Posts filed under ‘culture’
Sightseeing around Halifax
While I was in Halifax for the Editors’ conference, Between the Lines, there was some time for sightseeing, with fellow editors and some time apart
Halifax Public Gardens, across the road from The Lord Nelson Hotel (previous post)
Beautiful rhododendrons in the park …
and more. Aren’t these beautiful too?
A little history on the gardens opened to the public in 1875
I wonder if this fountain is as old as the park
The S V Mar at the dock by Murphy’s Restaurant
Little tug on back of bigger boat
Wonder how they rock the harbour. Maybe with music and singing?
All aboard the Mar with sails that were gathered like billowed sheets above our heads.
Someone offered to climb the ladder, but I don’t remember who it was. Not me, anyway!
On the evening cruise with fellow editors…
on the SV Mar, managed by strong young men like this fellow.
A university student spending his summer working on the boat
Putting up the giant sails that spread out to catch the wind
Moving out from the dock and into the harbour
…and a glimpse of Theodore Too. Just learned that Theodore’s home is Halifax. 
A tad windy and chilly out here. By the time we came back to the dock, I suspect I was not the only one ready to warm up. Guess we need to dress like sailors do.
We got to singing on the way back. The ship Titanic was discouraged, but I remembered an old folk song we learned in school, The Nova Scotia Song, and others joined along in the chorus
“Farewell to Nova Scotia …”
More pictures for another day…
Canadian Writers Who Are Christian–Beautiful Words and Beautiful Writing
Today I blogged over at Canadian Writers Who Are Christian on the topic of Beautiful Words and especially the writer, Lucy Maud Montgomery.
At Green Gables, PEI, 2010, photo by C. Wilker
Book Signing this Saturday, May 4th for Once Upon a Sandbox
I am excited about my book signing at Waterloo Chapters this Saturday, May 4th from 11 am–1 pm, in Waterloo, Ontario. Come and get your copy of Once Upon a Sandbox and get it signed. The book makes a great gift for Mother’s Day for a mother, sister, aunt or grandmother as well.
Waterloo Chapters, King Street North, Waterloo, Ontario.
Go here to listen to my interview with Robert White at Faith FM’s Art Connections
From my publisher’s website:
A marvellous family friendly book that will lift your spirits. Once Upon a Sandbox, by C. R. Wilker, is a warm and gentle memoir about family life on a farm. It is about the farm and the individuals, the personalities, and the ties that bind them to each other.
Whether it’s helping to whitewash a barn, hoeing endless rows of vegetable plants, or driving a tractor to prepare for spring seeding, there’s plenty of work to be done. Through this collection of prose and poetry, reflect on the realities of farm families, their connection with community, weather and economy, as well as being stewards of the land from which they make a living. This is a fine story to which anyone will relate. Read more here.
speaking at Kitchener Kiwanis Club, November 2012
Once Upon a Sandbox was a finalist in the 2012 Word Guild contest
Thank you again, Deborah Pryce, for your delightful art on the cover of my book.
When Fear Gets in the Way
This morning in Jeff Goins’ blog post, his guest writer, Anne Peterson, poet, author and speaker, wrote about how people offer up excuses to get out of doing things, and avoid failure. Her mother sounds just like mine. In fact, she said the same words: “There’s no such word as can’t.”
In a recent speech to fellow Toastmasters, I talked about doing something I feared. My fears were my own, but audience members identified, for they have their own to face. The first was my fear of heights and, how, when I was a teen, the prospect of standing on an elevated platform to whitewash the side of our barn terrified me. My second, the fear of speaking was about as big, and so I joined Toastmasters in preparation for a book that I would, one day, promote, or a workshop I would present.
Perhaps you’ve guessed; I`ve done both. It took months and months of practice—not to mention shaking hands and trembling voice—to feel more comfortable in front of my club members. but in time, I was speaking outside the club too, in other venues. Still challenged by the fear of heights, I fly to destinations for vacations but climb as few ladders as possible.
