The School of the Haunted River

Colleen Gerwing

Description

On a two-week outdoor winter snowshoeing trip in northern Saskatchewan with her niece Dilly, outdoor adventurer Jay tells stories as they hike and camp. Some are true – her outdoor training in Wyoming, her early life on the farm – and some are stories within stories within stories. A faux diamond necklace that mysteriously appears and disappears, Jay’s youthful encounters with the mysterious Cowboy, an inspiring series of books that she read on her long-ago canoe trip alone – all are underscored by Jay’s love and respect for the wild.

In The School of the Haunted River, the late Colleen Gerwing fashioned a novel based on her own life as an outdoorswoman, a novel about the natural world that will haunt and enchant even as it educates you.h

Sujets

• Literary
• Women
• Canadá
• Literature
• Woman
• The Women
• Canada
• Fiction
• Saskatchewan

Informations

• Publié par: Endless Sky Books
• Date de parution: 28 juin 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781989398876
• Langue: English

Extrait

praise for colleen gerwing



Colleen Gerwing was a marvellous naturalist.  Whenever I went into the boreal forest with Colleen, I was prepared to learn something new, and often surprising, about the forest and its inhabitants. Colleen loved spending time in the forest in every season of the year. Each animal she saw and bird she heard added to her deep appreciation of the boreal environment, and she was always ready to share her insights with others.
J. David Henry, author of Canada’s Boreal Forest


Colleen spent decades of her life on the land. She always sought to connect or reconnect others with nature. Her thoughtful words continue to impact all those who knew her or read her writing.
Lauren Markewicz, M.A., Interpretation Officer / Coordinator III, Prince Albert National Park, Parks Canada / Government of Canada

THE SCHOOL OF THE HAUNTED RIVER


Published by
Endless Sky Books
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
www.endless-sky-books.com


Copyright © 2023 by MaryAnn Roettger
All rights reserved


All characters and events in this book are fictitious.
Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.


Print ISBN: 978-1-989398-86-9
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-989398-87-6


Edited by dee Hobsbawn-Smith
Additional editing and cover design by Edward Willett


Cover painting:
“The Haunted River” by Colleen Gerwing
contents



Introduction
by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

Preface
by MaryAnn Roettger


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24


Author’s Note

About the Author

About Endless Sky Books
introduction
by dee Hobsbawn-Smith

There are moments and experiences that define our characters, shape our lives, and carry us through our days on a river as unstoppable as time. For Colleen Gerwing, her time spent at the National Outdoor Leadership School in Wyoming in 1977 shaped an already keen interest in the outdoor world and indelibly coloured how she chose to spend her life’s energies.
In 2015-16, during the year we spent shaping her emerging manuscript toward the book she dreamed of, Colleen usually entered my office at the library wearing shorts and a knee brace, with a bicycling helmet in one hand and her backpack in the other. At the time, I was Writer in Residence at the Saskatoon Public Library, and Colleen made regular trips to see me at the downtown library regardless of the weather or the state of the roads. I learned early on that she was an inveterate outdoorswoman and camper, so a little bit of winter experienced from the wheels of her bike in a small city was no big deal to her.
An emerging writer, Colleen showed up with a piece of work that she couldn’t quite classify – was it a work of fiction or a memoir? Was it, strictly speaking, true, or was it a hybrid of facts and imagination? She didn’t decide during our regular sessions, but by the time her manuscript showed up on my desk again just a few weeks before she died in 2021, Colleen had made the decision to tilt her work into the realm of fiction. By then, she had worked closely with several other Saskatchewan writers and writers in residence, among them novelist and editor J. Jill Robinson and the naturalist, bird expert, and author Trevor Herriot.
In her early manuscript, Colleen had drawn on her life’s experiences: as a green outdoorswoman learning the ways of the natural world while with the National Outdoor Leadership School; her years of work for the Parks Service; and a lifetime of canoeing, hiking, camping, backpacking, and outdoor adventure. In 2021, the draft Colleen presented me with for editing had, in the intervening years and work with other writers, undergone the same type of pressure that coal undergoes in transforming into gemstone. That is to say, Colleen found her story and how she wanted to tell it and set about polishing the rough edges until the clear and shining story that was her novel emerged.
Colleen ran out of time to complete her revisions. Her partner, MaryAnn Roettger, asked me to respect Colleen’s words, so my work as Colleen’s final editor did not involve any substantive alterations. Here is her story, distilled from her own life and her own lived experience, recast as a novel, The School of the Haunted River . She left the world a better place.
preface
by MaryAnn Roettger

