No comments about On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of John Humphrey, First Director of the United Nations Human Rights Division, Vol I 1948-1949.

No comments about The Home Place: Life in Rural Prince Edward Island in the 1920s and 30s.

1 comments about Queen of Peace Room, The (Life Writing).

1. Resting in my hands is a slender book. Its cover has a black matte finish that is pleasing to the touch and a picture crafted by the author that effortlessly holds my attention. This book, its cover, the paper used to embrace what will become some of the most illuminative words I have read in a long while, and the graceful artwork therein, all form a package that is difficult to release. I hold this book for a long while then manage to put it down only to return to hold it again later. I know about the subject matter that resides between the covers of this work because its author Magie Dominic wrote to me about the narrative that lives there. I know she writes with an eloquence to which I am unaccustomed. I also know that once I begin to read what I know will be an intense autobiographical chronicle; I won't be able to stop. Maybe its because I do know what's there that I hesitate to begin. Yes. And that's why I hold on to this small, beautiful book but have a hard time starting the journey.

   When I do begin to read The Queen of Peace Room I am immediately rewarded. The prose is solid, it's beautiful, and it's satiating. Make no mistake, this story is disturbing but its telling is done with such a light touch that I barely feel the sting until I put it down. Then it won't leave my mind.

   I grew up in a world so radically different from Magie Dominic's that I find myself having to catch my breath as I try and place myself inside of her world - inside of her being. Tucked between the covers of this willowy book is a narrative so immense it's just barely contained by the fine matte jacket surrounding the work. The things that go to make up this life I can only imagine.

   She was a victim of sexual abuse at the age of seven or eight at the hands of a metaphorical Cyclopes. Like Polyphemus from Homer's Odyssey, Dominic's tormentor was fond of warm, moist, human flesh. Greedily he gorged himself on a child's mind, body, and dignity. The beast's hideous glass eye perched on the family car's dashboard watched impassively as a child became prey. An unblinking witness to a horror no human should ever endure.

   In the 1960s, she was stalked, beaten, and raped by an unknown assailant. She plunged into a deep depression and attempted suicide only to be comforted by a mother who made it clear that all of this trauma had absolutely no place in public discussion - no place ruining the family's Christmas.

   The Queen of Peace Room unfolds, as Magie Dominic unfolds, during an eight-day retreat in a place safe from the intruding world surrounded by the love of kindred spirits and the hushed quietude of nature. In a deeply personal and inviting tone, Magie takes us into the deepest folds of her life. She leads us through a wilderness of pain, humiliation, death and finally to a serene place where a harnessed field meets a wild meadow. Here, at this locus in time and space we see the transformation of Magie Dominic from whatever she may have been in the past, to an exquisite though solitary butterfly resting in the stillness on a tall blade of grass: whole, complete, and good.

   The Queen of Peace Room is expansive life writing. The tragedy bound in this tale is epic. Yet, there is affirmation in Magie Dominic and in her story. The refusal of one human soul to let go of its dignity, its absolute unwillingness to surrender, is genuinely heroic. Reading this made me cherish the brutal privilege of being human - like the one who wrote this story. Like the one who lives this life.

   --- Reviewed by
   Timothy E. McMahon, M.S.
   tim@mcmahonco.com

No comments about An Arctic Man (Goodread Biographies).

5 comments about A Thousand Shall Fall: The True Story of a Canadian Bomber Pilot in World War Two.

1. I was given this book to read from a friend that purchased it in Canada prior to a flight to England. He said I should read it for a selection to our airport book club. I picked it up and lost many nights sleep over this fine book. It is capitavating. Difficult to put it down from page one. This is one read that is worth every penny spent to purchase it. Get to know the group of brave young men that gave their all to defend the freedom that we now enjoy. For the goodness of your sole, get this book and hold the actions of these brave airmen close to your heart. excelant reading.A book you will remember for years. Leo Doiron Airport Manager Flabob Airport, Riverside Ca.



2. Quite simple the best book I have ever read on any subject. Reccomended to all!



3. Quite simply, the finest book I have read covering WW2. Plenty of laughter, plenty of tears, and the burning desire to vividly relive the drama of those days, (and I'm relatively young). Anyone who lived through it will find old memories rekindled by the score



4. Ranks with Miles Tripp's "The Eighth Passenger" as one of the 2 best Bomber Command reminiscences I have read. Perhaps that is due to Peden, like Tripp, becoming a laywer after the war. Peden's sense of humour, honesty, and writing skill combine to make it a winner. Perhaps the humour is the best part, but it is also heart-wrenching and thriling. An absolute winner.



5. A one-of-a-kind story of a Canadian Pilot in Bomber Command in WW2. Peden takes us through his early enlistment process, the trying time of duty in the BCATP, operational training and finally, mission by mission, through his entire tour as a pilot in first, Stirlings, and later, B-17s. His tale is honest and frank, sharing the fears, triumphs and tragedies of his time with that turbulent and costly service. He documents with chilling clarity the loss of each of his friends throughout the war. Murray Peden has written an evocative personal history of this oft-ignored war, one which should rightly stand as a definitive text on this subject for generations to come.

