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Cultural icon and Medieval feast |
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| FTLComm - Saskatoon - Saturday, March 15 2003 | ||||||
 The banquet for the Saskatchewan School Library Association and the
Association for Teacher-Librarianship in Canada was held Friday night in Saskatoon
and began with a series of awards presentations as the organisation honoured those
who have throughout their career developed the concept of school librarians in Saskatchewan.Before the evening began the Executive of this year's conference got together for a commemorative picture. The supper was expected to be the highlight of the evening as many did not realise that the speaker of the evening is one of Canada's most recognised authors and Canadian cultural icon. It is a difficult task to present a utensil-less meal in the fashion of the middle ages but the folks at the Saskatoon Travelodge  gave it good shot with a plate sized piece
of fresh bread, beef and barley soup followed by platters of pork ribs, potato, a
whole chicken, vegetables and cobs of corn. It was interesting realise the the chicken
and the pork ribs, the soup and bread would have graced a table long ago in Europe
but tomatoes, potatoes, corn on the cob were all North American foods that did not
appear in Europe until after the Renaissance. But particulars aside it was an outstanding
meal.Roch Carrier was introduced as the librarian of Canada's National Library in Ottawa as he was appointed to that position in 1999. The jovial and soft spoken man with his rural Quebec accent told of the things he has seen as the libraries have grown both in size and importance during his lifetime. He reminisced about the fact that as a child his school did not have a library and then told how the National Library got its start and has grown to the monster that it is today and how its service expands exponentially with acquisitions, interlibrary loans and now the enormous use by the Internet.  The voice though hard to hear for me was familiar and yet the message was one of encouragement and hope as he told teacher librarians when then set out on a project do not wait for a budget, or the other resources, if it is important "just do it" what you need will come. Then he was give a copy of his book, the member of the Order of Canada took off his jacket, and began to chat about the circumstances that form the background to one of the most Canadian of all Canadian folk stories as he read and paused to embellish the story of his wonderful story "The Hockey Sweater." |
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| References: | ||||||
Audio version of Hockey Sweater ad other Stories |
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Amazon listing for the book |
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Roch Carrier biography for National library of Canada |
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