What Genres Mean [Index Post]

I've written enough about different genres and how their form impacts meaning that I think I should make an index post bringing them together and sorting them. There might be some doubling up, since one post might fit into multiple groups. ("Other People's Epics," in particular, ends one sequence and begins another.) Pretty much all of these can be found through the "genre and form" or the "poetic form" labels, but those labels also retrieve lots of other things, so I hope this is useful in its organization and specificity.

Other People's [Insert Genre]s Series
In which I talk about how genres alter their content and what this means for choosing the best genre as a vehicle for an idea. In which I also talk about imagining other people's epics, mysteries, etc.
Other People's Epics
Other People's Mysteries
Other People's [Insert Genre]s

National Epics
In which my thinking about potential national epics, particularly an epic for Soviet Canuckistan, evolves somewhat.
7 Quick Takes (XLVIII)
The Canadian Epic
Other People's Epics

The Fantasy Genre
In which I think about problems unique to the fantasy genre.
Magic Realism and the Trick of Taxonomy
Magic, Maps, and Mystery

Miscellany
Multiculturalism in the Monster Kingdom, Parts I and II, which I considered putting under both National Epics and The Fantasy Genre, and in which I talk about how Cyberlore's Majesty 2 both does and does not tell a compelling story about the creation of a hybrid monster culture
As For Me and My House, in which I talk about the self-account genre, a la Judith Butler, in relation to the coming-out narrative, the testimony, and self-disclosure of mental illness.
This Exploitation Might Not Be the Kind You're Thinking of, in which I talk about exploitation flicks and group identities.
A New Poetic Form, in which I make up a form called an aubadina, which is really just a messed-up sonnet, designed specifically to express the parting of ways.

I will update this as I write more posts like these.

The Canadian Epic

Since tomorrow is Canada Day, I'm going to muse a little about what sort of narrative art would best represent this country. I do this because I have a sense that there is no form of art which could thoroughly tackle the problem of Canada.

Last year, I wrote how I gave some thought to what a Canadian epic would look like, and that I hadn't gotten very far. You can see that in Take 5. I thought about the kinds of things one would want to include, somehow: maple leaves, maple syrup, fields of corn, mountains and other quintessential Canadian landscapes, beavers, moose, Tim Horton's coffee, hockey, polar bears... (I say this with my tongue partly in my cheek.) Since then I have learned a bit more about Canada and a bit more about epics and I see that there is a problem. There cannot be a Canadian epic.

A national epic, properly understood, has a unified sense of nation. That is, The Aenead offers a sense of Rome as a nation; The Faerie Queene offers what it means to be English. Not all epics are national; Paradise Lost is a Christian epic, giving a unified and complete sense of Milton's idea of Christendom. I suggest elsewhere that One River (Wade Davis) could be considered to be an ethnobotanical epic. Regardless, whatever it represents, an epic is supposed to embody and represent the ethic and sensibility of that group. It generates or at least displays a coherent identity. If that group has disparate parts, it unifies them. It ties them all in together. It exudes Englishness, Romanness, Christianness, ethnobotanistness. (There is more to an epic than this. Wikipedia gives an OK account of it. If you're interested, it's a very cool form. I'm sure there are articles you can get from an academic library which would discuss it in greater depth.)

Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian language theorist working in the 1920s, goes further. An epic (or anything written with an epic sensibility) has a single language. In his formulation, a language embodies the social position and worldview of that speaker. He doesn't hear mean the distinction between French, Russian, English, Latin, etc. "Language," rather, refers to smaller groupings. Think, for instance, of the language used by politicians in speeches as a language, or the language of legal documents, or the language of Catholic sermons, or of Evangelical sermons, or of atheist bloggers, or of daycare workers when speaking to children, or of "storytelling voice", or of flirtation, or of plumbers talking about their trade, or of nineteen-year-olds texting one another. Each of these has its own patterns; in each of these, the same word may have different meanings (think, for instance, of what "reasonable" might mean in each of these languages, or whether that word could even be said in all of them). Each also, therefore, represents a different set of relationships between words and ideas and people. That is, each represents a different wordview. The epic is written in a single language. If other languages appear, they appear as objects that the author is presenting, not positions the author is adopting.