No comments about On the Edge of Greatness: The Diaries of John Humphrey, First Director of the United Nations Division of Human Rights 1950-1951 (Fontanus Monograph Series, 9).

No comments about The People Who Own Themselves: Aboriginal Ethnogenesis in a Canadian Family, 1660-1900.

5 comments about Fatal Passage: The True Story of John Rae, the Arctic Hero Time Forgot.

1. After finishing Fatal Passage, I felt perhaps a twinge of the same frustration that John Rae must have felt in his last years. Rae had the misfortune of delivering the disturbing accounts of cannibalism among the members of the Franklin Expedition. The report was so disturbing, especially to the powerful Lady Jane Franklin, that public opinion turned against Rae, who was only reporting accurately what he had learned. The net result was that Rae became a controversial figure in his time, rather than being recognized as the amazingly adaptive explorer that he was. McCoogan helps restore Rae to his rightful place in history and I am grateful for the author's efforts. The book is well-written and looks at the search for the Northwest Passage from a unique angle. It is a shame that the political climate of the time robbed Rae of the recognition he deserved. As a snowshoer who could cover 50-60 miles in a day, he was also perhaps an athlete of incredible stature and this aspect is well documented in the book as well. I am happy I read the book and recommend it to anyone interested in Arctic exploration.



2. Ashamed of my ignorance of the history of our great neighbor to the north, Canadaland, I resolved to get this book to learn more of one of its greatest unsung heroes. Who, of course, had actually been born in Scotland. But he got over to Canuckia as soon as he could, and stayed a long time. Before going back to Britain. Well...he was still heroic, if not fully Canadian.
   
   They certainly built people different back in olden pre-Internet times. These days, of course, most of us regard a trek to our mailboxes as an epic ordeal, but back in the day, it was nothing to go hiking about for miles and miles. Of course, there was no TV, so entertainment options were few, and if you were living in the remote northern Canadian woods for months on end, you really had nothing better to do than hike about and push aside the native peoples to "discover" things. But even amongst the hardy traders and trappers, John Rae was an anomaly.
   
   Pretty much, anything you could do, he could do better. I mean, he was a proficient sailor and hunter virutally out of the womb, then became a doctor at a very young age, then rose through the ranks of the Hudson's Bay Company. And the dude could walk! Thirty miles in a day would be a disappointing outing for him. Plus he could totally snowshoe, and he learned all sorts of cool stuff from various Native American tribes and the Inuit. He was like a one-man Winter Olympics, except with somewhat less luging.
   
   We would find him notable for all of his exploring, but what was more remarkable about him was his enlightened attitudes toward the assorted indigenous peoples he encountered. Whereas your average Victorian regarded the original inhabitants of North America with, at best, amused contempt, Rae realized that they were perfectly adapted to their environment and that they could teach him a great deal about how to survive in the far north. Consequently, whilst various British expeditions to find the Northwest Passage, and then to find the vanished Sir John Franklin and company, were blundering about the Arctic, crashing and sinking and starving and freezing, Rae was moving about with comparative ease and was seldom in any jeopardy.
   
   His major accomplishments were to discover the final link of an ice-free navigable Northwest Passage and to uncover word at long last about the Franklin Expedition, which he basically did by the simple expedient of asking some passing Inuit, "Hey, what happened to Franklin?" Unfortunately for Rae, the truth was not palatable to his waiting British audience. As it turns out, the crews of Franklin's ships had been forced to abandon their icebound ships to set off on a doomed trek to reach a far-distant trading outpost, mysteriously declining to head toward a much closer and more easily accessible known cache of supplies left by a previous group of explorers. But it was the news of the extremities to which they had been forced that most upset the public. At least some of the Franklin Expedition had resorted to cannibalism (which assertion has subsequently been proved in modern times by forensic analysis of some of the remains later discovered scattered here and there across the Canadian coast).
   
   It was easier for the outraged British to claim that Rae was a liar or a fool and that the Inuit had either murdered the Franklin crews or selfishly hogged all the caribou to themselves and declined to help the starving explorers. It never really sunk in for most of Rae's critics that the Inuit weren't exactly carting around surplus tons of food or that the land wasn't at all capable of supporting dozens and dozens of people at a time. And so the vilification of Rae began in earnest, orchestrated by the Widow Franklin and ably abetted (to his eternal shame) by one Charles Dickens.
   
   This is a handsomely illustrated volume with an assortment of helpful maps. Since it was originally published in Canada, to some very minor degree it presupposes that the reader has some small knowledge of certain Canadian-type things, but that's only the most insignificant of impediments to American readers. My real quibble is that the author sometimes takes an overly novelistic approach in describing certain scenes (down to details of facial expressions) and recreating dialogue. The bibliography is slim and I would've felt on more solid ground had he better documented his materials for some of these "you are there" passages.
   
