Midnight Light: A Personal Journey to the North
Ratings1
Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
Bestselling and beloved author of On A Cold Road, Dave Bidini uses his stint as guest columnist at the Yellowknifer newspaper to explore the "Gateway to the North," the meaning of community, and the issues facing residents and their daily lives. As a journalist, author and founding member of the trail-blazing band Rheostatics, Dave Bidini has had the privilege to explore Canada's immense geography. Yet, in all his many travels, he'd never visited the Northwest Territories. After an all-too-brief visit to a literary festival in Yellowknife, Bidini was hooked on the place and its people. When he returned home, all he could do was think about going back to the North. Facing a career crossroads and with memories of his recent visit to the Northwest Territories still fresh, Bidini, in a bold move, contacts the Yellowknifer, one of the last truly loval and independent newspapers, and signs on as a guest columnist for an unforgettable summer. The Yellowknifer, like the city it serves, bucks all trends as a completely community-focused newspaper. Bidini's new position gives him access to a region that is on the one hand lost in time, and on the other faced with the stark realities of poverty, racism and addiction. Along the way, Midnight Light introduces readers to an extraordinary cast of Dene elders, entrepreneurs, artists, politicians and law enforcement officers as well as an assortment of complicated souls from the South who are looking for a chance to rebuild their lives and who face the same harsh economic realities as their new neighbours. Woven throughout the narrative is the story of the irascible John McFadden, a veteran Toronto crime reporter who "escaped" to Yellowknife. McFadden is the key figure in the newspaper's ongoing fight with local authorities who do not take kindly to journalistic doggedness. During Bidini's tenure with the paper, McFadden makes headlines across the country when the RCMP charge him with obstruction while he is working on a story, culminating in a trial in which nothing less than journalistic freedom is at stake. A fast-paced, funny and at times powerfully poignant chronicle of a city and its environs, and a reminder of the vital importance of a local and independent press, Midnight Light brings the Northwest Territories and its remarkable and proud people to vivid life.
Reviews with the most likes.
Our author suddenly finds himself unencumbered with his regular Toronto newspaper job and, remembering an all-too-brief visit to Yellowknife for a literary festival, packs his bags and heads North to work at the local paper. The Yellowknifer is a slim, twice weekly rag unique in that it focuses solely on Yellowknife, no reheated stories from wire copy — also clearly an early inspiration for Bidini's The West End Phoenix a local community newspaper he would launch on his return to Toronto.
And the book is a series of dispatches that upends any notion I have of this Northern capital city and the work of small town journalism. The folks at the paper might hew to certain stereotypes - some have landed here after being kicked out of everywhere else while for others this is but a pitstop to bigger and better - but the Indigenous Dene people are armed with a steely pragmatism and the folks that call Yellowknife home (“people live here!” As the mayor famously said on TV) are ok with who they are, free from big city pretension and wide-eyed small town optimism. It's a clear-eyed rendering of a summer in Yellowknife from a consummate storyteller (and a damn fine musician - Your Tragically Hip might get all the love but Whale Music is still the best Canadian album ever)
