Leaving the Farm / Ross Klatte

0-88982-237-9 • 344 pp • $22.95 • pb • March 2007 • Memoir/Farm Life

Leaving the Farm is a poignant, funny, beautifully rendered memoir about growing up on a small Minnesota dairy farm in the 1950s. It was a time when family farms throughout North America were beginning to disappear. Central to this story is the struggle between a bookish, daydreaming boy and his self-made, driven father — the tension between real life on the farm and the boy’s imaginative world.

It’s a story that lovingly delineates the richness and drudgery of farm life, the emotion of family ties, and a rapturous intimacy with nature. Above all it’s a farm boy’s story. At first, the farm, with its surrounding fields and woods, provides a natural playground for the boy. Later, called upon to do a man’s work and expected to take over the farm someday, the boy begins to feel trapped and dreams of escape. He escapes into worlds of his imagination based on avid reading and his longing for other places.

One day he is shocked awake, into dreadful reality, when his four-year-old sister is killed on the farm. Within a year and a half of that terrible accident, his parents hold an auction of their livestock and machinery and the boy leaves for Navy boot camp. This memoir is Ross Klatte’s tender requiem for his lost sister, for the father with whom he struggled for freedom, and for his childhood on the farm, whose shape has indelibly imprinted itself on the man he has become.

Ross Klatte was born in Minneapolis and raised on his family’s dairy farm just west of the city. After serving four years in the U.S. Navy as a journalist and obtaining a B.A. in journalism from the University of Minnesota, he worked as a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, as feature editor of the National Bowlers Journal, in Chicago, and as a copy editor for the Detroit Free Press. He immigrated with his wife to Canada in 1971 and homesteaded near Nelson, BC, where he lives with his wife. The opening chapter of his memoir is adapted from his original essay, which won the first prize in the CBC Literary Competition for 1990.

“Ross Klatte sweeps the reader immediately into the excitement and fascination of childhood on a Minnesota farm. His loving attention to detail, and his consummate literary skill, takes the reader on a ride as wild as a toboggan run down a steep hillside alongside the barn.”
— Tom Wayman

“Ross Klatte leads us to an epic comprehension of the loss of one family’s farm, with writing so eloquent and disarming, so deftly nuanced and intensely moving that my sorrowful empathy with the tragedy herein is balanced by the sheer pleasure of reading such good writing. This is a wonderful achievement.”
— Caroline Woodward

Writing On Stone / Michael Elcock

0-88982-231-X • 320 pp • $21.95 pb • August 2006

Michael Elcock emigrated to Canada from Scotland when he was 21. Since then, his life and travels have taken him to many parts of the world — and back to Scotland — many times.

In Writing on Stone, Elcock reflects on the immigrant experience, and the questions of memory and identity that come with leaving roots behind, and putting down new ones. Elcock's shrewd observations and humour take us behind the masks that old countries, and new countries, project — and to the importance of people to our reality. To his surprise, Elcock finds near the end of his exploration that he is not the first member of his family — as he'd supposed — to travel this emigrant route: From the west coast of Canada to the west coast of Scotland — and along the route of the Mounties' Great Trek.

Michael Elcock was born in Forres, Scotland and grew up in Edinburgh and West Africa. At age 21, he emigrated to Canada and worked in pulp mills, in the woods, on west coast fishing boats and as a ski instructor. Along the way he earned a B.A. and M.Ed at the University of Victoria, and undertook post-graduate studies in Quebec, Sweden, Germany, Belgium and Scotland. He was Athletic Director at the University of Victoria, and then CEO of Tourism Victoria. In 1990 he moved with his wife and daughter to Andalusia to work on developing Spain's Expo ‘92.

He has lived in a number of different countries, and has travelled extensively. He has published many articles in periodicals, newspapers and magazines in Canada and overseas. He now lives with his family outside Victoria, BC.