   Also, his forward for the American edition is so unabashed in its effusive praise for Rae that it spirals at the end into a quasi-hysterical screed for public worship of this great man. He would have been better advised to follow the basic rule of "show, don't tell", and let us draw our own conclusion without demanding our obeisance to all things Rae. Still, this is a most entertaining and well-told tale of a figure who indeed deserves much greater acclaim and a more prominent place in the annals of Arctic exploration.



3. A biography of John Rae in more capable hands could have been a fantastic read. This is a mediocre presentation. Informative but annoyingly contrite and difficult to read unless you enjoy reading mattress pad labels.



4. What kind of man, at 45 years of age, slogs 60 kilometres through a Canadian January to give a lecture on icebergs?

   The Victorian era has endured much hostile press in recent years. Cultural mores have been challenged, essential ideas decried as "social artefacts" and the reputations of heroic idols, nearly universally male, demolished as shams. It's become a novelty to encounter the celebratory resurrection of a forgotten icon. McGoogan relates the life and accomplishments of Scotsman John Rae, who joined a Hudson's Bay Company ship as surgeon, travelled to Canada in 1833 and remained for twelve years - on the first stay. McGoogan has surveyed many of the resources dealing with Arctic exploration, but Rae's own accounts provide the essential framework for this compelling narrative. The book is nearly two stories in one: Rae's ranging explorations along the Canadian Arctic coast, and the mysterious disappearance of the John Franklin expedition. McGoogan keeps this paired account nicely balanced until they merge to determine Rae's future reputation.

   John Rae was a departure from the usual explorer of the Victorian age. Instead of heading complex expeditions, he travelled with a small support group. Instead of ships or extensive caravans, he travelled by canoe or small boat, on land using snowshoes. He was extraordinarily hardy, traversing extensive distances, often alone. He adapted many features of Aboriginal life in his travels when "going native" was disdained by most. He kept his associates fed when other British explorers were starving on government rations. He found the route of the elusive Northwest passage and determined the fate of the lost Franklin expedition seeking that route. Later, he turned from Arctic adventures to the survey of a telegraph line site across the Rocky Mountains. Why have we heard so little of him?

   According to McGoogan, one individual maintained a steady campaign to reduce Rae's reputation. Jane Franklin, Sir John's quasi-widow [she refused to admit her husband's death for years], irked by the possibility her husband had turned to cannibalism in extremity, actively challenged many of Rae's accomplishments. She fostered Leopold McClintock as the verifier of Sir John's finding of the Northwest Passage. In her zeal, she even managed to secure the aid of no less a figure than Charles Dickens to her cause. McGoogan contends Dickens' virulent racism aided this assault when the novelist asserted the Inuit were consummate liars and the true cannibals. In the event, John Rae stands out as the only explorer of note that failed to achieve knighthood for his achievements.

   McGoogan has produced a noteworthy study, done with lively wit and solid research. This book restores John Rae's position as the true finder of the Northwest Passage and as man with few peers. This book can be read by anyone seeking knowledge of the North or as a model of perseverance and sacrifice. Illustrated with photographs and engravings and including a fine bibliography, this is a real treasure to read and possess.




5. I bought this book to learn more about John Rae himself. In the history of arctic and antarctic travel and exploration, Rae was unequalled in his ability to travel lightly and quickly. He covered unheard of amounts of ground in short time. On snow shoes he was without peer. He shot game as he went. He could stand huge amounts of fatigue. Amundsen might come the closest for swift and efficient movement but he mostly travelled with skis and with dogs. Rae was mostly on foot, or canoe, where he also was without peer. On one long journey he actually gained weight. He was one of the few who understood the eskimo or inuit and spoke favorably of them which earned him the scorn of his peers and the leading snobbery in England. Yet his peers didn't live with the eskimo as Rae had and did. History has proven Rae honest and accurate in his portrayal of the eskimo and of his reports of cannibalism among the Franklin Expedition. Because he refused to recant this tale of cannibalism (The eskimo had told him this and he knew them to be truthful and stood up for them) he was ostrasized and critisized and lost a knighthood. He stuck with the truth and his principles. Further explorations and discoveries have proven him to be correct. This was a man sans pareil when it came to back country traveling and exploring. A man of integrity and honesty. You don't hear much about such heros. Instead, you hear of so called "heros" among the inept and...Scott of the Antarctic. This book will introduce you to Rae and his explorations and discoveries. I also highly recommend "The Last Place on Earth" by Huntford (about race to the South Pole--shows the stupidity of Scott and genius but flaws of Amundsen) and "Arctic Grail" by Berton (Arctic Exploration).

No comments about Nick: A Montreal Life: Nick Auf Der Maur.

No comments about Sea Otter Chiefs.