Spindrift

Description

"an excellent anthology … a lovely project"

--Silver Donald Cameron

Given that Canada has the longest coastline in the world and its motto is "From Sea unto Sea," it is not surprising that virtually every Canadian writer has been inspired to write about some aspect of the sea at some point in their work. As this book shows, those watery passages are some of the very best writing the nation has produced. Journeying coast to coast to coast, from the picturesque and isolated Vancouver Island village of Ucluelet, through the desolate Northwest Passage, to historic Signal Hill at the tip of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula, Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea invites the reader on an evocative voyage. Reflecting on a myriad of sea-related themes--including the earliest Indigenous presence, the first nautical exploration of Canada, the arrival of immigrants on the nation's shores, the realities of making a living on the water, tragic marine events, warfare and celebrated vessels and people--Spindrift paints a compelling portrait of Canada.

Editors Michael and Anita Hadley have distilled the essence from a vast collection of maritime reflection by some of Canada's greatest fiction and non-fiction writers including Milton Acorn, Pierre Berton, Earle Birney, M. Wylie Blanchet, Emily Carr, Donald Creighton, Michael Crummey, Barry Gough, Lawrence Hill, Edith Iglauer, Joy Kogawa, Malcolm Lowry, Linden MacIntyre, Yann Martel, L.M. Montgomery, Donna Morrissey, Farley Mowat, Alice Munro, Peter C. Newman, E.J. Pratt, Al Purdy, Nino Ricci, Stan Rogers, Jane Urquhart and Rudy Wiebe, to name but a few. Whether yachtsman, professional seafarer, or simply an admirer of ocean vistas, the reader will be moved and delighted by this treasury of Canadian voices.

Please note that, due to licensing concerns, selections in the ebook differ slightly from the print book.

Informations

• Publié par: Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
• Date de parution: 05 août 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781771621748
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Spindrift





Spindrift
A Canadian Book of the Sea
Edited, with Introduction and Commentary, by Michael L. Hadley & Anita Hadley




Copyright © 2017 Anita and Michael Hadley

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca , 1-800-893-5777 , [e-mail] .

Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd.
P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0
www.douglas-mcintyre.com

Cover and frontispiece: David Blackwood, Flora S. Nickerson Down on the Labrador , 1978, etching and aquatint on wove paper, final wp 50.5 × 40.2 cm (imp.) All other illustrations by Matthew Wolferstan
Dustjacket design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe
Text design by Mary White
Printed and bound in Canada
Printed on 100% PCW paper


Douglas and McIntyre (2013) Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Spindrift (2017)
Spindrift : a Canadian book of the sea / edited, with introduction and
commentary, by Michael L. Hadley & Anita Hadley.

Includes bibliographical references.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77162-173-1 (hardcover).—ISBN 978-1-77162-174-8 (HTML)

1. Seas—Literary collections. 2. Canada—Literary collections.
I. Hadley, Michael L., editor II. Hadley, Anita, 1938–, editor III. Title.

PS8251.S43S65 2017 C810.8'032162 C2017-902727-1
C2017-902728-X


Dedicated to the memory of Norman Borradaile Hadley (1964–2016).
“Bon matelot.”
“I never could have lived away from the salt water or the salt air, because the sea runs in my blood.”
—Captain Andy Publicover (1877–1960), captain of the Lunenburg schooner W.N. Zwicker





