounding territories, and it must be borne in mind that their forts or posts are nearly all, in that part of the country, close down to the bay, on the marshy ground that is generally to be found at the outlets of the rivers on which they are built, and I will give evidence further on to show that these spots, as a rule, are the coldest and bleakest in the territory.

Charles N. Bell, letter to the editor, Manitoba Free Press (reprinted in Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society, Transactions, Series 1, No. 7, 1883).

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Raise a little hell

By Bruce | Published: February 1, 2010

If you don’t like
What you got
Why don’t you change it
If your world is all screwed up
Rearrange it

Raise a little hell…

Brian Smith & Ra McGuire (Trooper), “Raise a Little Hell,” Thick as Thieves (MCA, 1978).

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The book collector who failed

By Bruce | Published: January 31, 2010

Surely any serious book collection will be enhanced by the addition of a rare, leather-bound Inuit Bible.

I started as an accumulator of books. I was a great accumulator. Book club editions of Thomas Costain, and an almost-complete 1940s National Geographic collection? Fabulous. Even as a teenager moving my books required the logistical planning of a military operation. Over time I’ve parted with enough books to easily fill a large public library.

If I had a whim to re-read that boiled egg scene in City Boy, I just plucked it from the shelf. Here was every published source about the Group of Seven. There was a whole shelf about megaliths, and a bookcase full of folklore.

Yet it began to bother me that I wasn’t a real book collector. A real collector needs a specialty. Serious collectors glazed over when I said that I picked up whatever caught my eye. Finally I decided to zero in on the core of my library, a few bookcases of nautical books.

I gathered up the Alice Walker and William Safire and Raymond Chandler, the histories of China and the ornithology collection, and my 19th century technical manuals for steam tractors and sewing machines. I either traded up through antiquarian dealers or sold things outright to finance separate purchases. Soon I had a focused collection for the first time, even though the slightest whiff of a bookstore made my self-restraint all but boil over.

Of course I didn’t part with everything. My parents gave me this copy of Bain’s Clans and Tartans of Scotland. I really can’t live without I Heard the Owl Call My Name. And there was no sense parting with all of these interesting-looking books that I bought in Poland, because one day I might learn to read Polish.

Then I began to buy the odd thing that didn’t fit at all, convinced that I would use these to trade for more relevant titles.

When Kasia was born it seemed to me that every child should have certain stories at hand while growing up. Unleashed, I gleefully scooped up nice editions of virtually every story I’ve ever enjoyed.

I was surprised to learn that even my core subject had quite elastic boundaries. Most of Samuel Eliot Morison’s books certainly fit a nautical collection, and he wrote a history of Harvard, so having a Harvard protagonist surely justified a nice edition of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Apparently I can rationalize almost anything—though I can’t quite imagine the logic behind this copy of Arthur Mee’s Nottinghamshire.

Of course I soon realized that I no longer had a collection. I had an interesting exercise in the concept of degrees of separation. I replaced the folklore shelf, paying considerably more than I’d received for those titles. Not long ago I even ended up hauling home a mouldering stack of boys’ annuals.

I’ve accepted that I am a failure as a proper book collector. I love all books too much, and I’m now at peace with the realization that a storyteller’s imagination will run unfettered. What I have, as I have always had, is a delightful, flavourful miscellany—a writer’s library.

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Purity of a purified nature

By Bruce | Published: January 30, 2010

..I beg the reader to find my method of procedure acceptable, and to excuse me if, in order to give a better understanding of the character of our savages, I have been forced to insert here many uncivilized and extravagant details, since one cannot convey complete knowledge of a foreign country or of how it is governed except by showing, along with the good, the evil and the imperfection to be found in it. Otherwise it would not be necessary for me to describe the manners of savages if there were nothing savage to be seen in them, but [on the contrary] polite and refined habits like [those of] nations civilized by religion and piety, or by magistrates and wise men who through their good laws might have given some shapeliness to the uncouth manners of these barbarous nations, for in them one can discern but little of the light of reason and the purity of a purified nature.

Gabriel Sagard (ca. 1614-ca.1636), translated by George M. Wrong, Sagard’s long journey to the country of the Hurons (Champlain Society, 1939).

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Making a mistake

By Bruce | Published: January 29, 2010

This morning I posted an old story to the Solid Gold Box, fully realizing that it was not quite right. I still think it was a good story. It was neither the first time, nor the last time, that I got something wrong in a published piece.

The mistake that sticks most often in my mind was a front-page story from the 1997 collapse of Repap BC. For our newspaper, accurate information about the local mill was always hard to come by—the place was known as the “Rumour Mill.” Paul Anderson wrote a careful and accurate story about the restructuring of the company. I ran it above the fold, and not only increased point size on the headline but added colour. When the paper was delivered from the printer I was faced with the very prominent headline, “REPAP BC RESTUCTURES.”

One that haunts me still is on one of the text panels in the Museum of Northern BC. I was buried in historical sources, and in one place used the outdated spelling “Klondyke” for “Klondike.” It was a conscious decision, which struck me as wrong the minute I saw the produced panel. Another time I was stuck for the spelling of geoduck, and typed the pronunciation “gooey duck” as a place-holder that somehow made its way to print. (Worse, I believe that it appeared in the phrase “gooey duck divers…” Eww.)

Given time, I could likely dream up a book’s-worth of similar stories. The mad race of newspaper production is particularly conducive to errors.

Do these things bug me? You’re darn right they do. More than you might imagine. But writers have to live with mistakes, and lingering fears of imperfection. If the fear becomes too great, you will never hit “send,” and you will never publish.