Canada is too diverse for an epic to work. More than this, we are self-consciously diverse. The political vision of a unified Canada might suggest that we could rally under multiculturalism--in fact, that often is the political vision of Canada--but unfortunately we cannot easily do this. If we were to honestly and fairly incorporate different people into the Canadian epic, we'd have a problem. Many of the First Nations, Inuit, Asian immigrated, Eastern European immigrated, and African immigrated people would have a problem with the sort of Canadian narrative offered. They (rightly) have problems with the existing narrative offered. It would be all but impossible to find a story which could incorporate all of their voices. A story that could would lose it's unity; it would lose any sense that there is one way to be Canadian. That there is such a thing as Canadianness.

Further, Canadian regionalism gets in the way. How does one reconcile Vancouver, for instance, with Ontario? Many people in Vancouver rebel against the idea that Ottawa speaks for Canada; at least, if Ottawa speaks for Canada, it certainly doesn't speak for Vancouver. In many ways, Vancouver feels more aligned with Seattle and Hong Kong than with the rest of Canada. And what of Quebec? What of Newfoundland? What of Nunavut? Each has its own reason for feeling alienated from a sense of unified Canadian identity, either because they stick so fiercely to their own culture (Quebec), or because they feel that the federal government's policies are deliberately harmful to their economy (Newfoundland), or because their government, ethnic constitution, and basic living conditions are so fundamentally different from the rest of the country's (Nunavut). Each province and territory has a unique political climate, physical and vegetative landscape, occupational environment, music scene, colonial history, and (often) accent and vocabulary.

And, unlike the United States, we haven't mythologized the founding of our country. We don't speak of principles on which our Constitution is based, or of the intentions of Founding Fathers, or of some vague sense of democratic ethics synonymous with our country's name. We don't take ourselves to be representative of freedom or democracy or human rights (though we have as good a claim to be so as the United States does).

Maybe this is why things like maple syrup, polar bears, beavers, moose, the "Canadian landscape," and hockey are Canadian symbols: they're blank, they're less charged (though hockey is becoming a problem), they're unrelated to the actual things Canadians live with and face. But for the same reason, they can't represent us in any meaningful way. And, anyway, not even something like winter can be taken as universal. A friend from Vancouver has said to me that he's never experienced a so-called "Canadian" winter and he's lived here most of his life. And it's not as though Canada's the only place to get winter. Alaska has a winter, as do Russia and the Scandinavian countries.

So Bakhtin's sense of a novel might work better. The novel is structured around heteroglossia, the juxtaposition of voices. Good examples of heteroglossia in English are Sterne, Dickens, and Austen. Even the authoral language is seen from the viewpoint of secondary languages; language which is parodied nonetheless resists parody, exists in its own right and must be taken as a self-contained language. (Not all things we call novels today fit in this definition. Most are much more unitary, more like epics.) Perhaps, then, there can be a Canadian novel, but it would nonetheless not have the sense of unified identity. Rather, it would at best suggest multiple, contradicting ways of being Canadian. The Great Canadian Novel cannot really be Greatly Canadian because it can never be finished. That, in fact, would be the only essentially Canadian thing about it; the disagreeing voices would multiply beyond the possibility of representation.

And so over the course of the last year I have come to recognize that writing the Canadian would not be hard but rather impossible. Of course all groups have much internal dissent, and one wonders how many sixteenth century English readers rebelled against Spenser's sense of the English, or how many seventeenth century readers rebelled against Milton's sense of the Christian. (I'd say "a lot" for the latter.) But there was at least a sense that the authors could fool themselves into thinking they'd done it. Such self-delusion would be much more difficult for Canada at this time. Perhaps it would be possible in Ottawa or in an Ontario public school, where a sense of Canadian identity is much more fierce. But if, like me, you've travelled a bit more of the country, spoken to more of the people in it, studied more of its history, you'll start to see that it can't be done.

