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Loading... Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw: Travels in Search of Canada (2004)by Will Ferguson
None. An interesting mix of travelogue, history, humour and personal/family memoir. I enjoyed the glimpses of different parts of Canada and the theory about Canada being a nation of outposts. A lot of the book rang true to me and I was fascinated to learn more about the Underground Railroad in particular. (  ) AJBraithwaite | Aug 7, 2012 |  An interesting mix of travelogue, history, humour and personal/family memoir. I enjoyed the glimpses of different parts of Canada and the theory about Canada being a nation of outposts. A lot of the book rang true to me and I was fascinated to learn more about the Underground Railroad in particular. ( )1  AJBraithwaite | Aug 13, 2011 | I loved this book. I thought I knew something about Canada, and had seen a little bit of it. I thought I knew something (albeit not much) about being Canadian. This book showed me how little both those little bits are, and in a way that made me want to go everywhere and do everything that Ferguson did on his travels (except maybe the seal flipper pie). (  ) Placebogirl | Mar 21, 2010 | I loved this one. Lots of interesting travel memoir and family reflections, lots of Canadian history notes on different areas and different time periods. Very entertaining. Would be a good cottage book to browse on lazy afternoons, or naturally a good one to read on a Canadian road trip. ( ) tripleblessings | Jan 18, 2010 | http://pixxiefishbooks.blogspot.com/2... I've mentioned this before (twice, actually): Will Ferguson is a funny, funny man. And with the intriguing title of this book, which I'd picked up in Canada before leaving for Japan but had made myself wait many months before allowing myself to read it, I was expecting more belly laughs. And boy, did it deliver! Ferguson spent a few years traveling back and forth, here and there, across Canada, and the result is a series of short stories about strange happenings while on the road. He peppers these humourous stories with a good dose of history - not enough to choke those who always fell asleep during Canadian history class in high school, and just obscure enough to keep those Canadian history keeners (myself included) listening and curious. He goes everywhere: Victoria, B.C., for a poetry slam; Churchill, Man., looking for polar bears; Saguenay-Lac St. Jean, Que., to find a lost kingdom; and even St. Thomas, Ont., just outside London, in search of 'Canada'. It's always interesting, often funny, and never pedantic. This is the kind of literature I wish we'd read more of in my Canadian literature classes. For starters, I don't think he mentions the name 'Susanna Moodie' even once (though I think he does talk a bit about Catherine Parr Trail) - kudos all around right there. 1 pixxiefish | Mar 17, 2009 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0676976441, Paperback)Will Ferguson’s first book in three years, following on the back-to-back successes of How to Be a Canadian (over 110,000 copies sold) and Happiness™ (Winner of the Leacock Medal for Humour).Will Ferguson has spent the past three years criss-crossing Canada and back again. In a helicopter above the barrenlands of the sub-Arctic, in a canoe with his four-year-old son, aboard seaplanes and along the Underground Railroad, Will’s travels have taken him from Cape Spear on the coast of Newfoundland to the sun-dappled streets of Olde Victoria. In his last book, Will told us how to be Canadian; now in this book, he will tell us what it means to be Canadian. And what Will finds out along the way is that Canada in its development and in its current state is really a series of outposts — not only geographically but culturally. Will’s journey takes him to far-flung isolated communities as well as deep into Canada’s urban centres. From the “million-acre farm” that is P.E.I. to the tobacco belt of southern Ontario, from the architectural mess that is Montreal to the glorious jumble that is St. John’s, from a renegade republic in northwestern New Brunswick to a tundra buggy in the polar bear migration paths of Hudson Bay, Will explodes the myths of who we are. Funny, poignant and insightful, Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw is a provocative tribute to our quirky and fascinating country. Excerpt from Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw In one particular seedy St. John’s pub, I was adopted by a work crew from Portugal Cove who took an immediate, almost antagonistic liking to me. “You’re from Alberta, you say? I have a cousin in Fort McMurray, maybe you know him.” (Everybody in Newfoundland has a cousin in Fort McMurray.) The crew from Portugal Cove tormented me with screech and second-hand smoke as they regaled me with tales of how their families were so poor “back when” that all they could afford to eat were lobsters. This was not the first time I had heard this. Apparently half the population of Newfoundland has subsisted on lobster at some point or other. From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:37:30 -0500) Delving into the history and landscape of Canada, Will Ferguson travels the land in search of the people who reflect the character and nature of the country. |
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