Friday 10 August 2012

Summer reading - historical fiction The Town that Drowned


The summer is flying by - I've been camping, reading, beaching, writing, working  -
 Here is a jaunty little blue boat sitting a little too high to actually make it into Lake Diefenbaker just outside of Elbow, Saskatchewan and here we are on our way home - from Elbow to ... Eyebrow, yet to pass through Moose Jaw.
     Lake Diefenbaker was created by damming the South Saskatchewan River - construction of the Gardiner Dam started in 1959 and the lake was filled in 1967. My reading while there, very appropriately - The Town that Drowned by Riel Nason, a novel (it just won the Commonwealth Book Prize Canada and Europe) about a town in New Brunswick that was 'drowned' by the creation of a dam in Canada's Centennial year also. It was a great read and I'm more curious than ever about both Lake Diefenbaker and New Brunswick's St. John River valley and Mactaquac Dam.
  
You can read more about Lake Diefenbaker here and here as well as Riel Nason  and the Mactaquac Dam
Lake Diefenbaker, Saskatchewan

Mactaquac Dam, New Brunswick

2 comments:

Riel Nason said...

Thanks for the post Anne. Interesting parallel with the timing of the flooding being the same. So glad to hear you enjoyed the book. :-)

Anne McDonald said...

It was really enjoyable Riel. It is interesting - funny sort of Centennial projects aren't they? I was just in Yellowknife where we were able to tour the abandoned townsite of the Giant mine ... some interesting parallels there too. I plan to post something on that yet too!

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