No. If I want to write an epic, it can't be a nationalist one. But I can still write a Canadian [genre], I suppose, so long as its incompleteness is highlighted.

(And maybe I can still write an epic, but one for a different kind of category. A literary analytical epic, for instance? A bookworm epic? An Anglican universalist epic?)

7 Quick Takes (77)

1. The folks and I went to Ontario to see my brother graduate. If you are a reader in Ontario and you are wondering why I didn't visit, it's because my schedule was very full. We visited family and friends of the family. We ran some errands. We poked around Stratford, the city where I went to high school.

2. For my birthday, my brother gave me a painting, among other things. You can see it here. It is entitled Calliphoridae Megacephala (I assume). I think you'd have to be in our family or a close friend to fully understand why this is a real present.

3. We also learned about Justin Bieber. You see, The Biebs hails from Stratford, Ontario, my maternal homeland. We even went to the same high school, albiet not at the same time. It was a little odd to see that Stratford has to a small extent been made over with a Bieber geography in my absense: Rheo Thompson Candies (a well-known chocolatier in the Stratford tourist industry) now has a Justin Bieber box, Bieber collector's cards and other paraphenalia are available in most retail locations, and places like his favourite restaurant (Madeliene's) which were previously understood in terms of family and friend's connections to it are now labeled as part of the Bieber landscape. Stratford was already a tourist town due to its theatre and arts scene--and its shops and restaurants--but now it has been remade again. I think I prefered Shakespeare-themed tourism to teen idol-themed tourism.

My brother and I discussed the young man in question and determined that he is not at fault for the silliness that surrounds him (though asking the mayor of Stratford to do something about the fans mobbing him was a bit out of touch with reality). The real issue lies with the obsessed fans--hyperventilating because a mediocre singer is in the same city as you? really?--and with the media outlets that encourage this behaviour, typifying it as a valid developmental stage in young women as opposed to teaching girls to make good choices in who they bestow their affections on and how they do it.

4. On Monday I bid Fort McMurray farewell and flew to Vancouver. That makes three provinces in a handful of days and three flights in just over a week. I've maxed my annual allowable environmental damage right there, I think. The weather, scent, and vegetation that greeted me was wonderful.

5. Wednesday evening some friends and I went to see The Merchant of Venice at Bard on the Beach. Other friends would have gone were it not for Game 7 (see next entry). It was an interesting production. Off the top, I'll say that the costumes, acting, and music were as good as one could want. Shylock was especially wonderful. But as with any production of Merchant, there are some particular problems that are hard to overcome. Portia is racist. In order to mitigate this, I think, they really played the suitors from Carthage and Aragon as ridiculous figures, but with the culturally and racially sensitive dialogue, this verged on being racist in and of itself. Further, Shylock's forced conversion is horrifying, but not as horrifying as the audience's laughter at it. One of the more interesting choices, I think, is to make the homosocial relationship between Antonio and Bossanio an unreciprocated romantic relationship: Antonio clearly loved Bossanio as something other than a son, and his melancholy was "explained" by Bossanio leaving him. However, I like a tinge of sorrow in fictions, so this lingering plot, coupled with other moments of sadness and discomfort in the midst of the comedy (including a really uncomfortable Jessica), gave the play a depth and self-consciousness that I think was necessary. As one of my friends said, you can't really play it as a straight comedy any more.

6. There were riots in Vancouver that night. If you've been following Canadian news or coverage of the Stanley Cup, you may know what I'm talking about. Post-game rioters turned and torched sixteen police vehicles and looted numerous businesses in the Vancouver district. Also in attendance were riot police.

While waiting outside during the intermission, I suddenly noticed and called attention to a plume of smoke rising from the downtown district across the water. I hadn't paid mind to it at first because I was so used to smoke in Fort McMurray. A quick check on assorted Internet-connected gadgetry and my friends had the story. Since we knew people who had been at the game, we were a bit worried. Fortunately, all such friends were safe.

