The End of Country

What would you do if someone told you that your unsuccessful farm was sitting on top of one of the world’s largest natural gas deposits? What if this someone was standing at your front door, with the paperwork in hand to lease access to your land for drilling, and promised you unimaginable riches? What would be the many implications of your decision? The End of Country by Seamus McGraw looks at a community of Pennsylvania farmers who struggled with this very scenario.

Without guidance from the United States government or lawyers, and under pressure from the eager natural gas corporation reps at their doorsteps, these homeowners wrestled with this dilemma both individually, and as a community.

What were some of the entanglements of this overly idyllic situation? Environmentally, the cost was extensive; the drilling machinery caused injuries, there was resulting noise and air pollution, and toxic taints to the land and to the water table accumulated as the drilling continued. Water wells even exploded from trapped gas. But the most difficult of the consequences to navigate were the rising tensions between neighbours with differing views on the evolving situation, since each landowner was able to make his or her own decision unilaterally, without consulting the community.

In The End of Country, McGraw goes beyond the predictable cheering for the underdogs. He doesn’t just malign the money-hungry natural gas corporations but looks with a critical eye at the costs of the choices made by all involved. This is a great read, full of humour and affection for all the varied personalities that stepped up in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.

There was one particular part of the book that brought home to me the author’s intent. McGraw, who had grown up in Susquehanna County, met up with Ken Ely, one of the ad hoc leaders in the community. “I remember you.” Ely had said. “You owe me a hundred bucks for gas and bullets.” McGraw recalled:

“I didn’t remember that. As far as I knew, I had paid Ken every cent I ever owed him. But I wasn’t going to dispute it. Ken Ely had a long memory. I didn’t have a hundred dollars on me, but I promised I’d write him a check. ‘Don’t bother,’ he told me. ‘I don’t need the money anymore. Wait till you get rich on the gas and then give it to someone who needs it.’”

McGraw doesn’t even let himself off the hook. He, too, profited from the good and the bad through the writing of this book and owns up to it.  He’s a class act.

 Discussion Questions

1. There were a few recent films that looked at this and similar issues: feature film Promised Land (2012) with Matt Damon, documentary Gasland (2010) with Josh Fox, and even Erin Brockovich (2000) with Julia Roberts edges in close with big business carefully misleading the affected public. How do these films depict the negative longer term effects on the public? How is the audience made to feel about the decisions made?
2. In a community, how important is it to consider the implications of your decisions on your neighbourhood?
3. Is personal gain ever worth the loss of respect of your peers? What would motivate you to make such a choice?
4. How could the Pennsylvania situation have been better managed? How much power can a community-led coalition wield? Should the government have intervened? If so, what level of government?
5. How can other communities best benefit from the hard and assorted lessons learned in Susquehanna County through this experience?

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's online catalogue.

Just Kids

Just Kids is a memoir by the artist and musician Patti Smith, about her life and relationship with the artist Robert Mapplethorpe. The book is a memoir of both Smith's and Mapplethorpe's coming of age as artists, and of the path of their relationships, both with each other and with other people who were formative in their young lives. Just Kids is also a memoir of New York City in the 1970s, especially of certain slices of the art and music scenes.

Although Smith met and hung out with many famous musicians, artists, and writers during the time she writes about, Just Kids doesn't have a gossipy, name-dropping feel. Smith isn't saying, "Look at all the famous people I've known"; she shares interesting interactions she's had with noteworthy people. For example, when Smith takes 55 cents to the Horn & Hardart automat with a craving for a cheese-and-lettuce sandwich, only to find the price has gone up, the person who offers her the missing dime is the poet Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg, who thought Smith was a boy that he might chat up, asks Smith if she's male or female. We see the scene with sweetness and warmth. When Ginsberg asks, "What will you say about how we met?" Smith answers, "That I was hungry and you fed me."

That is typical of Just Kids. Smith writes with warmth, respect, and love for almost everyone. Even if a relationship went awry or ended badly, Smith finds the positive, not in a strained, Pollyanna-ish way, but out of a genuine appreciation for the many experiences that helped her learn and grow. Smith's voice is modest, sober, respectful, and often innocent, almost naive. The book is intimate, but not explicit, focusing on love rather than sex.