"Beautiful writing — like a photo album in words, layering memory and history, cross-hatching the personal with the political. Real life, in other words." –Isabel Huggan

"A wise and wonderful book, packed with great stories." –Leon Rooke

Other Oolichan titles by Michael Elcock: A Perfectly Beautiful Place.

A Perfectly Beautiful Place / Michael Elcock

0-88982-189-5 • 5½ x 8½ 320 pp. $22.95 • October 2004

This penetrating memoir takes the reader from Belfast to Malta, from Prague to Paris, from Oman to Andalusia—and points in between. Michael Elcock
began by retracing the footsteps of his father, an RAF pilot during the Second World War, and eventually visited battlefields and conflict zones in Malta, Beirut, Belfast, Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, Beaumont Hamel, Berlin and Prague. With an empathetic ear and the eye of a true traveller, he offers readers a view of places and people that embraces anecdote, absence and history, and is filled with humour and observations that help us to see with a different clarity.

Michael Elcock was born in Forres, Scotland and grew up in Edinburgh and West Africa. He emigrated to Canada when he was twenty-one and worked in pulp mills, in the woods, on west coast fishing boats and as a ski instructor. In 1990 he moved with his wife and daughter to Andalusia to work on developing Spain’s Expo ‘92. He now lives with his family outside Victoria, BC.

“[This is] beautiful writing—like a photo album in words, layering memory and history, cross-hatching the personal with the political. Real life, in other words.” –Isabel Huggan, winner of the 2004 Charles Taylor Prize for literary non-fiction.

". . . a wise and wonderful book, packed with great stories." –Leon Rooke, a winner of the Governor General’s Award for Literature.

“Elcock writes with a clear eye and heart. There is no other way to say this. After reading a portion of the Seville Diaries I wept. Such wistfulness here, beauty and sadness mixed."—Susan Musgrave.

Just Chicken: 100 Easy Recipes From India

0-88982-229-8 • 7 X 9½ • 136 pp • Cloth $27.95

The hundred recipes that constitute this book come from different parts of India. Every kind of dish is included: salads, curries, breads, rice, and pickles. For this most versatile of meats can be cooked to suit every palate: rich, spicy Biryani Shahjehani and Nargisi Murgh Rogan Josh co-exist with the more subtle dishes that are the pride of Parsi cuisine, as well as the lesser known, but equally delectable, Pahadi Madra Murgh from the Kangra region.

The author’s long experience as a cookery instructor is evident in her choice and presentation of recipes: traditional recipes have sometimes been deftly altered to make them easier to follow, saving on time and effort, and suggestions are offered for interesting combinations and accompaniments. Tandoori, Dumpukht, Balti, every kind of cuisine that you would associate with cooking in the subcontinent is contained within these pages, bringing you chicken at its very best, Indian style.

Notes From The Interior / Elizabeth Templeman

0-88982-220-4 5½ X 8½ 240 pp $18.95 • May 2003

Elizabeth Templeman’s Notes From The Interior is an important addition to regional and personal history, and is an examination of the synergy that occurs when immigrants make their home in a small, rural community. In this, her first book, Templeman pushes the envelope of literary genres by combining personal essays, memoir, and community history with meditations on the nature of language, work, family, and human relationships. Templeman is a keen and insightful observer, who delights in the mysteries of how children learn, how a community is forged, how we, as human beings, knit together the bonds that cradle us. Her observations of daily life in her hometown expand outward into philosophical meditations on art, education, and marriage and her essays invite the reader into a world imbued with the wild beauty of B.C.’s interior and the wilder beauty of the human heart.

Elizabeth Templeman lives at Heffley Lake, BC with her husband and three children. For twenty years, she has taught English as a second language at the University College of the Cariboo, in Kamloops. She holds a B.A. from Cornell University, and an M.A. in English from Central Washington University. Her essays and book reviews have been published in various magazines and journals, have been read on the CBC program Richardson’s Round-up, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.

