Jean E. Pendziwol
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When setting becomes character

31/8/2016

1 Comment

 
Place has always played an inspirational role in my writing. The geography, climate, people, history and cultures inherent to northwestern Ontario have influenced my work, weaving themselves into my stories. Having spent a significant portion of my childhood on and around Lake Superior, it is not surprising that this magnificent body of water became part of the setting for The Lightkeeper’s Daughters. 
 
I grew up sailing. From early childhood, my weekends and summer holidays were spent aboard our family’s sailboat, cruising the north shore of Lake Superior, visiting places like Silver Islet, Porphyry Island, Loon Harbour, Otter Cove and Isle Royale. In spite of the magnificent beauty of the Lake, the cold temperatures and isolation meant that anchorages were rarely crowded, and there was plenty of opportunity to observe wildlife and experience the majesty and solitude of the environment.
 
Considered to be the largest freshwater lake in the world, in reality, Superior is more like a sea. It has almost 3000 km of shoreline, an average depth of 489 feet (150 meters or 81.5 fathoms) and temperatures that hover around 4 degrees Celsius (40 F). Fog is common in spring and summer. October and November breed the infamous storms that have claimed more than one ship. Superior is cold and vast and temperamental. And stunningly beautiful.
 
As my story evolved, the Lake emerged as a character in its own right. Not only did it provide the setting – a setting that was dynamic and evolving in itself – it affected and changed the lives of the characters whose stories were being lived out on the pages. It was integral to the story. It was important to me, as a writer, that the reader viscerally experiences the setting, seeing it, hearing it, tasting it, feeling it – experiencing it. And eventually, the Lake took an active role in shaping the lives of the Lightkeeper’s Daughters.
 
Here are a few ways to consider using setting as character:


  • Make your setting inherent to the story. Would it be the same if it were set someplace else? What unique qualities of the setting can be employed to enhance the storytelling?
  • Engage all of your reader’s senses, allow them to see, feel, hear, taste – experience the setting. When they close the book, do they feel like they’ve been there?
  • Keep the setting dynamic. A static setting is a backdrop. An evolving setting that possesses moods, that reacts and changes, becomes living.
  • Have your setting interact with the characters. How do they develop through their interaction with the setting? Does the setting challenge them? comfort them? antagonize them? It’s important to see the setting through the character’s eyes. It is how the character views the setting that will make it unique.
  • Use the setting to create emotion, mood, atmosphere.
  • Allow the setting to directly influence the plot. What role can it play in changing the course of events?
Picture
We were on the beach, the black volcanic sand warm beneath our bare feet. The Lake was calm and chatted quietly as it breathed between the rocks. Emily was there, but it could have been just the two of us; he with his violin and me braiding the purple beach pea flowers into a garland for my hair. He was standing on the point, his brown hair tousled by the wind, his canvas pants rolled to the knees, fiddling like an ancient Greek Siren, drawing not sailors but the young lightkeeper’s daughter under his spell. It was a tune I hadn’t heard before. Sweet, airy. The song was captured by the trees, filtered by the sand and shared with the waves, but I didn’t mind. My pulse quickened with every phrase. 

​- except from The Lightkeeper's Daughters (HarperCollins 2017)

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1 Comment

Listening to voices from the past

12/8/2016

3 Comments

 
Lighthouse. The word itself implies comfort; illumination, the promise of shelter. I grew up sailing on Lake Superior, and one of my favourite places to visit was Porphyry Island where we could travel from the harbour up to the lighthouse and greet the keepers. I thought it a wonderfully romantic, idyllic life, perched as they were on edge of an island, with expansive views of the lake. I didn't think of the isolation and hardship, the close and often tumultuous relationship between land and wind and waves, between the beams that stretch across the darkness and the vessels they guide towards safe passage. But it wasn't surprising that a lighthouse crept into my writing. They fascinated me.
 
The history of lighthouse keeping on Lake Superior is fraught with tragic deaths and shipwrecks, liberally sprinkled with colourful characters, and steeped in the harsh environment of what can only be described as a temperamental inland sea. It is there I found inspiration for The Light Keeper’s Daughters, in the men and women who set out in questionable weather, sometimes in equally questionable vessels, early in spring to light the beacons and sound the fog horns. I was intrigued that they made for themselves homes in remote locations, scraping gardens out of rocky ground, planting lilacs, fishing, hunting, and whiling away long hours in solitude. Wives often became assistant keepers, children relished the freedom of a playground that included the lake and forests, and the love of the profession passed from generation to generation. 
 
I was fortunate as a writer to be able to have access to the journals of a lighthouse keeper, Andrew Dick, who served on Porphyry Island, the setting for my novel. His tenure there began in 1879 not long after the light was commissioned, and continued for 30 years. He chose to live on the island year-round with his indigenous wife Caroline and their ten children, some born on the island, and some, sadly, who are buried there. The journals, or daybooks as he called them, captured his personal writing – his opinions, the number of eggs his hens laid, fish caught, and visitors to the island, and on the back cover of one volume, instructions on how to boil an egg. They’re a fascinating snapshot of a lost time, a lost profession. 
 
While The Light Keeper's Daughters is set a few decades after the Dicks were keepers at Porphyry Island, the writings of a Scottish keeper and his Ojibwe wife, the anecdotes about his family, the meals they ate, the anguish of losing a child, the treks across the Black Bay to Porphyry, and even the number of eggs his hens laid helped frame life on the Island. The voice of Andrew Dick speaking from the past was an absolute treasure.  And I listened. 


Picture
A page from Andrew Dick's journal, 1901. Courtesy of the Thunder Bay Museum.
Excerpts from Andrew Dick's Journals:
​ 
Tuesday, June 22, 1987  Did not even have a flag to hoist. Mighty poor Govt that don’t have a flag at every lighthouse. Long life to Queen Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. I have nothing to celebrate her Jubilee well only this old pen.
 
Monday May 31, 1900 Georgina came today with Alice and her family getting away from the smallpox.
 
Wednesday, June 24, 1901 Agnes died tonight at 7 o-clock PM the same month she was born in, her mother died the same month and same date. Agnes age 36 years.
 
Friday March 7, 1902 George… had a long and hard tramp from Silver Islet down Black and through the bush. Brought the mail.
 
Friday, March 6, 1903 …got a load of caribou home this morning, went to swamp, took Emily’s piece of rope home as we have enough meat. My piece of rope is now called a snare, Emily’s rope is not promoted yet.
3 Comments

    Jean E Pendziwol

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