A writer chronicles a 30-year journey from city dweller to rural resident

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Author Tom WaymanThe new memoir is both a story of how to do it and how not to do it.

In 1989, Wayman She packed up her life in Vancouver and headed to the West Kootenay region in search of a fresh start and a new perspective on a relationship. Now, more than 30 years later, Wayman says, “I don’t think I’m much more prepared now than I was then. But I had a good time.”

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Part memoir and part guide project, The road to Appledore or how I returned to earth without ever having lived there First of all, he was inspired not only by his great step to winlawbut the increase in recent years of others packing their bags and leaving the cities in search of a simpler life, or at least perceived as simpler.

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“Now there’s a whole movement of city people moving to the country, especially from the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, where they can sell their house and come here and buy land, buy a house and still have a bag of gold.” Wayman said, he received the George Woodcock Award for lifetime achievement in the literary arts in 2022. “But your expectations coming here are that it’s going to be a more scenic sort of urban life, and of course it’s not. It’s a different culture here. “People tend to recognize it and adapt to it, or they leave again.”

Wayman adapted and was able to build a life on his 10 acres east of the Slocan River. Despite what seems like endless problems, from trying to get water to shoveling snow and everything in between, Wayman is still in love with the place.

“I think the driving force, in terms of writing the book, was that I wanted to show affection for a place,” Wayman said by phone from his home. “A lot of what happens in the media and the arts sort of undermines people’s affection for where they live and what happens there.

“Whereas, to me, it’s still pretty wonderful. Not just the physical beauty of the landscape, but also the types of civilization (if you can call it that) that we built here on this continent. “Despite all its drawbacks and challenges, it is still a tremendous achievement, so I wanted to try to celebrate it.”

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Wayman describes the challenges of building a new life in detail. While he defends the area’s abundant benefits, he points out the obstacles that stand in the way of rural life.

“It’s great. It’s a wonderful place to live. But there are challenges here that are different from the challenges in the city,” Wayman said. “You might get carjacked in the city, but here you could wake up with a moose standing in the middle of it.” from your garden. What do you do?

“I don’t want to discourage people from coming here, but it’s not an effortless paradise. “That’s sometimes the attitude people have when they come here.”

For Wayman, the prose and memoir style of writing was new to him. With a long career primarily writing poetry, the award-winning author and former teacher had never put himself front and center.

“With poetry I am confident. I know what I’m doing,” said Wayman, who has written more than 20 collections of poetry. “With prose, I’m never sure I know what I’m doing. It makes it more fun because it’s more of a challenge. Not to insult poetry.”

A deeply detailed book that leaves no hole undug or pile of firewood unstacked, The Road to Appledore is, at its core, a love letter to rural life and making big decisions.

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“I hope that (readers) take away a love for the land in which we live. For the province and what it can offer to the people. And I hope they allow us to understand a little better the differences between contemporary rural life and contemporary urban life. They are not the same thing. There is a lot of overlap. And sometimes I can give the illusion that it is the same but with more landscapes of the country, but it is not like that. Ultimately, it leads to a different mindset.”

Wayman will return to the big city on May 23 at the Vancouver Library’s main branch for Tom Wayman and Fraser Union: The Music Our Stories Make. The event is a mix of music and readings from Wayman, including poetry from his new collection How Can You Live Here, which also looks at life in the rural West Kootenays.

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