I've been distressed by the coverage of this event. The city officials have been blaming anarchists, which is ridiculous. While the blatant disregard for law shown by the rioters has a surface resemblance to anarchy, it is no more than surface. On Facebook I saw people writing that they were down there and there was no riot, only riot police. This is also ridiculous, considering ample first-person civilian reports of rioting. Beyond which, I don't think the riot police set their own cars on fire. Others are trying to deflect criticism from hockey itself, but of course there are problems with that, too: riots have occured in Vancouver before following big hockey games, but not following much else. What's most concerning, though, is the increase in sexual predation and harassment following hockey games. There are two articles that I found especially helpful. This one explains what happened and what has been said about it; this one looks closer at hockey itself and what gender has to do with it.

7. On Thursday I bought a new camera. I was quite pleased with it in the store, if leery of the touch screen, but now I'm not so sure. I'm not comfortable with its supermacro. I'll play with it a bit, continue trying this supermacro, and if it's not as good as my previous camera's, I'll go exchange it. I have two weeks to exchange, so long as I don't damage it. I'm sure I could live with this camera, but I'd rather have one I'm comfortable with considering that I expect it to last me a few years. It does have some nice features, mind you, including underwater photography and scrolling panoramics.

That is all! Please visit Conversion Diary, host of this blog carnival.

7 Quick Takes (69)

1. It's Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas!
Jen won't be hosting 7 Quick Takes this week, but for reason you'll soon know today is still OK for me to do this. I haven't been on for a week, either, so perhaps it's about time I let you know what's been happening.

2. I finally finished and turned in my paper. I'm not very pleased with it, but I suppose it's passable. That took far more work and stress than anticipated. I still have a paper left to do over the break, which is less than pleasing.

3. On Monday I went to visit a friend in Richmond. We ate at a Malaysian place in the Aberdeen Centre. I also managed to get myself headed in the wrong direction on the way home; I only noticed my error when I saw a mountain in the wrong place.

4. On Tuesday I caught a flight from YVR. There's a Bill Reid sculpture there which is nationally famous by way of being printed on the back of the $20 bill. I got some photos of that. That evening I arrived in Fort McMurray, as did my brother.

5. On Wednesday we celebrated Christmas. My Dad works Christmas Day so we just pick a day when we're all together to celebrate Christmas. After all, the 25 of December probably isn't the actual anniverary of Christ's birth, so we generally figure one arbitrarily chosen day is as good as another arbitrarily chosen day as far as present-distribution goes. I'll still be headed to church tonight, but we've done the gift-giving already.

6. Also on Wednesday my brother and I had to go to the dentist's. At the dentist's I was told I needed to get a filling, for which I went in again on Thursday. The check-up, x-ray, and cleaning took more time than the filling did. It was a quick and easy process. The only downside is that there's now this strange stuff in my back molar to which I will need to adjust. Believe it or not, this is the first filling I've ever had. I don't like being unfamiliar with the inside of my own mouth.

7. My mother gave my brother Avatar for Christmas, so we watched in yesterday. I'd never seen it before. I was fairly impressed, but I hear it has nothing on being seen in 3D. I might post about it; I might not. We shall see.
I also received Castle Waiting from the brother and read it yesterday. More discussion on it later. (I received many other books, too, but I haven't finished them yet.)

8. On Tuesday I visited former employers. Sometime this weekend we intend to go walking and/or tobaganning. We also plan to visit Edmonton. However, you shall hear next Friday whether this plans come to fruition.

That is all. Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

...while I try to think of today as something other than a commemoration of horrific colonial violence.

7 Quick Takes (XLVIII)

1. After some calling and listing-looking, I have found a place to stay in BC. I now will not be homeless when I go to school.

