Aspects of "Partners"   During the last few days I’ve been talking to people at the Dawson Creek Visitor’s Center about some of the history of Western Canada, or at least the parts that I’ve read and included in my novels. In this posting I’m simply pasting in the Author’s Note from my novel Partners. The locations either exist or did so at the time and some of the action is also historical. Author’s Note   Old Woman Lake is located in what is now south-central Saskatchewan. Aboriginal legend claims that a group of Assiniboine (or Cree or Blackfoot or Crow, depending on the story-teller) were surrounded here by a group of Blackfeet (or Cree or Crow, again depending on the narrator). An old woman in the group volunteered to keep the fires burning while the rest slipped away in the night. The end of the story also varies with the source; the surrounding or attacking group closes in at daylight resulting in the old woman being killed or adopted, or the camp site vacant wi...

  Let’s Try Democracy Again!   It is true that no positive trade can be negotiated with the fodder headed, self-centered fence post presently acting like he IS the neighboring country to the south rather than its destructive, crime ridden figure-head. It also appears that we will have to put up with that situation for the next 3 years since right thinking people with integrity are apparently also cowards. So that means we have 3 years to concentrate on the development of Canada and to extricate this greatest of nations from the embarrassment of our former prime minister (lack of capitals intentional), the destruction of Canadian values, and the continuing misdirection of the country by his replacement. It’s time to return to democracy, free speech, acceptance of progressive ideas and development of internal and external assets. No, despite repeated assurances from the Carney government, we have none of these but we do have a long list of things that need to be elimi...

Yes, We Could have known “History repeats itself?” “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” “Those who don’t study history are bound to repeat it.” And my favorite, this one from Pearl S Buck; “If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” The way history was presented in school always upset me. Students were told how kings, prime ministers and presidents did this or that resulting in some type of follow-up months or years later. With very little research beyond teachers’ instructions, it was possible to discover that kings, prime ministers and presidents didn’t do much of anything that didn’t increase their “electability” or their treasury. Sometimes they were forced to do something outside those parameters by the common man whether they be called peons, serfs or merchants. Or because the common man uncovered what they were trying to hide. The problem with many – and I do mean many – historical records are that, as Winston Churchill ...