Between the shedding of the last leaves and the first fall of snow there is a bareness, a starkness, a darkness. The crows seem to find their power in this season. I notice them on top of the naked treetops. Their dark iconic silhouette stands boldly on the fencerows overlooking the recently harvested fields. Their calls piercing the biting November air. How I wish to know them more. To call back to them in my own wild and powerful voice.
As I walk through the woods, I notice the Tamarack. A golden coniferous tree that radiates against the greys and browns of November. One of the only conifers that lose their soft needles before the winter. I also notice the silhouette of the rolling hill on the other side of the river and the squirrel’s nests up in the trees. We can see so much deeper into the forest now that the trees have let go.
On my way home I stop at the Kimberley General Store to pick up some warm sourdough. Perhaps it’s the memory of the bright Tamaracks, but I am drawn to the collection of golden yellow tapered candles amongst a rainbow of colourful waxy creations displayed thoughtfully in the window. I leave the shop with fresh bread, a bag of salad greens and a single golden candle wrapped carefully in a brown paper bag.
Notice how much further on the horizon we can see when the leaves are gone? Margaret Paul side trail near Ravenna, Ontario. November 16, 2025.
Our Winter Reading List
As we head into the snowy, dark, months of the year, let’s cozy up with some books about water.
award winning
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson recently won the top Canadian non-fiction prize for her new book Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead
“Leanne Betasamosake Simpson topples anthropocentrism and conventional ontologies to reveal water in all its forms as a powerful decolonizing force that connects us all. A snowflake bonds with a snowbank in a process called sintering, creating a physical bond that doesn’t destroy either; can humans learn to bond with one another and with the land to create resilient and interdependent possibilities? Theory of Water shows us how to reimagine life as we know it, embodying hope.”—2025 Hilary Weston Prize Jury (Matthew R. Morris, Lorri Neilsen Glenn, and Niigaan Sinclair)
Climate fiction
Shortlisted for the 2025 Climate Fiction Prize: The Morningside by Téa Obreht
“Obreht’s The Morningside is a quietly dazzling piece of climate fiction – more adjacent to our world than removed from it, and all the more unsettling for it.
Set in Island City, a place marked by an unnamed tragedy, the novel centres on Sil, an 11-year-old girl who moves into the Morningside apartment complex with her mother.
Both are climate refugees, though the novel wears this reality lightly – what matters more are the small acts of home-making, the search for belonging and the ghosts that travel with them. Magical realism is deftly handled here, interlaced with hints of folklore that feel entirely plausible within the book’s fragile ecology.
The Morningside is deeply readable – generous, tender and brimming with quiet unease. It never tips into bleakness, but its warnings are clear enough. “The things you had, the things you saw,” Sil’s mother tells us, “will probably be gone by the time [your children are] born.”
By Sam Illingworth, professor of creative pedagogies, published in the Conversation
from one of my favourite nature writers
“In his latest offering, renowned English nature writer Robert Macfarlane takes readers on a winding journey along three rivers in widely distant parts of the world. He does so in an effort to answer the question posed by the book’s title: Is a river alive? His young son offers the intuitive response: “Well, duh, that’s going to be a short book then, Dad, because the answer is yes!” But as Macfarlane shows across this lovely book’s length, the answer is far from simple.
The New York Times described Macfarlane as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence…with the breathless ease of a master angler.” His writing invites readers to simultaneously feel the stillness of Nature and the urgency of the environmental crisis.”
- Book Review by Rachel Lowe and Seneca Wilson, Earth Law Centre
Hope you can find some of these books at your local library or under the tree this holiday. I look forward to cuddling up under a blanket with a warm beverage and these books over the coming months and I hope you can join me for the conversations that follow in our book club on the first Wednesday of the month at 8pm ET.
Wishing you a very cozy, safe and healthy winter season ahead.
Talk soon and take care.
Megan