2. I am reading Sense and Sensibility. By Jane Austen. Yeah, yeah, it's a girls' book or something. I was told that if I was going to read Manfield Park, which is on my bookshelf, then I ought to read Sense and Sensibility first, as Mansfield is apparently the worst of the Austen books and Sense one of the best. This way I would not be unduly turned off by the author's less esteemed work. So I got Sense and Sensibility from the library at the same time that I got Understanding Comics and a collection of T. S. Eliot's poetry.

3. I discovered I dislike T. S. Eliot's poetry as much now as I did in first year of university.

4. Geez. Not much has happened. I'm struggling for seven here. I watched The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman. I was impressed, more than I had anticipated.

5. I got Canada Day off work, as it is a statutory holiday. Some people, I hear, are boycotting it? I understand frustration with Canada's policies, and I understand that some folks are not thrilled to be part of Canada (Quebecois separatists, some Native separatists), but the folks I had heard were boycotting Canada Day are not to my knowledge separatists. I think they struggle with ideas of nation and nationality. That Canada contains many nationalities does make a single celebratory national day difficult, I suppose? But to boycot seems unnecessary. That seems like an awfully symbolic denial of your own Canadian identity. This would be rather like my dropping out of school because I had problems with the education system, or refusing to obey any Canadian law because I disagreed with the drafting of one. That is to say, it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I prefer to make changes from the inside rather than the outside, so long as those on the inside are not transgressing enormous ethical codes. You know, genocide or something. Even then I would likely oppose in the name of the sort of Canada I envision.

Not that I was terribly patriotic on Canada Day. I was pretty lazy, minus a hike through the woods. I also spent a little time contemplating what a Canadian epic would look like (epics often being nationalist, right?), but did not get very far. Em or Brad, if you're reading this, have you ever considered what an American epic would look like? And I mean Renaissance Spenser-Milton-inspired-by-Ovid-and-Homer sort of epic. Not "epic blockbuster" sort of epic.

6. I had a panic yesterday. I had been looking for an envelope which gave me information about a government research grant I had been offered. In order to receive those funds I need to do some more paperwork, which means I needed the envelope. Which I could not find. I looked in the place I keep important envelopes, and it wasn't there. So I tore my room apart, in a near frenzy, working myself into a state of nervous panic. The whole time I was praying, God, forgive me my transgressions, please don't let me fail at life because of my own stupid stupid mistakes and my own carelessness over and over again. This isn't usual for me; generally I'm just in a wreck and swear up and down that I'll be more organized in future. Begging God doesn't usually come into it. Is this improvement because I'm communicating? I'm not sure.

After making a mess of my room and probably making it harder to find it, I decided to look again in the place where I keep important envelopes and, wouldn't you know it, there it was. I had missed it. And then felt like an idiot, which really wasn't a change, since I had been feeling like an idiot in the first place for losing it. So now it's sitting on my desk (which is perhaps somewhat neater than before), where I can see it, so I can do the paperwork tomorrow.

7. There was a bison at work, but he was too frisky and young for me to pet. Or lead, which is what I wanted. Ponies and donkeys? That's so last week. A bison would have been cool. But even I wouldn't be silly enough to try and lead this young man. (He's two years old, an age which is alike in humans and bison in being "terrible". He's also big.)

7 Quick Takes is hosted by Jennifer Fulwiller. I encourage you, as always, to visit her.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day!




You've heard the discussion about changing our national anthem? Well, I know where my vote's headed.

7 Quick Takes (XXXII)

1. Saturday was decent. I went to work for an hour, went for a walk, and got some writing done.

2. I managed to miss the Olympic game on Sunday. I screwed up what time it was on, and turned the TV on to see the Canadian team skating the flag around the ice after receiving their gold medals.

"Well," my Mom said, "at least we're saved the suspense."

Belatedly, then, "Go Canada! Woo!"

3. I found out that I was accepted into grad school to study English. I was expecting a phone call at work, so left my cell on (which I never do). I received a call and answered it, and it turned out to be from a university! They are not my first choice, but they are offering me nice incentives, so I'll need to see what I get from other schools which may or may not make offers in the near future. I haven't heard from a few, yet.