Learning to speak has been a good thing. Since then I have had a book published—well two, including my first little poetry collection. Being prepared has helped for I enjoyed my book events. Still butterflies creep in from time to time when I get up to speak, but I understand that means I care about my audience. Now I focus on my excitement about sharing my presentation, and it has made a big difference.
Anne Peterson quoted Winston Churchill too: “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” I identify with that, because we do often stumble as we learn, whether it’s from fear of failure or just part of the learning process. Probably a little of both. If we want something badly enough, we’re willing to work hard to achieve that success, whatever it is.
Carolyn Wilker, storytelling during the event Open Doors Waterloo, 2012.
Saturday Snapshot–Celebration of Community
Waterloo Region Museum, a celebration of community and the many people who make up Waterloo Region
The Conestoga Wagon, pulled by horses, brought many people to our community from the USA, Mennonites, and more
Arrival at Pier 21 in Halifax, and then across country to Ontario and other provinces
The Grand Trunk Railway Line. The intersection in the middle of the hallway, but of course the train does not run through that line anymore.
Travelling trunks from many countries around the world
Let’s not forget the Home Children, who were sent here—not by their own choice—but who also make up a section of our community.
People settled here and worked together to build a community with those who were already here.
The Storytelling Series at the Museum, this winter and spring, feature stories of immigrants coming to any part of Canada
This meme hosted by At Home With Books. To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken, then go to the site and connect with the page by our host, Alyce. Happy Saturday, travelling from one blog to another.
Liebster Award
My blog has been awarded the Liebster Award by fellow blogger Violet Nesdoly, whose poetry I enjoy reading. She’s a novelist too.
The deal with this award is to nominate other deserving blogs as well as to tell a little about myself.
To accept the award:
1. List five random facts about yourself
I enjoy photography and scrapbooking.
I offer workshops on memoir writing.
I teach creative writing
For exercise, I love to walk, sometimes with a friend, but also by myself.
As Violet mentioned, I love stories, both listening to them and telling them.
2. Pass the Liebster award on to other blogs (up to as many as five).
See my list below.
3. Proudly display the Liebster button on your blog! (which I have just done)
Whether those nominated choose to pass along the award or put up the award on their blog is their own choice. Here are the blogs I have nominated for the award because I enjoy reading their posts:
The Promise of Home by Rose McCormick Brandon, who in recognition of her grandmother being a home child, dedicates her blog to the memory of those children who were sent off from their home as children. Touching stories.
Kingdom Poets by D. S. Martin, also a poet, who gives such interesting information about poetry and those who write in the genre.
Sunny Side Up! by Kathleen Gibson. I so enjoy reading her posts that often are quite humorous but very real.
That Stings!
Daily Prompt: That Stings!
Franz Kafka said, “We ought to read only books that bite and sting us.” What’s the last thing you read that bit and stung you?
Recently, after my nineteen-year-old niece’s presentation about her trip to Ecuador with Free the Children, I took a book off my shelf that I had purchased at a rally in Kitchener but had yet to read. That book had been signed by Marc Kielburger, brother of Craig, whose questions and outrage at child labour began the organization, Free the Children. I began to read it.
Free the Children, by Craig Kielburger with Kevin Major © 1998 McLelland and Stewart, 318 pages, trade paperback (original version)
When twelve-year-old Craig Kielburger picked up the newspaper on April 19th in 1995, instead of turning pages to the comics as he usually did, his eye was caught by the article about the death of a child labourer in Pakistan.
He began to ask his mother questions, but she had no answers. Even his school library had little information. He thought of nothing but that newspaper article. “What kind of parents would sell their child into slavery at four years of age? And who would ever chain a child to a carpet loom?” Thus began his search for solutions and the formation of an organization that does work for children worldwide by young people themselves.