Through most of the book, Smith is not a rock musician, and has no dreams of becoming one. She makes visual art, writes poetry, and doesn't even think about performing. Mapplethorpe creates jewelry and art installations. The man who would become a world-famous photographer cuts photos from magazines and re-purposes them in his own art. Together, Smith and Mapplethorpe support each other as each discovers their true artistic path. This is the story of a joined voyage of self-discovery; as Smith puts it, they were artist and muse, with both playing both roles.

Reading Just Kids, you would never know that Smith was a bold, brash, hyperkenetic rocker, that she was compared to a young Mick Jagger for her stage presence and frenetic energy. For most of the book, Smith is shy and socially awkward; she describes herself as a "skinny wallflower". She frequently mentions The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan as her two primary rock influences, along with the poet Arthur Rimbaud and a host of other artists, such as Freda Kahlo and Edith Piaf. Early on, Smith mentions seeing The Doors' Jim Morrison perform, and thinking, "I could do that." Indeed, she could, and she did. Morrison and Smith, although they never met, are forever linked as the performers who brought spoken-word poetry to hard-edged rock-and-roll.

The stories from Smith's early life are poignant and illuminating. Working in a New Jersey factory, pregnant at 19 years old and surrendering the child to adoption, Smith hungered for a fresh start. She packed her few belongings in a plaid suitcase and boarded a bus for New York City, planning to stay with some friends who had moved to Brooklyn. But the friends had moved, and Smith was all alone. She slept in doorways and in Washington Square Park, scrounging for change, and hungry all the time. She searched for work that would sustain and not degrade her, eventually finding a job in Brentano's, a famous New York bookstore. She learned how to scour New York's many used bookstores for treasures that she could sell to private collectors for a small profit that would pay for food or rent.

Smith and Mapplethorpe meet by happenstance, and become the most important people in each other's lives. They live at the legendary Chelsea Hotel in a tiny room with their art, their dreams, and their hungers, and very little money.

Mapplethorpe was later and famously gay, and some readers might hope for some salacious details of Smith and Mapplethorpe's relationship; they'll be disappointed. There's no explicit sex. Smith refers to "romantic involvements" only obliquely, and keeps her most private life private. She refers to the "dual nature" of Mapplethorpe's sexuality and, later, to the S&M imagery in his work that she accepted but didn't understand.

In an afterward, Smith writes that Mapplethorpe asked her to write their story. She compares the pair to Hansel and Gretel, venturing into the dark and scary woods together, with "temptations and witches and demons we never dreamed of" and "splendor we only partially imagined".

Smith's writing is sometimes clear and precise, sometimes poetic, sometimes a bit mystical. She has the songwriter's knack for unusual phrases, describing someone with "a cowboy mouth" or saying, "He had that human saxophone thing" (whatever that means!).

I was a teen when punk was born, and saw Smith perform several times. I had a poster of the famous cover of Horses on my wall wherever I lived; I was fascinated with Smith, even idolized her for a time. I didn't follow her career as a poet or a visual artist, but she remained an iconic figure to me, especially in her deep connection to New York City, the New York City of my youth. So naturally, Just Kids was very compelling to me. Would this book be interesting to someone who doesn't already know Smith, who isn't familiar with the New York City art scene? Although I can't say for sure, I doubt it. In fact, for readers who aren't familiar with some of the references - if you don't know what the Chelsea Hotel or CBGB is, or who Sam Shepherd is - it might not even make sense.

This is not a book about Patti Smith, rock musician. In a 288-page book, Smith doesn't meet Lenny Kaye, the man who would become her rock partner, until page 179.  (Kaye was working in a record store on Bleecker Street. That's what I mean: if that doesn't strike you as a romantic and beautiful image, this book may not be for you.) When Patti Smith and Fred "Sonic" Smith leave New York City to launch their rock career, the book ends. It is all innocence and awakening and self-discovery, without the harsh realities of compromise and commerce and all that follows. Smith does give you a glimpse into the birth of the punk movement, in this beautiful passage.

We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music that had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. We would call forth in our minds the image of Paul Revere, riding through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric guitar and the microphone.