Colleen Gerwing grew up on a mixed farm in central Saskatchewan and worked in recreation and at a number of southern parks, but she grew to love the northern boreal forest best. She was a skilled and enthusiastic canoeist. In the 1970s, she led canoe trips for women and worked for a summer as a guide at Algonquin Park in Ontario and later as a cross-country ski instructor all over Saskatchewan. She loved winter camping, too, and headed off, after careful planning, into the wilderness most winters for days alone. She introduced many people to these activities and always made them fun.
She made many canoe trips in Prince Albert National Park. She chose camping sites away from public campsites and busy trails, and in the quiet hours beside the fire, she journaled, describing the natural surroundings, the animals, and the highlights and challenges encountered on the trip. Writing was a way to process and remember these experiences.
With commitment and determination, Colleen devoted herself to writing about her canoe adventures. This book, The School of the Haunted River , is a novel. The characters, the chronology, and the locations are fiction, but the events she describes in the novel are based on real-life experiences.
Completing a book requires many hours of writing and rewriting. Sadly, Colleen was not able to achieve the end goal of seeing this novel published. She passed away in 2021.
Colleen benefited from the help and encouragement provided by many others in her writing journey. If she were writing this preface, she would most certainly wish to acknowledge each one.
She submitted a draft of the manuscript to Trevor Herriot for his critique. Through the Saskatchewan Writers Guild mentorship program, Colleen was paired with J. Jill Robinson, who became both an insightful editor and a friend. She benefited greatly from the Saskatoon Public Library’s Writer in Residence program. She met with several authors in this program, including dee Hobsbawn-Smith, who continued to meet with Colleen even after her term as Writer in Residence was done. It is dee who has embraced the task of guiding the final draft of Colleen’s book through the lengthy process leading to its publication.
Colleen was generous in sharing her canoeing expertise. She was a patient yet exacting instructor, demonstrating for others, including me, her partner, the correct position of the oar for the J-stroke, for example. A paddling experience with Colleen was an opportunity for both learning and adventure. I treasure these canoeing memories, keeping them and the love we shared in my memory bank and in my heart. I can hear her still, calling to me from her position in the stern: “Keep paddling! Let’s just see what’s around the next bend!”

Pallid threads slice the gloom
paddle in wind under silvery moon
canoe splits into a sliver
the last of its song on the haunted river.
chapter one

The plane, a small, high-wing Cessna, shudders into life, disturbing odours of former passengers and cargo that crinkle my nose. As we rumble down the airstrip, I wave to my sister, Erica, her words unheard, shaping my name—Jay—and Dilly’s. “Goodbye!”
We pick up speed and take off. The plane buzzes like a fat bumblebee. It’s cramped and stuffy with Bob, the pilot, who’s built like an offensive lineman, my niece, Dilly, me, and our stuff. I think about nothing that is everything. Like, what if something happens and we miss the return flight? Then the roll call: toilet paper, extra socks, outdoor tracker? Check, check, check. And the return date, the morning of Day 15, a full two weeks. Did someone pack sanitary napkins, extra granola bars, extra waterproof-windproof matches? We’ll need them: our two-week snowshoe trip will take us from where Bob’s plane will land us at Genuflection Lake—northwest of this tiny airport in Prince Albert, gateway to northern Saskatchewan—to where we’ll get picked up at the Saskquatsch Annie River, almost straight north.
Sounds simple enough. When I, myself, was Dilly’s age and training to be a pilot, I preferred low-wing craft with an unlimited view of the universe. But there were obstacles to women flying then, and especially to women flying alone. I never did get my licence. So many starts and stops in my life. Why didn’t I just focus on something and get it done?
Earlier, waiting for the plane, I saw the new moon’s slender crescent cradling the dark side of the elder moon, but neither the ashen old moon nor its dazzling young rim would be visible without the sun, millions of miles away. I see the same earthshine in Dilly’s young face, the brightness she reflects when she’s outdoors.
I hope Dilly hasn’t changed her mind. She and I have slept out in winter before, a couple of nights in the Sleepy Pines campground just a stone’s throw away, but this two-week snowshoe trip will be something else again. She wanted to cut this trip in half so she wouldn’t miss her broomball tournament. But who would trade sleeping in a snowbank surrounded by a forest teeming with wolves for a sweaty tournament and hot chocolate at an indoor rink?



* * *
M