HUMBOLDT 鈥� The journey for Candace Savage鈥檚 newest book began when she saw the name of the first man to own her Saskatoon home: Napoleon S. Blondin.
鈥淭hen I found a name just like that in books about M茅tis history and I started to wonder, is there a story here?鈥� said the non-fiction writer. 鈥淚s this house maybe a portal into the whole history of Western Canada?鈥�
As it turned out, the Napoleon S. Blondin that owned Savage鈥檚 home wasn鈥檛 the same one found in M茅tis history book, but it was enough for her to spend six years writing Strangers in the House, which will be released in the fall.
It was from that yet-to-be-released book that Savage read when she visited Humboldt鈥檚 Reid-Thompson Library on April 10.
Strangers in the House covers the settlement of the prairies, both by the M茅tis and French Canadians. It looks at the pieces of history like the violence between the M茅tis and the federal government, and the Ku Klux Klan鈥檚 hatred of the Roman Catholic form of Christian practised by many French Canadians.
Savage said all of those events echoed through her house 鈥� and are now echoing inside her new book.
The author said she鈥檚 always been attracted to whatever will allow her to explore.
鈥淚 really love telling stories. If you're making up a story, you get to shape it so that it's tellable, but if you're trying to tell [a story about] a life, it's all bumpy and lumpy, so that's an interesting challenge,鈥� she said.
鈥淚 understand the attractions of writing fiction and I know that that's also a way of exploring reality, but just making it your business to try to understand the world as it is, in a straightforward way, I find that really fascinating.鈥�
Savage said she鈥檚 finding herself taking more and more time to research her books before releasing them. Her last published book was Geography of Blood in 2012, which is about the displacement of the First Nations peoples living on the prairies as settlers from the west came to set down roots.
Along with Strangers in the House, Savage will also release Hello, Crow, a nonfiction picture book about a Seattle girl that befriends a murder of crows by feeding them. In return, the crows began to gift her objects.