Just Kids is a quintessential New York story, and there's a subtext that, as a former New Yorker, I find inexpressibly sad. Throughout New York's history, there have always been pockets of cheap housing which enabled artists to live cheaply and focus on their work. The city was a magnet for young artists of all stripes; that was part of what gave New York its energy and edge. Artists would move into a low-income, dangerous neighbourhood, taking advantage of low rents, and they'd revitalize it. Then the neighbourhood would gentrify, eventually becoming too expensive for the people who had put it on the map. Artists would be pushed out, and another part of town would become an art mecca, and the cycle would begin again.

But the cycle sped up. Instead of taking several generations, it began to take only a matter of years. Then it sped up even more, neighbourhoods going almost directly from unsafe to pricey with barely an art scene in between. At the same time, fewer and fewer affordable neighbourhoods remained. Eventually the profit-seeking machine that is New York City cut its own throat. Although pockets of art and music scenes survive, they are tiny shadows of their thriving ancestors. David Byrne writes about it here. Smith and Mapplethorpe's story couldn't happen in today's New York. They would need a much higher income to survive, and that changes the entire equation.

There are some wonderful stories in Just Kids, about Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and Smith's pilgrimage to Paris in search of the ghost of Rimbaud, and how Sam Shepherd bought Patti Smith her first guitar, and taught her the secret of improvisation. I'll end this post with one especially illuminating story.

Smith has accompanied Mapplethorpe to the club Max's Kansas City many times, but she is not comfortable socially, and no one pays much attention to her. Someone makes a snide remark about Smith's hair, which she always wore long, straight, and parted in the middle, like a folk singer. Although Smith tries to shake it off, and although she feels silly for caring, the comment stings. In frustration, she looks at photos of The Rolling Stones and takes a scissors to her locks, trying to cut her hair like Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards'. She shows up at Max's sporting her new haircut, and suddenly, Smith is the talk of the club. Everyone wants to hang out with her. Everyone wants to see her work. Everyone suddenly pays attention. Because she cut her hair. The haircut was not Smith's "big break," but it showed her a lot about the way things work. (This review was originally posted here, on wmtc.)

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue.

Curse of the Narrows: the Halifax Explosion, 1917

On 6 December 1917, the Mont Blanc, a French munitions ship collided with the Imo, a Belgian relief ship in the narrow channel of Halifax Harbour. The TNT and picric acid aboard the Mont Blanc caused the worst death toll by an explosion in history: two thousand dead, ten thousand injured and six thousand left homeless. The explosion had always fascinated me as a child, as I had first read about it in the Guinness Book of World Records in its Worst Accidents and Disasters in the World chart, yet, oddly, never heard about it anywhere else. I didn't research the explosion until prior to my first visit to Halifax ten years ago, and I made it a priority to visit the Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower and to see the permanent exhibit, entitled Halifax Wrecked, at the Marine Museum of the Atlantic. I have since read many books on the topic before I started writing book reviews in 2010. Curse of the Narrows: the Halifax Explosion, 1917 by Laura Mac Donald ranks among the best of the explosion histories.

Mac Donald used her access to court documents, survivor testimonials, news articles and public archive finds to create a chronological story from just before the explosion to the inevitable court cases that followed it. She profiled several families who were devastated by the explosion and created real-life suspenseful narratives of horror. We followed family members as they dug through their collapsed houses, looking for family members, their children and babies, and finding only body parts and decapitated corpses. The explosion flew people in all directions, and Mac Donald's descriptions of corpses impaled on lampposts and literally faceless people walking around dazed and confused will make you feel the magnitude of the sudden horror that befell the city. That Mac Donald drew upon eyewitness accounts and strung them together to create a respectful story means that what she was telling was not a fabricated dramatization but a true story.

We followed several families, some almost wiped out by the disaster and some who suffered only surface injuries. The Duggans, for example, lost four households with the remaining members of three families living in one house. Mac Donald fleshed out her biographies of those she profiled so the reader got to know about those who perished as well as those who survived the explosion. Billy Duggan was one of Canada's champion rowers and Ned Hanlan was one of his predecessors. Mac Donald however unfortunately misspelled the surname as Hanlon three times on a single page, which was a glaring error to anyone from the Toronto area.

