Stopping along Canada’s literary trail

RE: John Terpstra makes Mischief (June 9)

If you want to read one of John Terpstra’s poems, visit Sam Lawrence Park. Here, you will find a plaque inscribed “Giants,” his poem about giants sitting at the edge of the escarpment watching the glaciers recede. They are excited “about not having to wear their coats all the time, and what the ice and water had done, shaping and carving the gentle, wild landscape.” This plaque is in the exact location Terpstra imagined when writing the words.

The plaque or Bookmark is part of Canada’s unique literary trail. Ten years ago, Hamilton writer Miranda Hill founded Project Bookmark Canada to place Bookmarks in the exact physical locations where literary scenes are set.

If you happen to be walking along Hamilton’s waterfront trail, you will find another Bookmark. This plaque has an excerpt from Rachael Preston’s novel “The Fishers of Paradise.” This excerpt takes the reader back to Hamilton’s lost boathouse community which existed between 1920 and 1940. The fictional Fisher family lived there at a time “when you could skate all the way to Dundas.”

As Canadians celebrate the 150th anniversary of this country and visit its spectacular physical trails, they may also want to stop along its literary trail and read the words of their storytellers in different parts of the country. The Bookmark locations are found at www.projectbookmarkcanada.ca. Hughena Matheson, Burlington