Where the River Takes Me Page 19

Julie loves the spring, when the camas in Beacon Hill Park is in bloom. She says that “the meadows that remain literally shimmer with blue.… My research into that aspect of Songhees life was fascinating and involved talking to local experts — two ethnobotanists and the land manager of the Songhees (Lekwungen) First Nation. The way the First Nations tended the camas — the harvesting, weeding, burning after the harvest, and the cooking — gave me a new appreciation for that part of their culture.” She also learned “that a side effect of eating camas is flatulence. And if you eat the bulb of white camas (which looks the same as blue camas) the side effect is death.”

  The research was truly daunting. “I used to tell school groups that I loved doing research. That was before the HBC (Horrendously Big Challenge). The problem with researching the HBC was that I liked it too much. It was all so interesting! And overwhelming. The number of books, articles, websites, etc. related to the HBC, the North West Company, the fur trade in general, the journals kept by the different explorers — there is an endless source of material. I get excited just thinking about it.”

  Julie’s overall interest in the HBC was further boosted when she came across the unpublished recollections of James Anderson, while researching a different book. “James was only nine years old when he travelled from Fort Colvile to Fort Langley with a fur brigade, accompanied by his father and his sister. He and his sister Eliza, age twelve, actually crossed the rough Strait of Georgia by canoe — just as they and Jenna do in this story — and they attended Staines School. The details that James remembers and describes are amazing. It goes without saying that they were an inspiration. How I wish Eliza had written her memoirs of that period!”

  For years Julie has been the proud owner of an HBC coat that she bought at a church thrift shop when she was writer-in-residence in Dawson City, Yukon. “It cost an unbelievable 15 Made Beaver.” She also has a ceinture fléchée, which she often wears on school visits when talking about Where the River Takes Me.

  Julie is the author of two prior Dear Canada books, No Safe Harbour (winner of the 2008 Hackmatack Award) and A Ribbon of Shining Steel (finalist for the CLA Book of the Year Award). Since she left teaching to become a full-time writer, she has published over thirty books, including The Pirates of Captain McKee (finalist for the Governor General’s Award for illustration), The Dragon’s Pearl (finalist for the Ruth Schwartz and CLA Book of the Year Awards), White Jade Tiger (Sheila Egoff Award and CLA Honour Book) and Ghosts of the Titanic (nominated for the Chocolate Lily and Diamond Willow awards and selected as an Honour Book for the OLA Silver Birch Award). Other titles are The Klondike Cat, Cougar Cove and The Ghost of Avalanche Mountain.

  While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Jenna Sinclair is a fictional character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.

  Copyright © 2008 by Julie Lawson.

  Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.

  SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada.

  ISBN: 978-1-4431-2406-5

  First eBook edition: September 2012

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  To read about Jenna Sinclair’s Christmas and meet other Dear Canada heroines check out

  Books in the Dear Canada Series

  Alone in an Untamed Land, The Filles du Roi Diary of Hélène St. Onge by Maxine Trottier

  Banished from Our Home, The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard by Sharon Stewart

  Blood Upon Our Land, The North West Resistance Diary of Josephine Bouvier by Maxine Trottier

  Brothers Far from Home, The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates by Jean Little

  A Christmas to Remember, Tales of Comfort and Joy

  Days of Toil and Tears, The Child Labour Diary of Flora Rutherford by Sarah Ellis

  The Death of My Country, The Plains of Abraham Diary of Geneviève Aubuchon by Maxine Trottier

  A Desperate Road to Freedom, The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson by Karleen Bradford

  Exiles from the War, The War Guests Diary of Charlotte Mary Twiss by Jean Little

  Footsteps in the Snow, The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott by Carol Matas

  Hoping for Home, Stories of Arrival

  If I Die Before I Wake, The Flu Epidemic Diary of Fiona Macgregor by Jean Little

  No Safe Harbour, The Halifax Explosion Diary of Charlotte Blackburn by Julie Lawson

  Not a Nickel to Spare, The Great Depression Diary of Sally Cohen by Perry Nodelman

  An Ocean Apart, The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling by Gillian Chan

  Orphan at My Door, The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope by Jean Little

  A Prairie as Wide as the Sea, The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall by Sarah Ellis

  Prisoners in the Promised Land, The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

  A Rebel’s Daughter, The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson by Janet Lunn

  A Ribbon of Shining Steel, The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron by Julie Lawson

  A Sea of Sorrows, The Typhus Epidemic Diary of Johanna Leary by Norah McClintock

  A Season for Miracles, Twelve Tales of Christmas

  That Fatal Night, The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis

  To Stand On My Own, The Polio Epidemic Diary of Noreen Robertson by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi by Susan Aihoshi

  A Trail of Broken Dreams, The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  Turned Away, The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein by Carol Matas

  Whispers of War, The War of 1812 Diary of Susanna Merritt by Kit Pearson

  Winter of Peril, The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge by Jan Andrews

  With Nothing But Our Courage, The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald by Karleen Bradford

  Go to www.scholastic.ca/dearcanada for information on the Dear Canada Series — see inside the books, read an excerpt or a review, post a review, and more.