The blast, which occurred at the time of World War I, was not a totally unexpected phenomenon. As long as ships were transporting munitions in and out of Halifax Harbour, they were considered possible targets. Thus, in spite of the collision which was witnessed by hundreds of people who lined the harbour:

"But the first reaction to the devastation--even by those who watched the Mont Blanc's barrels explode and crash onto the deck, who watched the flames turn the sky strange colors--was to search for the German plane that had dropped the first bomb on North American soil. Even the military was unsure of the cause for the first hour, and sought to establish whether they were under attack before sending their men out on rescue missions. The city was so conditioned to believe that the Germans could strike Halifax that they did not make the connection between the burning ship and the explosion."

The devastation flattened the city, and the accompanying photos do not exaggerate. Houses were blown apart, stoves toppled and fires started. The city was not only levelled but set ablaze. When rescue parties started the search for survivors, they found:

"...Tilted, windowless, and doorless houses stared at them like shell-shocked soldiers. Despite this introduction, Cox was still unprepared for what he would see when his party rounded the hill. Richmond [the area of the Halifax peninsula immediately across the harbour from the explosion] was gone. And the detritus that replaced it no more resembled the neighborhood than a pile of unraveled wool resembled a sweater."

Doctors and nurses came by train from the neighbouring provinces and states, most notably Massachusetts. Any large building not blown apart was converted into a hospital, and medical staff worked nonstop for days, literally days, without a break. The damage caused to eyes took the greatest toll on doctors' time. There were hundreds of witnesses standing inside on that December day who watched the Mont Blanc and the Imo collide. The smoke and fire had them all glued to the windows, and the explosion that followed blew those windows into their eye sockets. Glass daggers pierced eyes, faces and cut glass panes became flying guillotines. Doctors worked through the endless lineups of people injured by flying glass. I read of buckets overflowing with excised eyeballs, and of the horror of the volunteers when they were asked to empty them. In many cases, however, no operations could be performed as minuscule glass shards embedded themselved deep into the skin. Doctors advised these patients to let nature take its course:

"Like many survivors, Lottie continued to remove pieces of glass and wood from her face and neck for the rest of her life. It would start as a bump or a black spot and slowly work its way to the surface, until it expelled itself."

Confusion reigned for days as families searched hospitals and shelters for loved ones:

"Displaced children proved to be a particular challenge for social workers because they could neither register themselves nor provide much more than their names and, if lucky, former addresses. Plus children were scattered all over the city and, in some cases, the countryside without anyone to supervise them."

Many of the cases will bring a tear to the eye. Fathers who were serving in the war overseas came home to no one, as their entire families had perished. In some cases, only a baby was the sole survivor, and when the authorities could find no next of kin, not even a relative, the infant was adopted out while the father was still serving in the war. Some fathers never saw their infant children again:

"Others were haunted by missing children and continued to look for them for the rest of their lives."

The end of the book deals with the court cases and appeals that followed. Had the explosion occurred today, the cases and appeals would take years, perhaps a decade, to resolve. A century ago due process was meted out at a far more accelerated pace and even the appeals were resolved within a couple years. The blame game provided an extremely interesting read, with one crew--the only surviving crew, that of the Mont Blanc--laying blame on the deceased crew of the Imo.

The only time I really laughed during Curse of the Narrows was over a case of mistaken identity:

"Life on the wards at the Victoria General was starting to return to normal as well, although Dr. Puttner had collapsed on the floor Saturday afternoon. They put him in the same room as the chief surgeon, Dr. Murdoch Chilsholm, whose condition had improved since Pharmacist Bertha Archibald had helped him up the stairs after the explosion. When she entered the room, he was sitting up and reading the paper. 'There, in striking headlines, was the notice of the death of Dr. Murdoch Chisholm--the old gentleman was reading his own obituary.' His blue eyes peeked at her out from behind his glasses and he smiled with some satisfaction.

"'That man Chisholm. He was quite a man.'"

