Wild About Writing

I’m at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary for the opening event of this year’s meeting of the Writers’ Union of Canada. The Glenbow is a magnificent repository of Western regional culture. It has over a million artifacts and 28,000 works of art.

The attraction this evening is Mavericks, which we’re told is the first ever museum exhibition based on a book.

The book is Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta (Penguin Canada) by the Calgary novelist Aritha van Herk. She’s tracked down some of the most colorful and influential figures that have made this idiosyncratic province — for better or for worse — what it is today.

The Glenbow has cleverly designed exhibits depicting many of the characters in the book and the forces that they grappled with in building Alberta.

My favorite mavericks include Bob Edwards, the legendary editor of the Calgary Eye Opener that went out of business with his death in the early 1920s. Bob liked a drink. He once said, “Everyone has their favorite bird. Mine is the bat.”

His preferred target was the Canadian Pacific Railway. After reporting a series of train wrecks, he published a picture of the railway’s president under the heading, “Another CPR Wreck.”

Another favorite of mine from the Maverick cast of characters is Sam Steele, the Northwest Mountie who fired one of the last shots in the Northwest Rebellion, helped police the building of the CPR, kept law and order in the Yukon, and led a Canadian cavalry contingent in the Boer War.

A placard on Steele carries his famous quote reminding his troops that there is no countrry in the world that is superior to Canada. His remark reflected the jingoistic nationalism of the time. I often think it also expressed a sentiment that is even more valid today.

Speaking of the Boer War, I was delighted that Ms van Herk shared the stage with Fred Stenson, author of another wonderful book, The Great Karoo (Doubleday Canada). It’s the story of a group of Alberta cowhands who see duty in the South African war.

Stinson brilliantly captures both the horse-wise culture of the cowhands and the incredible arrogance and incompetence of their British commanders. I’m halfway through and enjoying every page.

A distinguished First Nations elder rounded out last night’s panel.

Today, we’re talking about such writerly issues as the ways in which the Internet is impacting the reading, writing and selling of books. More on this later.

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My new book, Scott Joplin and the Age of  Ragtime (McFarland) explores Joplin’s life and that of other musicians, writers and artists who brought profound changes to modern culture in the Ragtime Era, the years between the 1890s and  World War I. Check it out here or here.