Manitoulin Island author reflects on an insular childhood in Northern Ontario
MILLS TOWNSHIP—In a series of memoirs entitled ‘Pilgrims at Poplar Corners,’ Manitoulin educator and journalist Margo Little reflects upon the nature of family and community in Northern Ontario during one transformative decade (1947-1957). Drawing upon her own childhood experiences in an isolated township on Manitoulin Island, she explores a culture as yet untouched by advanced technology. Through this coming-of-age memoir, mature readers will have an opportunity to revisit the Canada they knew before the digital age and young readers will be able to imagine, and perhaps even appreciate, the values of previous generations.
The purpose of ‘Pilgrims at Poplar Corners’ is to create a bridge of understanding between a generation raised with chalkboards and textbooks and a generation raised with laptops and smart phones. Although Canadians living in the 21st century take many creature comforts and technological achievements for granted, there was a time, not so very long ago, when running water, electricity and a reliable food supply were far from guaranteed.
The author chronicles her insular upbringing from her toddler years in a trapper’s cabin at Michael’s Bay to her unique education in a one-room school house on Western Manitoulin. With wry humour she shares the many childhood mishaps and encounters that helped shape her adult perspectives. The collection of personal essays, although written in the tradition of American authors Eudora Welty and Annie Dillard, serves as a distinctly Canadian homage to rural roots.
Readers are invited to travel back in time to a decade when rural Canada was still governed by the values and living conditions of the post-Second World War era. The book is not intended as a formal autobiography; rather it is a collection of vignettes focusing on incidents that had an enduring impact on an inquiring mind.
Although the tales touch upon some tragic occurrences and uncomfortable realities, the publication is in essence a love letter to Manitoulin Island and its people. As the author interweaves present day themes with episodes from the past, readers may see aspects of their own youth in these anecdotes of universal struggle.
Pilgrims at Poplar Corners was produced by Manitoulin Publishing and is available at the Expositor Book Shop. Copies are also available at the Gore Bay Museum and Robertson’s IDA. Many of the stories have appeared previously in Highgrader Magazine in Timmins, Ontario. Downloads for e-readers can be found at Kindle Direct Publishing.
Ms. Little is a charter member of the Sudbury Writers Guild and founder of the Manitoulin Writers Retreat. She holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Laurentian University. The Pilgrims collection has been released in 2016 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Manitoulin Writers Circle.
