Left: Ali in the tidepool / Center: Stephie in the river with otters / Right: Luke asleep on two bearcubs

Imagine you are a child being tucked into bed and having your grandmother tell and retell the story of how you were found on Haida Gwaii.

It Begins

Once upon a time, the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed grandchildren of Tll.aal Tlell’s Donna-Lee Laroque queried, “How did you and Papa get to be our grandparents, Nonny?” It is then that Donna-Lee began telling fantastical stories about how she and their Papa Brian found them on the Islands. Stories so loved, they asked to hear them over and over again. “When there were too many stories to keep in my head, I began to write them down,” Donna-Lee shares. And so began her lengthy journey of co-creating a book for each and every one of her nine grandchildren. Enter the Haida Gwaii Treasures - a series of truly magical children’s books.

Truth be told, Donna-Lee has been weaving bedtime stories for her grandchildren for over twenty-seven years! Each story is crafted through an intuitive twinning of the child with local wildlife or sea life to reflect their personalities. As each grandchild was born, a new story emerged. All of the stories are about Papa Brian going out into the natural world of Haida Gwaii to find the grandchild and bring them home to Nonny and the happy cabin in the forest.

In the first book, Papa finds Ali playing with the dolphins. She loves the tidepools and the creatures she finds living there. Book two features Stephie and her river otter friends. In book three, Papa Brian finds grandson Luke sleeping with two black bear cubs. “Papa told [Luke] about the little cabin in the forest by the ocean and about Nonny and the two granddaughters waiting for him. Luke said he wanted to go with Papa to be a grandson.”

After Donna-Lee had written down three stories she set about finding an artist, a designer, an editor and a publisher.

The Artist: Penny Richardson has lived on Haida Gwaii since the early ‘70s. She finds inspiration for her art in the beauty of the Islands she loves and enjoys exploring a variety of media and methods, using everything from dryer lint to driftwood. Her familiarity and her connection with the plants and animals of the Islands are evident in her illustrations. After being asked by Donna-Lee if she would help with the books, the artist was given a box full of pictures of the grandchildren enabling her to create up to thirty original paintings for each story. Little line drawings became bigger colour paintings. All of the flora and fauna paintings needed to be of the correct species for Haida Gwaii. By 2014, three books were written and the illustrations complete. Now Donna-Lee needed a book designer.

The Designer: Katie Borserio, a high school art teacher, offered her expertise and suggested a Victoria company, Island Blue, for the printing as she had used them after she had designed and collated the high school yearbook for a number of years. Sadly, Katie has since passed but part of her legacy includes her work in creating the design layout which will be lovingly used for all of the subsequent books.

Katie’s design of the books adds to the magic of the Haida Gwaii Treasures series. All of the book covers feature the painting of the “Cabin in the Forest” in a different colour. Next there is a map of the Islands with a star noting the place where the grandchild was “found.” A pen and ink portrait of the grandchild is followed by the first full colour painting of Donna-Lee in her garden. The last illustration in the story shows a set of gumboots specific to the grandchild. As more grandchildren were born, subsequent books added more pairs of gumboots. The back cover features Donna- Lee and Brian, arms around each other’s waists, waving farewell. For the first three books, Donna-Lee and Penny pasted the paintings into the story where they wanted them to go. Katie did the final layout and design. It was time for an editor to come on board.

Left: Donna-Lee in her garden / Top right: Penny Richardson (L) and Donna-Lee Laroque, PC: Lin Armstrong / Bottom right: Donna-Lee and Papa Brian

The Editor: The first five books were edited by the multi-talented Amy-Jo Salter, Donna-Lee’s sister, who had been painting, drawing, teaching and editing for over three decades. She was the perfect fit and willingly joined the team. Amy-Jo is a mainlander and suggested a glossary be added because not everyone knows what a snag is or dunes, driftwood, floats, salt chuck or kindling.

The Publisher: All of the books were self-published by Donna-Lee’s Mermaid Publishing. At first, the books were just printed and bound for the grandchildren but the parents all wanted copies and so fifty copies of each of the three books were ordered followed by a further fifty copies of the first five books through Amazon.

Image: A pair of gumboots for seven grandchild (and counting)

The Launch and Four More Books

Queen B’s restaurant was chosen as the venue for the books’ release back in December 2015. Donna-Lee signed all copies as the books quickly disappeared into an enthusiastic crowd. Kathy James arranged an Arts Evening at the Haida House in Tll.aal Tlell and Donna-Lee attended as a published author. Along with Susan Musgrave, the authors read excerpts from their own books to the appreciative guests. Since the publishing of the first five books in the Haida Gwaii Treasures series, four more stories are being prepared for printing bringing the total to nine books for the nine grandchildren. Penny is providing artwork for two of the books and Amy-Jo will be adding her paintings to two others. The books will be made ready for forwarding to Amazon for printing with a computerized copy by Transition Marketing in Enderby.

Sweet dreams!

Thoughts from the Author

Donna-Lee recalls many wonderful summers spent in the cabin in the forest with her grandchildren and a big dog. The cabin featured a ‘country bath’, a big free-standing tub to wash the youngsters down after a day on the beach or the river. Then it was clean pajamas and bed before the stories would be requested and recounted.

Donna-Lee will tell you, “The greatest gift was seeing the grandchildren grow.” And Penny adds, “Those children only have wonderful, positive memories of Haida Gwaii.”

The first five books are currently available locally at Sitka Studios in Tll.aal Tlell and the Visitor Centres in K’il Kun Sandspit and Daajing Giids Queen Charlotte.