Yay!

4. I spent a lot of time with children at work. This was fun. Where I work we have the Open Minds program, in which a class from a local school will come to the Park for one week and we'll run a program for them. Their teacher and some parent volunteers are there, too, so it's not like we have to run the program entirely by ourselves. For reasons irrelevant to this story I was asked to help with the program quite a bit this week. I have a hard time saying, "No," most times at work; I have an even harder time declining working with kids; and I have an exceptionally hard time saying, "No," to a young and pretty teacher who would like me to work with her class.

Apparently some of the kids thought I was an artifact and wanted to write journal entries about me. Actually, they did write entries about me, but Miss Teacher convinced them that I wasn't actually an artifact, even if I had been at the museum for three years.

Oh, and I got married to a supervisor in a skit for the kids. This is the second time I've been wed in the course of working here. This time there was less ceremony, but a bigger audience.

5. It's been t-shirt weather here in Fort McMurray. It's still chilly in the mornings, but by the end of the day I'm going around in short sleeves.

6. I'm re-attempting The Trouble with Physics. After floundering around in the middle of the book, no longer able to pretend I understand this level of theoretical physics (though I think I did quite well considering when I stopped taking physics in highschool), I quit for a littel while. I have now come back to it, skipping to the final section. This section is less about the history of theoretical physics, what string theory is, and what string theory's rivals are, and more on the social mechanics of the situation.

The book is about the author's misgivings about the resources spent on string theory and the amount of confidence string theorists (and the general public) have in this theory when, in fact, it is far from being proven with any confidence. There are enormous problems with the theory (though no worse than with any of its alternatives) which string theorists seem unaware of. Further, he points out the ways in which physics departments stifle dissent and independent thought, which prevents any progress in either string theory or its rivals. If you're interested, you need to read the book, not what an English major thinks of the book.

Anyway, I'm almost done reading it.

Excerpt:

But when and if the issue of finiteness is settled, we will have to ask how it happened that so many members of a research program were unaware of the status of one of the key results in their field. Should it not be of concern that between 1984 and 2001 many string theorists talked and wrote as if it were a fact that the theory was finite? Why did many string theorists feel comfortable talking to outsiders and insiders alike, using language that implied the theory was fully finite and consistent?
Finiteness is not the only example in string theory of a conjecture that is widely believed but so far unproven. What is sure is that the strongest of these conjectures is far from proved, although some weak version is certainly well supported. But this is not how some string theorists see it...

7. I just purchased season 4 of Battlestar Galactica. Uh-oh.

Worth reading: Esther Elizabeth's post.

Go see Conversion Diary. Now!

7 Quick Takes (XXXI)

1. It was Customer Appreciation Day at Coles. I think it is needless to say that I bought books. Too many. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Paradise Lost (scrupulously NOT the one prefaced by Philip Pulman), The Bone Handbook (dealing not with skeletons but with the [epic] graphic novels of Jeff Smith, which I insist you borrow immediately from your public library, esp. if you like things that are funny, that contain a pretty girl [Jon], that have adventure, or that are good), and The Odyssey. Bad Christian! Bad! (You'll notice in the photo a fifth book. We'll get to it later.)

2. I believe I got some writing done this weekend. I don't like how it is turning out, but I need to just hammer through, I think, until I do like what is coming out, and then I can go back and fix. On another note, I have become enamoured yet again with sonnets. Sonnet sonnets sonnets sonnets.

3. It has been preposterously mild here. This week saw temperatures above freezing. ABOVE FREEZING. I cannot emphasize this enough. Stuff (snow, mainly) is melting.

4. Due to certain on-line related events, I want to play Fallout 3 again. The only thing stopping me is that I have been putting off buying a new computer to replace this one.

5. I have come to realize that I am addicted to the Internet. Oops.

6. This evening, after work, I went to Coles to pick up my pre-ordered copy of The English Opium-Eater: A Biography of Thomas De Quincey. The book is authored by Robert Morrison, who Jon and I have had as a professor. This professor's general excellence is mainly why I bought the book, though I did enjoy reading De Quincey's On Murder essays. That and that I am trying to read literary criticism to help me prepare stylistically for grad school.

