In Tales from a Snowbank, you will read about the challenges of surviving in a sub-arctic community, such as walking home from school with the fear of turning a corner and coming face-to-face with a big white bear. This is an autobiographical collection documenting the author’s growth to adulthood in a small but significant Canadian community: Churchill, Manitoba. The work details his unique life and times, with humour and tenderness, and examines how the community and the author’s life experiences were instrumental in shaping him. The book provides a wonderful glimpse back in time, as each chapter touches on different adventures in different decades, from illicit pool hall escapades in the 1950s, to meeting a pretty nurse in the 1960s. The book closes with the author’s return to Churchill with his new wife to visit his parents during the Christmas of 1970.

This work shows readers a part of the world and a way of life very few have experienced, describing elements of the North, such as the polar bears, belugas, and seals; living in isolation and loneliness; the beauty of Hudson Bay, and the northern lights; and the warmth of community.

The book will appeal to readers around the world who appreciate nostalgia, history, or biographies, as well as those interested in understanding what the North has to offer, and the deep historical ties Churchill has with the rest of Canada.