In the immediate aftermath of the explosion, one couldn't even be sure who was alive and who had died. Canadian history is alive with a multitude of books about the Halifax explosion, and no doubt there will be a surge in new editions and reprints of older accounts upon the explosion's centenary in three years time. For one of the most detailed and accurate accounts of the Halifax explosion of 1917, I highly recommend Curse of the Narrows by Laura Mac Donald.

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue

Watch This Space: Designing, Defending and Sharing Public Spaces

by Hadley Dyer and Marc Ngui

Kids Can Press, 2010

As a co-author of this blog, I have been very delinquent in my self-appointed duty to regularly post nonfiction book reviews and book club discussion questions.  One major factor (or excuse) for this is that through a job change, I no longer work in the Sciences and Business Department of the Mississauga Central Library.  To me, this Department has always been a major haven of nonfiction books, and constant immersion lead to many exciting reads.  Having returned to my roots of children's librarianship, I find myself reading far less "adult" books in general, and nonfiction books in particular.  As I get more comfortable in this new career role, I am finding that I can step up and slowly return to my recreational reading levels of years past!

That being said, I should also say that the Children's Department is not a reading wasteland - there are many books (fiction and nonfiction) in the collection that are worth reading, even if you are not writing a grade 4 science project!  One such book is the subject of this post - Watch This Space.  This 80 page book accomplishes much in its brief span, informing children and those adults who have ears to hear about public space - what it means, its societal value, your collective ownership (and responsibility) of the space, challenges, issues, and ways to protect and encourage public space usage and development.

The book is refreshingly clear about the points it tries to make, including a nice and simple definition of public space: "You don't have to buy something or pay an entry fee to be in a public space. You don't need to be a member or explain why you're there. Public spaces exist so everyone can use them. All you have to do is show up."  It takes pains to distinguish true public space from spaces that seem like public space but are not really - malls, coffee shops, and so on which have private owners.

Much of the book revolves around youth, a demographic very much in need of public space - teens hanging out in parking lots seem to be doing nothing, but "...something is happening when you spend time in public spaces. You're figuring out how to get along with people, without adult interference. You're sorting out who you are and how you fit in. You're becoming a part of a community."

The book also talks about the criteria for effective public space, and how public spaces can fail.  This concept is very relevant to those of us who live and work in the Mississauga city centre.  The Mississauga Central Library sits just south of the Mississauga Civic Centre, and for the longest time, the space between the two buildings was basically a failed public space.  During the winter, the central fountain was converted into a popular outdoor skating area, but for the remainder of the year, there was just no reason to go to this space.  Mississauga is very much a suburban city, broken up into zones as described in this book.  One needs to travel by car just about everywhere, and so destinations must be planned out in advance.  Anyone coming to the City centre is either going to the Square One shopping centre, the Central Library, or even the Civic Centre itself.  Each of these sites, and all the other big box stores around it, have their own parking lots or underground garages.  There was never a natural flow of foot traffic through the square, nor any reason that would lead someone to discover it by chance.  The square also had walls and elevated embankments that even prevent people from seeing it at all.

Recognizing this failure, the City of Mississauga redeveloped the whole square, creating a new public space with constant community activities, cultural festivals, and an aesthetically pleasing place to gather.  Initially cynical, I was pleasantly surprised when all of a sudden the new Celebration Square became a destination in its own right and is almost constantly in use.  

Discussion Questions

1.  How do you use public space? How often do you find yourself in public spaces?

2.  How important is public space to your life, and to society in general?

3.  Discuss the book's eight criteria for a great public space.  Would you add anything else? (Shared vision, beauty, sociability, comfort, flexibility, landmarks, accessibility, and safety).

4.  The book compares and contrasts dense urban mixed-use spaces (such as Toronto's Little Portugal neighbourhood) with suburban sprawl, where housing subdivisions are separated from shopping areas (so-called "Smart Centres") and so on.  With a designed dependence on car travel, should suburbs be changed?  What kind of neighbourhood would you rather live in?

5.  This book doesn't really talk about people living in large condo towers.  If the authors were to add a chapter about high-rise apartments, what do you think they would say about residents' need for public space?

6.   Have you ever talked to a stranger in a public space?  If so, did you learn anything through this experience?

7.  How does a public library function as a public space?

8.  How safe are public spaces?

9.  The book includes an exercise for designing a public space.  What would you include?

10.  The book talks about the usage of public space as sites for political demonstrations and protests.  How are public spaces used to initiate social change?