In this book, initially published in 1998, Craig writes about his first trip to to India and Pakistan to learn first hand why and how this happens. He learns of the severe poverty and mindset of people who are talked into such schemes by factory owners promising them money for the child’s labour.
I found it hard to comprehend, even as Craig did, the intense poverty he saw around him. He learned by talking with the children that many of the children still had hopes and dreams of what they would do one day when they were finally released. Yet many children would not survive because of the dangers to which they were exposed.
This book is gripping in the realities of poverty. It’s a page-turner that I had difficulty setting down, reading 20 to 30 pages at a time, even amidst the most challenging scenes. Perhaps it was that I hoped for resolution between those pages, but I learned by reading, as Craig learned from seeing and experiencing, that such situations can take generations to change, and yet there was some success in that first trip. But you have to read it yourself and let the scenes grab you.
Yes, it stings, and you won’t soon forget what you have read. Go and get a copy and read it for yourself. See what you think. I know that I will be paying attention to this organization and what it’s doing for children around the world.
A Heart this Heavy
The story of last Friday’s tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, continues in the news. More details come out, but we are not much, if any, closer to the why.
My heart is heavy, seeing all those young faces in the newspaper. And yes, their teachers too.
Jeff Goins wrote this week about his reaction to that news:
“I believe language has power and impact, that it can be a salve to our wounds. But not today. Today, I have no words.”
And fellow blogger, Ann Voskamp wrote earlier this week:
“I don’t know if legs can hold a heart this heavy.”
Investigators are trying to find answers—any answers that would help them solve the mystery. But who helps the families devastated by the death of their children? Who comforts the families of the teachers and principal who tried to shield the children from harm? Who lives beyond it without being changed in some way?
The tradgedy is removed from us by many miles, but the news brings it to our homes in newspaper, on the radio and television. The people affected are unknown to me, and yet I am a mother and grandmother. I cannot dismiss it and go on as if I don’t know. I have prayed since Friday for those people affected. It’s hard to find words. Sometimes just saying the words, the families in Newtown, is enough.
Ann continues: “When grief is deepest, words are fewest.“
Jeff would agree. He adds later in the same posting:
“But we forget that sometimes silence can be louder than our strongest voice.”
He cites the Jewish custom of Shiva in which people sit in silence with those who are facing a loss. “To not say but show we are with those in mourning.”
Sometimes no words are the best when sitting with grieving. I pray that someone is sitting with those affected families and just listening.
What’s New at Canadian Writers Who Are Christian?
Today I blogged over at Canadian Writers Who Are Christian. Go on over and read my post—It’s a God Thing— as well as posts by other authors who write there regularly. We write on a variety of subjects in our blogs and our books and the one thing that we have in common is that we’re Christian.
Once Upon a Sandbox was shortlisted in The Word Guild writing contest this year. See more about my book here. Contact me about getting your copy.
Waterloo Region Museum, Part 2
A theatre for special events such as speakers and the storytelling series that’s going on for the second season. A partition with doors tucks into the wall and closes this theatre off from the lobby.
A two-sided screen and a slide show of immigrants coming to Canada by boat.
I’ll stand and look at the all the pictures next time.
Wall display of trunks and cases that carried worldly belongings of people who came to Canada.
A reproduction of a painting. People used Conestoga wagons as their means of travel in earlier days. This display was up on a wall and I couldn’t get the painter’s name. Next visit.
An old bell tower, next to a bricked facade of a building.
One more pic for Part 2
A model of Professor Jenkins and his bicycle on the high wire on which he crossed the gorge and Niagara Falls. To think we had someone so daring!
It turns out, he was pretty smart and had much of the risk removed, something most people wouldn’t have known. Imagine the awe and excitement of people watching him cross, wondering if he’d fall off the wire, bicycle and all and into the water hundreds of feet below.
Not for me, this daring feat!
There’s much more to see at this attractive new museum. I hope you’ll come to see it soon. Go here for more information.
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