Here in Hope / J. M. Bridgeman

$22.95 • ISBN 0-88982-212-3 • 5 ½ x 8 ½ • 208 pages

This elegant book describes the evolution of the small community of Hope, British Columbia. "Some people have an ear for the soul of stone. Others fear the fall. . . . Some move mountains; others are moved by them.” Here In Hope is at once a history of place, a spiritual and ecological memoir, and a biography of Hope. Bridgeman tells the stories of this land and its people with a mystic’s sense of wonder, and a scientist’s curiosity about the precise nature of the forces that shape our world.

Journeys: Down the Alberni Canal to Barkley Sound

Jan Peterson

0-88982-178-X · 6 x 9 · CIP 1999 · 350 pp. $21.95 pb

Recipient of the 1999 Certificate of Honour from British Columbia Historical Federation. Includes 83 historical photographs, 5 maps, Chart of Sechart Whaling Station, 8 pen-and-ink and charcoal drawings of historical vessels by Michael Dean.

Journeys: Down the Alberni Canal to Barkley Sound, Jan Peterson’s fourth history of Vancouver Island, is the history of the Alberni Inlet, from the time of First Nations history to the present. The book is rich with the personalities and the stories of those who settled the area and with the histories of the resource-based industries that fuelled their dreams and the ships that connected them to the outside world.

We Went Where they Sent Us . . . and did as we were told (most of the time) / Edited by Gordon Bell

$39.95 • ISBN 0-88982-194-1 • 8 x 10 • 288 pages

“Sixty years ago they held a war for us. After it was over, the generals wrote their books in which our heroes’ exploits were well documented. But most of the rest of us just went about the business of becoming civilians.” This remarkable new Canadian history book of untold WWII remembrances documents the vast contribution of Canadians, and re-emphasizes the meaning of Remembrance.

We Went Where They Sent Us appeals to everyone interested in Canadian history and WWII, and contains photographs and historical documents Proceeds from sales will benefit the Royal Canadian Legion Senior Housing Program.

Ben & Jock / by Gerry Fewster

$24.95 • ISBN 0-88982-202-6 • 5 ½ x 8 ½ • 416 pages

Ben and Jock is the story of two extraordinary men, both medical doctors, who have dedicated their lives to unveiling the authentic self that lies at the heart of all human relationships.

Ben and Jock believe that all people have the inner resources to liberate themselves from self-defeating patterns, and that this process can be supported and enhanced through bodywork, acupuncture and techniques such as Reichian breathing, gestalt and psychodrama. They work individually with each participant within the context of a group which offers support, empathy and witness to the emerging self. Gerry Fewster describes this process up close, offering the reader an insider’s view of these two men, their work, their relationship and their lives.

Cathedral Grove / by Jan Peterson

$19.95 • ISBN 0-88982-160-7 • 6 x 9 • 136 pages • maps, photos

The ancient trees of Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island are a priceless heritage that has been preserved for British Columbians and for the world. H.R. MacMillan donated the Grove to the province 50 years ago; it is now one of the last remaining areas of forest on a major B.C. highway and the most frequently visited provincial park.

Cathedral Grove combines the story of the preservation of BC's most popular park with information on the forest. Generously illustrated with maps, historical photographs and cartoons, the text is further enhanced by many beautiful photos of the present-day park. Jan Peterson provides descriptions and pen and ink sketches of the trees and plants of the Grove along with information on their traditional uses.

Progeny of Ghosts / David Manicom

19.95 • ISBN 0-88982-168-2 • 5 ½ x 8 ½ • 318 pages

Winner of QSPELL’s Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction sponsored by Royal Bank of Canada. Short-listed for Viacom Canada Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. “Everybody is writing a book about the former Soviet Union. . . . Yes. But. Not everyone is David Manicom. Not every writer has a sensibility sufficiently large to take in the monstrous beauty, the stunning contradictions of the former Imperium. . . . Not every writer is the poet he is.” —Denise Roig, The Gazette.

David Manicom joined the Canadian foreign service in 1989; having completed postings in Islamabad, Moscow and Beijing, he now works in Ottawa and lives in Quebec.