A walk in the snow

On Easter Sunday my wife and I wrestled our toddler son into our Baby Trekker and walked into the snowy woods near our home in Norway House, MB.  

I always love the woods with snow, so it's important to see them again in this state before it melts away for another year.   Most people are more than eager to see the snow disappear--and I can understand that sentiment, absolutely.  I'm also looking forward to the spring.  But there is a certain serenity about forests and snow, forests in snow, and I'll miss that when it's gone.  At one point during the walk, we let our son out of the carrier and stopped for some tea and homemade gingersnap cookies. Don't tea and cookies taste best when eaten outdoors in cold weather? 

Yes, the charms of spring and summer are many--but I'll miss this wintry weather when it's gone and I'll enjoy seeing it once more when it comes around again next November.  

Eagles (have landed)

And now I can say that I've spotted that other harbinger of spring--Bald Eagles.  First come crows, then eagles.  On Sunday, while on a hike with my family on the still frozen Jack River - perhaps our last trip out onto the ice for the year - we saw three Bald Eagles cruising above Johnson Island.  I had binoculars handy, so we had a great view of them.  As always when I spot them in the rather wintry northern springtime, I wonder: What do they eat? How do they get by when everything is still under ice and snow? 

 

Sign of spring

In this part of the world, the harbinger of spring is not the American Robin but the American Crow.  And we've started to see and hear crows around Norway House.

Re. Wells' Career Limiting Moves and Can. Lit.

I've been reading Zachariah Wells recent book of reviews and essays titled Career Limiting Moves  and enjoying it immensely.  As with Carmine Starnino's Lazy Bastardism, another collection of reviews and essay on Can. Lit., I find myself eagerly reading it, going from one piece to the next to see what he'll say next.  Because Wells' evaluations of Canadian poets and poetry are so bracing and at times critical, I find myself quite curious to hear more of his thoughts.  

Does that mean I agree with him? Sometimes, yes.  Often, no.  Don McKay's poetry gets a bit of a drubbing in Career Limiting Moves--an undeserved drubbing, I think.  But books like Wells', like Starnino's, do some real good in Can. Lit. circles because they remind us that the die is not cast, the canon is potentially shifting. They remind us that debates about aesthetics and poetics are worth having.  They remind us that we ought to employ rigorous reading, rigorous discussion and a keen critical eye toward the literature presented to us.  

Best of all, when I read books like Wells', I'm reminded that Can. Lit. matters.   

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For more about Wells, visit his blog:  http://zachariahwells.blogspot.ca/

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UPDATE: 
Please see my interview with Wells at the Humber Literary Review's webpage: 
http://humberliteraryreview.com/in-conversation-zach-wells/