11.  What do you think of "virtual" public spaces?  Is social media interaction (such as this blog) as useful as physical spaces?

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's online catalogue.

Santa Claus: A Biography

In Santa Claus: A Biography, author Gerry Bowler explores the history behind the Santa Claus myth, tracing it to Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra of Turkey in the fourth century. Bowler also looks at modern appropriations of Santa Claus iconography to suit specific means, such as Santa in wartime and in advertising. He concludes the biography with a look towards the future and if Santa Claus will have a part in it among today's tech-savvy tots.

During the Reformation, Protestant leaders despised the cult of the saints, and Saint Nicholas the gift-giver was substituted by the Christ child as the sole great provider. While Saint Nicholas may have been abolished, the spirit of mythical and fantastic gift-giving remained. This explains the sudden new generation of gift-givers across Europe such as Befana, the witch from Italy.

One of the more common myths about the evolution of Santa is that the Coca-Cola Company single-handedly invented his modern-day portrayal. I'm sure the folks at Coke like to hear others perpetuate this myth year after year, knowing that those who tell it probably are reaching for a refreshing beverage while reminiscing about their beloved childhood Christmases:

"It is far too frequently believed that Sundblom's work for Coca-Cola created the familiar red-and-white-clad Santa of the modern era. In fact, the Coke Santa was in no way groundbreaking; illustrators for the Saturday Evening Post such as J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell had already helped fix the Santa in the public's mind."

Santa Claus was not a trademark and as a public domain any company could use his image to promote its products, no matter how incongruous the connection. Bowler writes of ads at the beginning of the 1900's where Santa is shilling rifles:

"No smoke, no noise and perfectly safe in the hands of any boy."

Companies may not have gained any actual sales from employing Santa as pitchman, but they would have gained some positive publicity and goodwill having the jolly old elf as an endorser. Who would doubt the testimony of Santa Claus? Would he lie to you about the safety of firearms in the hands of your child?

I found the chapter about Santa in the movies and in popular songs to be a boring list of titles. This opinion is influenced by my prejudice that I am not a movie person. Bowler listed dozens of silver screen moments featuring Santa Claus, be they from a specifically Christmas movie or not. The section on songs about Santa was slightly more interesting, and the author certainly covered all the crushingly awful Santa songs written in deliberate bad taste. I was disappointed that Bowler didn't write about "Santa Claus Has Got the AIDS This Year" by Tiny Tim, one of my (and John Waters's) favourites.

This book included many black-and-white illustrations showing the evolution of Santa Claus, although the majority of these images were print advertising. I especially liked the first print ads, where Santa didn't look anything like the red-coated rosy-cheeked morbidly obese elf we know him as today.

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue

Mysterious Islands: Forgotten Tales of The Great Lakes

Mysterious Islands: Forgotten Tales of The Great Lakes by Andrea Gutsche and Cindy Bisaillon is another book I have had kicking around for years yet never got around to reading in its entirety. I acquired the book, which came with an accompanying 72-minute VHS video, when it first came out in 1999. I was fascinated by the often forgotten, if not entirely unknown tales from the Great Lakes islands, yet I only read about the islands I was immediately drawn to (for example, Middle Island, Pelee Island, Manitoulin Island, and Isle Royale). Mysterious Islands is divided into five chapters, one for each Great Lake, moving from east to west. The book is filled with black and white photographs throughout its 296 pages, but unfortunately many are too small or of poor quality to make much of them. At times I even stood holding the book directly under a lamp, or worse, shining a flashlight on certain pictures in order to see what they depicted. The book was surprisingly heavy, but that was due to its high quality of glossy paper. Ever the armchair editor, I was struck by the number of typographical errors in Mysterious Islands. That the authors named no less than two proofreaders in the Acknowledgements only made me roll my eyes heavenward. I do wonder what it is that proofreaders actually do.

