MANITOULIN— Author Joan Marie Galat has been fascinated with the dark of night and those little bright bits scattered across the sky that have fascinated human beings since time immemorial, and if there is anything she loves as much it is sharing that love with others.
“I talk about the things you can see in the night sky, a blend of stories both fact and fiction that human beings have told about the night sky,” she said. “It is amazing that you can look up into the sky and see the same things that people have seen 6,000 years ago.”
Ms. Galat has collected many of the stories that people have created to explain the stars and constellations that dot the night sky. “I can tell people what other people down through the ages believed and the stories they made up to explain what they were seeing in the sky.”
The other presentation Ms. Galat is giving, Dark Matters, focusses on “why darkness matters to wildlife and why it matters to you,” she said. “There are many animals that have evolved to a rhythm of night and day and what happens to them when they don’t get those periods of light and dark.”
The presentations will take place at 7 pm on Friday, August 14 at the Assiginack Library in Manitowaning, at Gordon’s Park in Tehkummah on Saturday, August 15 at 2 pm and 7 pm and 1 pm at Providence Bay House at 5252 Highway 551 and 4 pm at the Billings Public Library in Kagawong.
Ms. Galat was first published at 12-years-old, when she became a paid weekly newspaper columnist for the Edmonton Journal after winning a contest. Today she is the award-winning author of 11 books, with new titles scheduled for release in 2015 and 2016. Her newest title, published by Owlkids, is ‘Branching Out—How Trees are part of Our World.’
