Walking with Wolf by Kay Chornook & Wolf Guindon (Book Review)

Title: Walking with Wolf
Author: Kay Chornook & Wolf Guindon (can contact the author at kchornook(at)rogers(dot)com)
Publisher: Wandering Words Press (2008)
Genre: Biography/Memoir

First Sentence: "I'm out here looking over the treetops, across the old clearings to the ridge and the Continental Divide, thinking about those early years."

At first, this book was hard to follow – it has so many people and places, many with unfamiliar names to me, that I was not sure how I was going to keep up. The style was also a little hard to follow –but I kept with it, and am glad that I did.

The narration of the book jumps back and forth between Kay and Wolf – and this was confusing in the beginning. As I read, I learned to watch for the “quotes” – as Wolf’s stories were “quoted” and Kay’s were not. I would also recommend that you allot enough time to read complete chapters at a sitting, as they are each like short stories.

Like chapter 4, Stepping Stones, which tells how the Quakers from America were accepted by the people of Costa Rica and how together the started building their community and businesses. From page 49:

“Monteverde felt like it was to be our home right from the beginning and it has continued to feel that way. The economics of it were and still are bouncing on the borderline. There have been opportunities to go into something better economically, but we’ve made our choices and feel very satisfied with them. I remember thinking, ‘Well, if the dairy plant fails and if Monteverde fails,’ and under the circumstances they very well could have, I felt I’d enjoyed the experience and could always start over and survive. Besides, at the time to me it wasn’t work, it was just part of the project of the community we were living in.”

I also liked chapter 6, The Path to Extinction, which tells the story of the golden toads and the part they played in helping bring awareness to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve.

I cannot do justice in trying to give a complete overview of this book, as it encompasses so much time and important material, so I am going to cheat and include the words from the inside cover:

From the lush, windy cloud forest of Monteverde in Central America comes the story of pioneering conservationist Wolf Guindon. Jailed in the United States in 1949 as a conscientious objector, Wolf and his bride Lucky were among a small group of Quakers who left Alabama a year later in search of a new life and found it on a wet mountaintop in Costa Rica. For the next twenty years, Wolf labored to transform the land to make it habitable and productive, even as he was falling in love with the flourishing jungle around him. In 1972, he found a new purpose when he helped establish the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. Since then he has worked relentlessly to secure the protection of the surrounding wilderness so that the flora and fauna of this vast, incredibly beautiful and biologically diverse region will be intact for generations to come.
In 1990, following her first experience of walking with Wolf for several days through the rainforest, Canadian social activist Kay Chornook gave Wolf a tape recorder. She encouraged him to record his many remarkable tales of cutting trails through the dense vegetation, following tapir tracks across the ridges, discovering the wonders of the wild abundance, and sharing innumerable cups of coffee with homesteaders, biologists and fellow adventurers. Walking with Wolf is a personal memoir, but it is also the history of a place and a movement as well as a celebration of lives lived amongst the trees of both Canada and Costa Rica.

Drinkwater by Eric Hopkins

Drinkwater - Eric Hopkins


From the cover: Drinkwater was originally an English word given to someone who abstains from drinking alcohol. As a family name it represents sobriety, dignity and self-control.

Nineteen-year old Amber Drinkwater knows that when life presents hardships, a responsible person meets them fairly, with a clear head and the willingness to work. Her plans to start a new life in Toronto with her brother Guy are interrupted when their uncle fails to meet them at the train station, but she resolves to abide until he turn up - and when it seems their caretaker is gone for good, she accepts it as an unexpected but timely call to independence and adult responsibility, inspite of her dearth of money or friends in the city.

The sprawling city of Toronto represents a shining opportunity for Amber to prove herself through an old code of grim endurance and bold resignation, but she will find her simple work ethic is no match for its modern towers, dark streets and disjointed neighbourhoods. Drinkwater is a provocative story that blurs the borders between teenage empowerment and helplessness, between experience and naivety, and between optimism and blind hope.

I am not sure that this is a good summation of this book - when I read this, I pictured a young girl, though facing what seems to be insurmountable odds, valiantly strives forward to success, however small. Maybe this was just the optimistic/romantic in me. This was not this book.

Amber and her brother, Guy(just a teenager), arrive in Toronto expecting their uncle Ian to meet their train - then they would begin their life there - Amber by transferring to the college in Toronto, and Guy by finishing high school. Never quite sure what happened to the parents, but the way things are phrased you get the idea that they have died. (So in all respect, maybe the point of this book was that these two were in shock over the death of their parents). The two kids never really do discuss their parents. What follows is about a week in the life of Amber as she proceeds to try to find them a place to stay, first until their uncle gets back - and when she realizes that isn't going to happen, a permanent place to stay. She also tries to get a job and get her brother enrolled in the local high school.

She bums lodging off of a tour guide (Carrie)she had meet the spring before, and when she wears out the welcome in her dorm, she stays with Carrie's boyfriend. She gets two jobs, one for which she never shows up for, and the other one at Tim Horton's (coffee shop) for which she is late, but does manage to work a few night shifts.

The book was somewhat disjointed - didn't really always follow where the characters were supposed to be. The kids do get separated and we learn very little about where or what happens to Guy after that. I didn't like the story and didn't like the ending - but it has stayed with me which I guess, in itself, says something. It does a good job of depicting how tough it is to get a start in life - especially as a young adult - if you do not have any sort of a plan or savings or just help in general. I am sure not everyone would feel the way that I do about this book. I want my reading to be all about what is good and right in the world so this always plays into my feelings. I would give this a 3/5 stars.

Publisher: Crackjaw Publishing http://www.crackjawpublishing.com/