At, Coles, the girl at cash reminds me somewhat of Penelope from Questionable Content, only not so skinny and shorter. (I use the present tense of "reminds" because this is on-going; I see her now pretty much whenever I go to Coles.)

7. Oh, right. This week I wrote a letter. But to whom? Presumably that person will find out.

(8.) Canada! Two points of particular happiness: Mens, Canada v. Russia; Womens, Canada v. USA, for Gold. Yay! Canada!

Well, this week's seven have been quick after all. Also, rather childish.

Go; read.

7 Quick Takes (XXX)

(though this week they'll hardly be quick)


1. If my life were other than what it is, then that St. Valentine's Day occured in 7 Quick Takes week 30, or XXX, would perhaps be appropos. I almost wish I could claim to have counted it out in advance and specifically planned for this sort of synchronicity, but, alas, I can claim no such thing. And, since my life is what it is and isn't what it isn't, nothing occured this St. Valentine's Day that would make even a single X rating applicable. Sorry that I can't provide your excitement for the day.
(Actually, for future reference, if anything ever were to happen which might deserve an X rating, you'd never hear of it.)

2. This past weekend, as you know, I went with the folks to Fort Chipewyan. In Alberta and now some other Canadian provinces, this Monday was Family Day, which is I think a civic holiday, which at the very least means that I didn't work. As with most three-day weekends, we left to go do something.
So, the trip to Fort Chip went something like this: on Saturday we drove north on the Winter-Access Road for five-to-six hours, seeing on the way a grouse and some ptarmigan, not to mention awesome environments. We arrived in Fort Chipewyan and went into our accomadations--the Northern Lights Bed and Breakfast--which was a nice though modestly-sixed house decorated mainly with aboriginal artwork. I stayed in the Bison's Guest Room.
That afternoon we went dogsled riding and learned all sorts of things, and got to play with husky puppies. The puppies were one sixteenth wolf, which the owner says doesn't really mean anything at all. By the time you breed the agression out of dog-wolf hybrids, you've lost any genetic advantages the wolf ancestry might have. The father of these pups (one eight wolf) was simply a very good sled dog, and the owner did not want to lose those genes. Anyway, if you're ever in Fort Chipewyan, give Robert Grandjambe a call. If you think you're headed that way, contact me and I'll set you up with his phone number.
On Sunday we tried to drive to Fort Smith and the Northwest Territories border, but failed to get there. The roads were so rough that we were forced to drive at about 35-40 km per hour, which doesn't make trips go any quicker. We, alas, saw no bison or moose, notwithstanding being in Wood Buffalo National Park. We did see bison tracks, and we saw the Peace River. I will sometime get photos of the drive onto this blog.
Sunday afternoon we returned to town and visited the museum there. It was small, but they had some cool stuff, including a beaver-paw purse and a Chipewyan syllabic typewriter. Also, we went to the top of the hill behind the museum to see the cairn and to look over the Lake Athabasca. In so doing I stood on some exposed Canadian Shield, which made me happier than you'd likely imagine. I did not spend much of my life on the Canadian Shield, living just south of it; this being said, I have always for some reason been attached to it, and to the exposed rock of northern Ontario, and so standing on that same geological formation seemed like a connection to my distant homeprovince. Also, it has "Canadian" it in, and for some reason I'm right now really into Canadiana.
Anyway, we also visited the church, drove around town, and ate at the Lodge, which Lodge burnt to the ground a day or so after we left.
What I learned about Fort Chip is that their likely-government-subsidized housing looks boring on the outside but may nonetheless be quite nice on the inside; that their cemetary has primarily wooden crosses and many of the plots are individually surrounded by picket fences and may have covers; that Fort Chipewyan has just as many ravens as Fort McMurray; and that Fort Chipewyan, like Fort McMurray, is fit in and around hills and so appears smaller at first glance than it really is.
We drove home on Monday, a drive during which I mainly felt nauseated and slept, though I did pen a sonnet before conking out.

