Up in Ontario

Winnipeg Launch Report

We arrived in Winnipeg on Thursday night and my mom picked the Duck and I up at the airport. Through the windows of the plane I had seen the degree of cold that awaited us outside the doors. It promised to be a jarring reminder of the reality of the rest of the country for our west coast sensibilities, just the same as it is every time I go home to Winnipeg in the winter.

{Anecdote}
A few years ago the Duck and I spent Christmas in Winnipeg. We arrived in a harried state on Christmas Eve in a full plane. A number of families with children were travelling on the same flight, and tempers were short, lines were long and the holiday spirit of cheer and goodwill seemed delusional. After retrieving our frosty bags, we followed one family of four from the baggage carousel to the line to pay for parking, where we stood in line to take part in the most insane and complicated parking process I have ever seen. They had one toddler of about four and another younger child that the mother carried in her arms. After figuring out the process of payment at the parking machine we prepared to face the cold just beyond the glass doors. Again we followed the family of four. They passed through the first set of automatic doors and triggered the second set. The doors parted and the blackness of the night lay beyond. A blast of cold air hit us. In front of us, the four year-old had stopped at the doors, and he stood there where the cold hit him, wailing and refusing to walk any further into the freezing air. I looked over at the Duck and I could see exactly what she was thinking, that the four year-old's response - tears, refusal to go a step further - was an instinct that she shared, and that he was doing what she felt like doing.
{/Anecdote}

So it was cold when we arrived, but we were prepared and bundled up before leaving the building. The car was still warm and we climbed in. The Duck took a photo of the parking machines that take your ticket as you leave the lot because they had little insulated coats on them. Snow crews cleared some of the intersections we crossed through on our way to my mom's house, their amber lights illuminating the chunks of snow piled into banks the bordered the curbs of the road, as if we were driving along trenches.

The next morning we rose early and spent the day running around Winnipeg gathering items for decoration or prizes at the Live at the Lake Social. We visited the Manitoba legislature and took photos of the statue of Louis Riel. That night, we met friends at an Ethiopian and Eritrian restaurant for dinner. We visited with family on Saturday and I did an interview with Mike Warkentin of Uptown Magazine, Winnipeg's Source for Arts, Entertainment & News.

On Sunday morning I woke early and went by myself for a walk through the Assiniboine Park. The day was cool but not cold, a sharp breeze blew from the west. Joggers ran along the paths that wound along the river, under the naked branches of oaks. I passed by a hill I remember we used to slide down as children, a hill that seemed so big at the time and that now I can climb in less than 10 steps. Skaters called to each other as they cruised around the islands of the frozen duck pond. I crossed the river on a pedestrian bridge, sat in a coffee shop, ordered a coffee and an apple jack, and prepared myself for my first book launch.

After an hour had passed I felt like I had enough material, and I had my material together enough, to be ready to do my reading. I wanted to say something about my book that I had been unable to put into words so far, something about why I had written the book, why I had set it in Winnipeg and Manitoba and the Lake of the Woods area of Northern Ontario. I wanted to strike a balance of substance and candour, of profundity and enjoyment. I also remembered well the feeling of reading in front of a crowd and being poorly prepared, and I did not want a repeat of that performance.

By the time I walked back across the pedestrian bridge the wind had gotten fiercer and more snow had started to fall. I walked in the door and my mom told me that the forecast was calling for snow and wind, blustery conditions that could keep people close to home. That seems about right, I thought to myself, as I remembered that sense of foreboding, that intense awareness of the elements that comes with living on the prairies in the winter; the consequence of if you're ill prepared for a storm never far from your mind. Now this was the garrison mentality Canadian literary critics wrote of in their dense words and cryptic quotations.

We arrived at the McNallyRobinson bookstore at 1:30, about half an hour before the book launch was scheduled to begin. I recognized some faces already in attendance, some that I had not seen for many years. A feeling of homecoming and expectation hung in the air. I shook hands with people and hugged others and it was wonderful to see so many people out for a book event. I did a quick interview with the pretty arts reporter from the local independent TV station, A Channel. Later, after the dinner that night we would be gathered around the television watching the six o'clock news for the interview, with others on standby nearby, waiting to be told, "It's on."

By 2 all of the seats were filled and my dad was waving at people on the other side of the store. Come on over. The multi-talented Kelly Stifora of Turnstone Press acted as MC and kicked everything off. Parents and grandparents, friends and friends of friends were in attendance. I stood behind the podium and looked out at the people gathered for the launch of Up in Ontario and it was an incredible thing to see them all there. The Smiths (of Smith Camps) arrived along Wayne Tefs, my editor on the book. I said my piece about the book, and why I had written it, and I shortened up the lengthy parts that the Duck had told me to cut when I rehearsed it for her: "Whoa, you're going on too much there," she had said. "And it doesn't really go anywhere."

I had just about finished my introduction when I looked out to the second row to where my grandparents were seated. My grandmother smiled back at me and my grandfather's blue eyes were cloudy with tears, and I had to look away to keep it all together. I read the first chapter of the novel (First) and then two of the shorter pieces (Kenora and Blindfold Creek) that join some of the longer chapters and then I was done.

Kelly circulated with the much-travelled Turnstone Press Prize Box to make sure we had everyone's tickets, then we raffled off our prizes as follows: