Fort Simpson (Jan 08/07) - "We're losing so much knowledge and history."

Fort Simpson's Florence Brown once told herself that if she ever wrote a book, she would dedicate it to her father. With her first book, York Boats, she's done exactly that.

Fort Simpson's Florence Brown shows off her first book, York Boats. Brown dedicated the book to her father, Gabriel Cazon, who told her the story. - Roxanna Thompson/NNSL photo

Published in both English and Slavey, the children's book explains how York boats were used on the Mackenzie River to move goods.

The book is based on stories Brown heard from her father, Gabriel Cazon. His father, Johnny Cazon, worked as a river guide on the boats for the Hudson's Bay Company.

Brown's father told her how the boats were used to transport fur out of the North. He also described how one of the biggest events of the summer was when the boats gathered in Tulita and the crews from different communities raced against each other.

When Brown chose the story she wanted to write, she had schools in mind. She hopes her book will be used in schools to help teach the history of transportation in the North.

"I thought it would be an excellent one for the kids," said Brown.

Saving stories

Recording elder's stories is one way to save them, said Brown, who is the acting director of education and culture for Liidlii Kue First Nation.

"We're losing so much knowledge and history," she said.

Her book is the first in a series that Brown hopes to have published. She currently has a field worker gathering stories from families in Fort Simpson.

The goal is to record a story from each of the biggest families, including the Hardisty, Villeneuve, Cli, Tsetso, Menicoche and Norwegian families, and two branches of the Antoine family. All the families are being asked to submit a story that they would like to see recorded.

"There's so much history out there," said Brown.

She started recording her own family's history with this book in 2004.

Her first step was to research and collect information about York boats. Stephen Rowan acted as the historical assistant for the book. Gathering the history was the hardest part of the process, said Brown.

Fort Simpson artist Michael Blyth created the coloured illustrations to accompany the story.

"I'm so thankful I had him to back up my story," said Brown.

This is Blyth's first foray into illustrating childrens' books.

When Blyth was given the project, the images for the story had already been selected. It was a matter of collecting the historical information to make the drawings, said Blyth.

Some of the illustrations still required a bit of guess work. Blyth often had to use historical photos with little description or a good description with no photo.

Blyth made the 11 illustrations with pencils, crayons and ink.

"It was different," he said, who normally does paintings and mixed media drawings.

With illustrations, he found he needed to communicate directly, while art can be more subjective, he said.

Brown and Blyth's work was revealed to the public at a book launch Dec. 13 in Fort Simpson.Brown hopes to have her next book ready for publication by February.