In 1972, Chief Jimmy Bruneau of the Tłı̨chǫ First Nation attended the opening of the school that would bear his name. As part of the ceremony, many dignitaries got up to the microphone before him and gave long-winded speeches. Bruneau was an old man and very ill (he would die three years later), so […]
This was first published in March of 2011. As winter descends upon the sub-Arctic once more, I revisit these moments of awe on a frozen lake. “It may not strike you as a marvel; it would not, perhaps, unless you were standing in the middle of a dead world at sunset, but that was where […]
September 14-18, 2014 The week kicked off with a guest post by Alexandra Witze, who used fonts I didn’t know WordPress supported to share some Icelandic mythology and make me very excited about her new book. Michelle introduced the complex morality of energy, caloric and otherwise, as the resurgence of an older idea. Christie tries […]
“What happened to Franklin is, in its way, a trivial question. He had a wooden ship in the Arctic and no idea what he was doing – what do you mean, what happened to him? But we still ask why. “ – Adam Gopnik, Winter (2011) As of a week ago, we have an […]
August 25 – 29, 2014 The week began with a flight of fancy from Richard. Or was it his lived reality? Only YOU can know the truth. If you never saw a toy robot shape-shifting into a toy vehicle, you might think a movie called Transformers was about this. Cameron follows her nose up to […]
August 4 – 8, 2014 Richard and Ann disagree informatively about the nature of a science writer’s duty toward truth and its embellishments. There is a glimmer of hope when Richard strikes on the thought that science writers share subjective truths, whereas scientists have a duty to be objective. Ann disagrees. The debate rages on in […]
The teetering, hundred-year-old collection of wooden buildings that form my father’s fishing club in backwoods Quebec is arranged in a row like a Wild West town, where mosquitoes are the hostile locals. To reach his favourite fishing spots, Dad sometimes has to stop his motorized quad in front of downed trees and change into Kevlar trousers to chainsaw […]
July 21 – 25, 2014 Helen traces the Hebridean history of the Lewis chessmen, with a technical note on walrus tusk carving. Erik had difficulty focusing throughout childhood, and that was before fast-paced animations and iPads. Where will the new generation find their focus? Forget retro-chic and steam-punk – Craig likes to rock it ancestral […]
