THE E-BOOK OF THE HAIDA GWAII LESSON SHOULD BE IN YOUR E-MAIL  

Hard copies won’t be out until July 11th but we decided to set the E-books free ahead of the publication date so everyone can have a peek. After all, you’ve been waiting so patiently for so long. 

I want to thank you all for making this happen. And of course I want to hear from you. I have been working on this project for two years now and as you can imagine, I am both excited and nervous to hear what my generous supporters think of their investment. 

 Reviews are a large part of how this industry works; and today individual reviews are as valuable as published reviews. So if you like the book, and are so inclined, take a few minutes to review the book on:  

       https://www.amazon.com/Haida-Gwaii-Lesson-Indigenous-Sovereignty/dp/1942645554

        http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31922136-the-haida-gwaii-lesson 

Thanks once again for joining me on this journey and making this project a reality.  

Mark

Your long and patient wait will soon be over. 

The HAIDA GWAII LESSON is on the press. 

Publication date : July 11, 2017. 

Inkshares promises me you’ll have your copies before then. 

Thanks again for your support.

All feedback welcome.

Mark

                           YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING: WHERE IS MY BOOK ???

Well I made my deadline and was immediately told by Inkshares that production, even of a short simple book with no illustrations (sorry about that) would take about nine months. So I can safely promise you a copy before year end, probably closer to mid year. I hope you’ll find it worth the wait.  

Mark

Many of you are asking where the book is. Good question.  You supported it and it should be on your bedside table. Here are some reasons why it’s not:

The book is written and edited. It now goes into production, a notoriously slow and frustrating process with any book publisher. The next step is copy editing, then proof reading, then design. 

Design will be slower than usual with this book because it is illustrated. That’s always true of illustrated books. Print is easy, art’s a bear. Moreover, I am working side-by-side with a Haida artist on the islands. Her stunning serigraphs will be slow to arrive but worth the wait. I wish I could show you just one of them.

And while all this is under way on the Haida Gwaii Lesson, Inkshares is doing the same with dozens of other books. And, as they do so, they are researching the unique and challenging market for our book.

So all I can ask for is your patience, and hope that you’ll find the wait worthwhile.

You’re probably beginning to wonder where your book is. It’s in rewrite. My brilliant editor has asked for some fairly dramatic changes. And since I agree with most of her ideas I making them. I expect to get the manuscript back to her before the end of this month. Hopefully she will love it and send it on to it’s designer, copy editor, proofreader and libel lawyer. I can’t tell you how long they will take, but I’ve always been surprised at how slow they are. So all I can ask you for is the patience of the Haida, who have waited about ten thousand years for someone to tell this part of their amazing story.

Thought you might be interested in this short footnote from the book. The graveyards mentioned here were actually mass graves containing the remains of thousands of Haida who died during a short but devastating epidemic of small pox. Here's the footnote:

      "In one of the world’s most egregious acts of cultural vandalism (“elginism”), many of those graveyards were dug up by anthropologists who carried skeletal remains off to museums and DNA labs for genetic screening. A small group of Haida have travelled the world politely asking scientists and museum directors to return their ancestors, and in most cases have succeeded in bringing them home. The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, which had stored the Haida bones in sterile basement vaults for almost a century, not only paid to have the intact remains of close to 150 people shipped back to Haida Gwaii, they picked up the airfare of the Haida Repatriation Committee members who had flown to Chicago to ask for them. At home they were ceremoniously laid to rest again, in the forest where they were born and where they belonged."

Greetings from Haida Gwaii. 

If you ever get a chance to travel here, do so. There really is nowhere in the world quite like it. I wish I could attach photos to these updates, but alas I am reduced to a word: FANTASTIC .... to describe this mountainous archipelago that rises out of the turbulent seas of the north Pacific. Amazing that people ever found and settled the place (the Haida truly believe they origninated here ...the truest of "aboriginals"). 

There is ample archiological proof that they were here at least 13,000 years ago, surviving the ice age and watching the first tree appear on the islands, a cedar. Imagine that, people before trees. And when the trees finally came they carved them into giant canoes that eventually carried them across the Pacific. In spirit they remain as rugged and resilient as the giant spruce and cedars from which they still carve their boats.

Haa Wa (thank you in Haida) for sending me here. You'll see the result of your generosity in less than a year.

Mark