Beginnings
The inspiration for this book arose from an evening of nautical readings held at the Maritime Museum of British Columbia, Victoria. Entitled “Master and Commander,” the presentation offered an entertaining selection describing daring exploits upon the high seas. While passages were largely drawn from the adventures of Patrick O’Brian’s swashbuckling hero, Captain Jack Aubrey, other works from around the world were also represented. We were enthralled—and our seagoing imaginations tweaked. As we walked home past the vessels moored in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, we began to imagine a similar evening based on Canadian nautical writings. What would it include? Who would be the writers? How varied the experiences? How deep the emotions?
So began a five-year quest for Canadian nautical writings. It was a time of joyful discovery. Casting a wide net, we began with literature—novels, poetry, short stories, plays—but soon moved beyond this rich source to include non-fictional writing: journals, histories, biographies, memoirs, even articles. And sometimes we found that they all seemed to be rolled into one. 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 heart.
What we discovered has changed forever the way I think and feel about my country. I once had an image of Canada—narrowly populated from east to west along its southern reaches, then stretching endlessly northward towards limitless, unrelenting ice. It was the land —not the sea—that defined my country. But reading about the Canadian experience of the sea has reconfigured my image. From the Atlantic to the Arctic to the Pacific—yes, also to the Great Lakes—this land of heroic proportions is, as writer and novelist Rudy Wiebe has discovered, shaped and defined by water. Whether we live close to the sea, or far from its shores, it is the oceans that bind our destiny and inform who and what we are as a nation.
The ten sections of Spindrift attest to the breadth—and sometimes contradictions—of our relationship as a nation to the sea. How our oceans encompass us, defining the limits of our vast land mass—at once connecting, separating, nourishing, threatening, bestowing, destroying, enthralling, betraying, inspiring …
A whole community of seafarers inhabits these pages: Inuit, First Nations, explorers, navigators, immigrants, refugees, fishers, whalers, crabbers and squid-jiggers, hunters, boat builders, traders, scientists, adventurers, former slaves, lepers, missionaries, lighthouse keepers, divers, salvagers, travellers and pleasure boaters, poets, surveyors, rescuers, survivors and victims … and those who wait silently in solitude. The stories they tell—or that are told about them—are, in fact, our stories, for they broaden our experience of who we are as a nation. I can no longer remain detached from events occurring on one of our distant shores. From shore to shore to shore, we are bound to one another by a surging in our veins awakening some primordial memory deep within our common experience.
In his book, The Idea of Canada: Letters to a Nation (2016), Governor General David Johnston challenges Canadians to give their country a gift to celebrate Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation. In celebration of our nation’s unique relationship to the three great oceans that bind us, we offer as our gift, Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea.
—Anita Hadley


Waypoints
Spindrift n. i. Blown sea-spray; ii. Spume; iii. Wisps of spray curling off the crests of waves in extreme winds.
—Nautical lore
The sea is a powerful archetype. It strikes unique emotional resonances when we experience it. This is also true when we experience it second-hand through the words of others. As captured in various cultural and literary traditions, the sea conjures up sublime images of power and majesty, of hazard and daunting challenge. The sea reveals undercurrents of myth, memory and imagination. It inspires haunting poetry. Just what this means for the Canadian experience of the sea is the subject of this book.
Our collection gathers responses to a fundamental question: what is the recorded relationship of Canadians to the sea? More pointedly, how has the sea—as a medium, and as an experience—shaped the Canadian consciousness? By contextualizing passages drawn from a wide selection of authors—seafarers and non-seafarers among them—we have let each voice speak for itself. Each witness brings a unique perspective and flavour to what emerges as a compelling mosaic. The authentic tones and moods of these stories and reflections embrace all modes of expression from lyrical to dramatic. Canadian maritime experience—whether in home or foreign waters—is central to the nation’s cultural tradition and lore.
Our principle of selection from among this rich diversity is clear: memorable writing that is brief, representative and engaging. Had we included everything that we had wished, this volume would have run to well over six hundred pages of revealing testimony. Clearly, we have had to adjust our sails to weather and wind: trimming, shortening and even bare-poling to complete the voyage. We have therefore restricted ourselves to those cultural documents which—taken together—reflect the spirit of what Canadians have experienced. What we now offer is “spindrift—wisps of spray curling back off waves.” While we have always sought intrinsically good writing, we have not hesitated on rare occasion to dip into the local and popular. But we do so only if it illuminates some dimension of the Canadian experience.
Of course, other published collections have addressed the topic of Canada and the sea, each one with different emphases and focus. One thinks, for instance, of Allan Anderson’s compilation of interviews with seafaring workers in Salt Water, Fresh Water (1979); or of the regional perspectives in George Nicholson’s self-published Vancouver Island’s West Coast, 1762–1962 (1966) and Meddy Stanton’s We Belong to the Sea: A Nova Scotia Anthology (2002). Rainer K. Baehre’s Outrageous Seas: Shipwreck and Survival in the Waters off Newfoundland, 1583–1893 (1999) provides yet another graphic regional focus. Reflecting on Newfoundland’s historical record, he writes that the “influence of the sea has been pervasive, and it has left a deep cultural imprint, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador.” By casting our net even wider, we have found such cultural imprints wherever Canadians have put to sea.
Writers who envision this broader canvas tend to argue for a particular seabound, geopolitical view of Canada. We see this, for example, in Victor Suthren’s edited work Canadian Stories of the Sea (1993), or in his historical survey The Island of Canada: How Three Oceans Shaped Our Nation (2009). Here he tacitly endorses the perspectives so often repeated in naval and nautical journals. “There is no nation with a greater physical connection to the s