Sharon Butala

Born within a year of each other (1948–49), and each their mother’s only birth child, Caterina Edwards, an Albertan Canadian, and Mary Gordon, an American raised in New York, have much else in common. Both are writers first, but also academics; both were raised in Catholic homes and are, or have been, practising Catholics; both have some claim to European ethnicity in that Gordon’s mother’s family was steeped in Irishness (her father was Italian and…

Over the years Maggie Siggins has been digging deeper and deeper into the West’s lesser-known history. Starting with Revenge of the Land, about one quarter section of land near Moose Jaw whose owners begin in theft and end in murder, through Riel, a thorough history of the most famous man the West has so far…

Richard Wagamese’s third novel , Dream Wheels, tells the story of a delinquent black youth and his mother who come into contact with a newly crippled but legendary First Nations bull rider and his prosperous ranch rodeo family. Both young men are wounded and angry and overwhelmed by loss, and the novel tells the story of how they come to teach and heal each…

For many years I have lived on the Saskatchewan grasslands in a remote, sparsely settled area spread out between Highway One and the Montana border. A feature of life here is the occasional passage through of a traveller, or two, usually on horseback, but sometimes with team and wagon, heading from Winnipeg to Calgary, or from Ontario to the…