3. All this week has been sunny and mild. With the exception of today, snow has been melting off of the boardwalks at work. It's been deceptively spring-like, and memories of Fort McMurray in the summer have been pounding through my blood. Disappointment is coming, I am sure, as we aren't through with winter yet. This being said, I cannot wait for spring. Except when I'm doing awesome winter things, like dogsledding, or when I am seeing the feather-prints of ravens in the snow. This happens daily now.

4. I have now read some of those other library books, including most of the Best Canadian Short Stories 08 and the pre-Tolkien fantasy stories. The latter are quite fun, to be honest with you. I hadn't expected them to be as good as they are. Hopefully I'll have the time and inclination to discuss them with you. In a later post.

5. Wednesday, as I am sure a good number of my regular readers will know, was Ash Wednesday. This is the first year that I've attended an Ash Wednesday service since I was confirmed, which was about eight or nine years ago. I went to church early, as it turned out, and was about to leave because no one was there. However, the priest and her husband pulled in just before I would have resolved to leave and informed me that service was in fact forty-five minutes later than I had thought.

I was also invited to serve. I realize that at this point some of you will be thinking, "Here we must listen to how he served yet again," and you are quite right. You must.

This time I was asked to read the Litany of Penitence, which is very solemn and, well, penitent. I was also told I might be asked to give one of the readers, depending on whether anyone from the guest churches had been asked to read. (On important but low-attendence events like this, local churches will alternate holding services, with all of the priests or ministers presiding in whichever church is hosting it.) Rev. Lesley told me that David was here, so I wouldn't be expected to preach, and I said that that was a good thing because I'd forgotten to prepare a sermon. By the time we were ready to start, five of us--our priest, two other ministers, the deacon, and myself--were joking and laughing quite a bit. One of the other ministers was greeting people with "Solemn Ash Wednesday" rather than "Happy Ash Wednesday," but the rest of us were having an awfully hard time being solemn.

This is important, personally, because here I was, a young guy and a new one to town, and I was able to stand and joke around with four ordained members of the church, all mature and congregationally important people. I felt like I was invited to hang out with the big kids, and we all know how great that feels.

And then, when the time came, I read the Litany of Repentence, though I hadn't expected to be reading it from a kneeling position. My knees were very vividly remembering when I had abused them so badly on the ship's decks. I nonetheless found that I could project my voice from that posture and I was very solemn and penitent. I do hope I helped convey the emotion of the responsive reading. It can be very difficult to worship to a drone, I know. Not that anyone in our church is guilty of that.

Well, there's more to say, but I'll move onto another point because this hasn't been quick at all.

6. I have found more blogs to read, which is a terrible, terrible thing. I have too many to read as is.

7. Hmmm. What else to say? Other than what I've said, there isn't a whole lot going on with me. So I'll stop #7 now to make up for the monstrously bloated numbers 2 and 5.

Visit Conversion Diary.

The Fort Chip Adventure: Where I Play With Husky Pups and Go Dogsledding

On Saturday night we went dogsledding. The following a pictures taken from this event. Hopefully the video works.

The Fort Chip Adventure: Where We Take the Winter Access Road North

These photos are of the Winter Access Road stretching north of Fort McMurray to Fort Chipewyan. Some of them will be blurry, unfortunately, because I took them from a moving vehicle. These may seem repetitive, and I'm sorry about that; I tried to stick to different types of forest or terrain.

Notice what the sign is attached to.

I am posting a disproportionate amount of pictures of the Delta (below) than of the Sand Hills (above) because I think many of my readings will find the Delta more visually unique than the Sand Hills. Also, we stopped more often on the Delta, leading to better photos.

Here we are entering the Delta.

In this photo there is a ptarmigan.

If you can, look closer at the photo below; you will be able to see Fort Chipewyan in the distance.