On to the islands. Middle Island, the speck of Canada lying south of Pelee Island lays claim to the title of being the southernmost part of Canada. It was the hub of a thriving bootlegging and smuggling ring during the time of Prohibition. The chapter even had a photo of the Middle Island clubhouse, where all the boozing and gambling took place. A closeup of Middle Island and its crumbling clubhouse can be found here. There was plenty to read about Pelee Island, but I was shocked to find only four pages devoted to Manitoulin. Wouldn't the largest island in the Great Lakes merit more than this? Manitoulin also claims several lakes of its own. I have cycled around these lakes within a lake, and even seen the islands within these lakes. I thought that the authors would surely give at least a cursory mention to Lake Manitou, the world's largest lake-in-a-lake.

Sugar Island, located in Lake Huron, has an unusual claim to fame: it was one of twenty-two spots in North America selected as a possible site for the new United Nations headquarters. Former Michigan governor Chase Osborn proposed the site based on how it was peacefully acquired by the US in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. Osborn believed Sugar Island fulfilled the spirit of the new UN pledge, "to settle international disputes by peaceful means, to refrain from the threat or use of force". The UN instead settled on another island to build its headquarters: Manhattan.

I love to read lighthouse stories and Mysterious Islands had plenty of them. Caribou Island, the most remote of all the Great Lakes islands, lies in Lake Superior, 100 km from the nearest port. It thus had the most isolated lighthouse. Caribou was uninhabited, although the rock 1.6 km offshore where the lighthouse was actually located housed only the lighthouse keeper and his family. Imagine living on a rock--quite literally--with no one else around for 100 km. There wouldn't have even been other land to visit, unless you rowed out to Caribou. This might be the closest an Ontarian can come to feeling what it's like to live on Tristan da Cunha. See Caribou Island here, and the speck of white on the offshore rock which is the lighthouse.

In 1917, the government stopped transporting lighthouse keepers and their families back home in December. In effect, their employer just abandoned them. Lighthouse keepers had to make their way back to the mainland themselves. I read this time and time again, and sometimes the keepers suffered tragic results. The Caribou lighthouse keeper refitted a sailboat yet was trapped for eight days in Lake Superior's ice and storms. It was another five years before the government reintroduced winter transport home.

Mysterious Islands spent an admirable time reporting on the history of the Great Lakes islands before European settlement. The authors reported on the alliances and treaties made between settlers and the First Nations. The islands were home to mines, cults (more than one), prisons and countless shipwrecks. It is my hope to visit some of these islands and I am glad to have had the opportunity to learn so much of their history.

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue

Chicken Soup for the Soul: It's Christmas! 101 Joyful Stories about the Love, Fun, and Wonder of the Holidays

I always start decorating my house for Christmas the week of the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. It takes me several weeks to get my house in the festive spirit and I am happy to say that I finished decorating this year rather early (early for me): the entire house was done by November 30. I was filled with Christmas spirit and wanted a light, leisurely feel-good Christmas read so I grabbed the latest Christmas collection in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. I had never read such a collection before, yet I knew what they were like. Chicken Soup for the Soul: It's Christmas! 101 Joyful Stories about the Love, Fun, and Wonder of the Holidays was 406 pages of delightful Christmas stories covering a variety of topics, such as Christmas miracles, Christmas and pets, bittersweet Christmas memories and holiday hijinks. Whether a happy story or bittersweet, the tears flowed copiously in It's Christmas! It did seem overwrought, how much crying there was in all of these stories. The humour was however more abundant and I had a chuckle over the following spelling error:

"There were candles in the widows." (from "Clay Baby Christmas").

One of my favourite stories told of the generosity of neighbours at Christmastime. In "It Takes a Village", after the family dog ate the twenty-pound turkey meant for a feast for thirty guests, neighbours went up and down the streets asking families for dinner donations. Some donated a drumstick, a wing and so on, each family giving up a turkey part so that one family and their guests could enjoy a Christmas dinner of their own. I also enjoyed "The Stinky Gift that Kept on Giving", about a joky exchange of a jar of limburger cheese that lasted for eighteen years.

The stories in It's Christmas! were not long, only three to four pages each. Cartoons separated each themed chapter. For a lightweight read to put you in the Christmas spirit, read this or any Chicken Soup for the Soul Christmas collection.

Find this book in the Mississauga Library System's on-line catalogue