La Ronge authors win provincial book award
La Ronge’s Miriam Körner and Bernice Johnson-Laxdal are the latest Saskatchewan Book Award winners.
On Saturday, the two writers were announced as the jury’s pick in the Children’s Literature category during a special ceremony in Regina. Their book When the Trees Crackle With Cold is written in English and Cree, and Körner said it wasn’t until she was on stage when reality set in.
“It just felt incredibly good to be acknowledged for all the hard work we’ve been doing,” she said. “The work was all of a sudden worthwhile and to be acknowledged for what we’d done was a really powerful moment.”
A children’s picture book, Körner noted the story is about the Cree moon calendar and the traditional activities Johnson-Laxdal – who is originally from Île-à-la-Crosse – would do with her family as a child each month. She said work on the book lasted a few years and it also involved the assistance of many people from the tri-communities. Help was accepted during the book’s production, translating into Cree, acquiring traditional knowledge, and checking the content and proof reading.