Canada's North is 'why I write,' says Joseph Boyden

Author Joseph Boyden spends part of every year in northern Ontario, making several trips from his other home in New Orleans to a hunting camp near Moosonee.

Moosonee is one of the settings for his novel, Through Black Spruce, named last week to the short list for the Giller Prize, as well as an important part of Boyden's childhood.

Those trips north are essential for a writer who says the experience of First Nations people and communities are what he most feels moved to write about.

"What I do I come up here and I select the well fills up and I go back to New Orleans and look at Canada. All I write about is Canada and First Nations people at this point in my life," Boyden told CBC's Q cultural affairs show.

"That psychic and geographic difference gives me something as a writer to be able to just sit back and look from a distance is so important," he said, speaking from Mile 126 on the Polar Bear Express rail line, which runs between Cochrane and Moosonee.

Boyden said he was visiting a hunting camp with his son and brothers to "fill up the freezer for winter."

Hunting is a discipline that figures prominently in both Boyden's novels, Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce. His writing frequently conjures images of passing on traditional hunting skills to children.

He described paddling the Moose River by freighter canoe looking for signs of moose over the last few days. "A lot is sitting and waiting and trying to be as quiet as you can and keeping a good eye out for any signs of animals coming in," Boyden said.

"I think it was the whole idea of the stillness, when I was very young. Of wanting to get up and get moving and stuff and being told, 'Just sit, wait, be patient.'"

Boyden said he tries to create new perspectives on First Nations people.

"You hear about the addiction. You hear about diabetes. You hear about a lot of negative stuff, but the beauty of the land and the beauty of the people is so rarely talked about and this is something I try to tackle on a regular basis," he said. "There's a whole other side you don't see."

Through Black Spruce follows the progress of a Moosonee Cree woman, Annie, as she looks for her sister through Toronto, Montreal and New York. Boyden said making it to the short list for the Scotiabank Giller Prize is "pretty spectacular."

"The jury is just an amazing jury [including Bob Rae and writers Margaret Atwood and Colm Toibin] and so to be shortlisted for the prize is stunning to me. I'm still in awe and shock," Boyden said.

Boyden said he sees similarities between Canada's North and his other home in New Orleans.

"There are some similarities. It's something I want to write about in the future, these two different peoples who are very similar, their love of life, love of laughter, the enjoyment of life, both in New Orleans and northern Ontario," he said.

He plans to return to New Orleans before attending the Giller ceremony in Toronto, scheduled for Nov. 11.

But Boyden said a period in northern Ontario was "what I need to keep going."

"Again as a writer, I think that's why I write. Just the idea of the beauty and the calmness and the stillness is such a change from the busy busy hectic life that you lead down south," he said.

"It's one of the remote parts of Canada that is still accessible by train or by plane. The landscape is just amazing. It's a beautiful, beautiful place."