Jenna Butler

“Windburned, eyes closed, this: beneath the keening of bergs, a deeper thresh of glaciers calving, creaking with sun. Sound of earth, her bones, wide russet bowl of hips splaying open. From these sere flanks, her desiccating body, what a sea change is born.” From the endangered Canadian boreal forest to the environmentally threatened Svalbard archipelago off the coast of Norway, Jenna Butler takes us on a sea voyage that connects continents and traces the impacts of climate change on northern lands. With a conservationist, female gaze, she questions explorer narratives and the mythic draw of the polar North. As a woman who cannot have children, she writes out the internal friction of travelling in Svalbard during the fertile height of the Arctic summer. Blending travelogue and poetic meditation on place, Jenna Butler draws readers to the beauty and power of threatened landscapes, asking why some stories in recorded history are privileged while others speak only from beneath the surface.

Sea Voyage to Svalbard

Magnetic North

"This is not the story of a ready-made farm, complete with generations of history, carefully tended tools and sturdy clapboard farmhouse." In 2006 Jenna Butler and her partner, Thomas, purchased "160 acres more or less" of rough northern bush. They knew they weren't purchasing anything more than hard work and hope but still they headed up every weekend to clear a spot in those woods where they could plant their first crops. With the warm wit of Barbara Kingsolver and the stark beauty of Sharon Butala's writings on the prairie, Jenna Butler shares her journey with us. From beating a hasty retreat from the first overwhelming swarm of mosquitoes, to discussing worm poop with local farmers and becoming forever more the crazy hippie teachers, the stories of Larch Farm spill out of these pages. "A Profession of Hope: Farming on the edge of the Grizzly Trail" is a beguiling read, as rich and promising as freshly turned earth.

Farming on the Edge of the Grizzly Trail

A Profession of Hope

I hope you're okay in there, lovelies. I hope you're warm. After five years of working with bees on her farm in northern Alberta, Jenna Butler shares with the reader the rich experience of keeping hives. Starting with a rare bright day in late November as the bees are settling in for winter she takes us through a year in beekeeping on her small piece of the boreal forest. Weaving together her personal story with the practical aspects of running a farm she takes us into the worlds of honeybees and wild bees. She considers the twinned development of the canola and honey industries in Alberta and the impact of crop sprays, debates the impact of introduced flowers versus native flowers, the effect of colony collapse disorder and the protection of natural environments for wild bees. But this is also the story of women and bees and how beekeeping became Jenna Butler's personal survival story.

Jenna Butler

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