Unless you want to give up, or tell your stories in a Salinger-like vacuum without validation, mistakes are inevitable. Rethink that rationale one more time. Proof the galleys ten times instead of just nine. And when the inevitable occurs, consider each mistake a lesson learned. In your eyes it will stand out like a neon sign, but for the reader, if they notice at all, a good story will easily rise above that.

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Anne, with an “e”

By Bruce | Published: January 28, 2010

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out the whys and wherefores thereof.

L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (L.C. Page & Co., 1908).

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He heard the ropes creak

By Bruce | Published: January 27, 2010

My grandmother saw the Teazer blown up. She saw it from the Tanner’s house on Heckman’s Island, the first house across the bridge on the right. She saw the British gunboat come inside of Grey Island, now called Pearly Island, and the boats leaving her with eight sweeps on a side, sixteen in all. They were bound up to capture the Teazer. Before they reached it the runaway British soldier who was on board of it blew her up. Since then she has often been seen. I know one man who was out fishing and the ghost of the Teazer got in his way. He heard the ropes creak in the blocks and he thought she was going to run into them.

Helen Creighton, Folklore of Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia (National Museum of Canada Bulletin No. 117, 1950).

[The Young Teazer was a privateer, trapped in Mahone Bay and fired by her own crew on 26 June 1813 to prevent her falling to British warships. She was often later seen as a ghost ship.]

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The Observer

By Bruce | Published: January 26, 2010

The Sophia Z tied up at Northland Terminal, as seen from my office on January 3.

One morning a couple of weeks ago—it may have been the 8th of January—I stood on my veranda and watched the Sophia Z make her way out to sea. She ghosted down the harbour through hazy mist, with a tug alongside.

The 57,000-tonne Sophia Z was on her maiden voyage when she arrived in Prince Rupert in December. She was on approach to Prince Rupert Grain on December 18, taking on wheat for Bangladesh, when she ran aground at Bishop Rock. There were no injuries, and there was no environmental damage. The ship suffered only propeller damage, and a bit of internal bruising.

On December 21 she was moved for repairs to Northland Cruise Terminal, directly below my office at the Museum of Northern BC.

It’s really quite an amazing thing to have a 190-metre vessel just below your window. Our office was closed for the holidays while she was there, but whenever I stopped by I was invariably distracted by watching.

The scene always changed. Hatches opened and closed. Men in orange suits and flashes of reflective yellow moved around the decks.  Divers worked on her wheel, and other vessels came and went. Gulls circled.

The weather here doesn’t really plan ahead. At one moment the ship’s colours glared in bright sun. Then she loomed from the fog, or a milky horizon closed in and left the vessel inside a swirl of snow.

When I was a boy on the prairies, as far from the sea as I could be, I imagined being able to scrape an eyehole in the frost on the window and see a real ship right there before me. I’d forgotten that. I see too many ships and boats these days to think much about things like that. But it’s hard to ignore an ocean-going vessel that really is tied up just outside your window.

Writers are inveterate observers—but sometimes, just like everyone else, our eyes become jaded. Familiarity softens the sense of wonder. Sometimes I’m so wrapped up in other thoughts that I barely notice the eagle soaring by, or even the simple fact that I live in a place of stunning beauty.

When reminded, such as at this moment of having a childhood whimsy come true, one instinctively goes back to that genesis of storytelling—observing, and trying to understand.

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Sorry, we’re Canadian

By Bruce | Published: January 25, 2010

Harris once asked, “I don’t know what moved us.” He meant, I think, that he couldn’t put his finger on that last indefinable something. I said, “Something in the air moved us. The artist just up and does something about it without knowing what it was exactly about. It was a genuinely Canadian thing. The Group of Seven caught and reflected the nationalism in the air.” I said further to Harris, “It’s a northern people with a northern country and we had to come to terms with it.” Harris said, “I didn’t see it that way.” And I remarked, “No—you’re Canadian.”

Arthur Lismer, journal entry reprinted by John McLeish in September Gale (Dent, 1955).

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Sweeping up between the acts

By Bruce | Published: January 24, 2010

Many years ago I met a sad, shambling fellow in Brandon, Manitoba. He was custodian of a large arena complex. He pushed a wide broom and was clearly out of place, like the long-shoed circus clown who shuffles out to clean up between acts.

There was something about him that made me curious – something nautical, I thought – and I struck up a conversation. At first he just talked about how today’s youth didn’t know anything about work. But that led him to talk about how pulling your weight could mean the difference between life and death at sea.

We drank coffee in a staff room. All through that winter’s night the giant arena shuddered with mighty gusts of wind. His broom lay forgotten near the door. So vividly did he paint life aboard the HMCS Bonaventure, Canada’s last aircraft carrier, that I’ve forgotten what he was doing sweeping floors back home in Manitoba. I wonder sometimes if he stayed, the prodigal son returned, or if he’s long since found some other port. He wasn’t an old man when we met.

I only gradually realized that he and I weren’t very different. There’s not much to look at, but we can tell you a story.

Yet there was also an important difference between us. Writers seldom do the things that you read in stories. Those are the actors. We get to hang out with the actors, and sometimes travel with them to new places. But in the end we just watch the show, then sweep up the pieces and take them away for sorting. I’ve reached a point where I want nothing more than to be able to do that well.

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Bruce Wishart
Whimsies. Sometimes about writing.
Sometimes about folklore. Sometimes
about the sea, or life on the coast.
And sometimes not.