A decade of studying Labrador literature and seventeen years of living in Happy Valley-Goose Bay have instilled in me a profound appreciation for Elizabeth Goudie’s memoir Woman of Labrador and its cultural legacy. Last December, I published a scholarly, non-peer-reviewed article on the subject, as part of the Arctic Institute’s 2023 Queering the Arctic Series. The article was called “Northern Identities: Rereading Woman of Labrador,” partly because I was obliged to have my keywords in the title. Headlines and pull quotes can be potholes on the academic’s road as much as on the freelancer’s.

I’ve linked to the full text of the article above, but the TLDR (too long, didn’t read) version is that I think we can and should celebrate the book Woman of Labrador while also reclaiming the phrase “woman of Labrador” in its most inclusive sense. That way we can carry forward Goudie’s messages of peace, togetherness, humility, hard work, and self-improvement, to more people and in more ways than she could have imagined in her time.

Some of the early posts on this new website carry forward recent past items, for continuity.