Dawn Kostelnik: 77 books

Don’t look now, but the Audrey Eleanor stands docked and beckoning you into these pages for some of the most absorbing, spellbinding and hilarious tales ever to float from the decks of a Canadian vessel. Masterfully employing a keen memory, a mariner’s perceptiveness and a flair for propelling...

Word comes down from the gods that are the new NWT Government that the Kostelnik family are to move to Fort Good Hope, NWT. This will take us three hundred and eighty miles north to the Arctic Circle and closer to the Arctic Ocean. My father’s title of Indian Agent will be no more when he starts...

My name is Dawn Kostelnik and I am the White Girl, Mola ‘tu ‘we’/twa. In the 1960’s my father was hired by the Canadian Government to work as an Indian Agent in the tiny native village of Fort Norman, NWT. My father is known by the people on the river as Somba ralla; the moneylender. My life...

Simply saying the name Saltspring Island causes gentle breezes to whisper through my mind and fluffy sheep jump unbidden over my snob hurdles. Directly behind the sheep are groups of people stating that we “simply must” visit the “Island”. I am a snob. Attending anything that represents...

Out with the old and slide into the new. My two brothers and I stand shivering at the school door. Winds howl off of the snow swept rock that stands guard above the school. Willy wags wing gusts of powered snow into the corner that we huddle. Frigid fingers tear and tug at our faces and pull on our...

On the McKenzie River there were apparent cultural influences from the Hudson Bay Company and French Voyagers, to the men who had worked on the barges and plied the great river looking for adventure, fame and fortune. Seeking gold and the money that the fur trade offered lured people from every walk...

Please, please, please, can I? Please let me go, I will be careful, I’ll dress warm and I’ll listen. My friend Alice as I will call her for this storey, is going out for the Easter weekend on the sea ice. Her family is travelling with two skidoos and two Komatiks to hunt seals on the long...

Black round rock faces escape from months of imprisonment below the ice and snow. Heat radiates back from the smooth rock “mountain” that provides the backdrop for the tiny village of Coppermine which is located on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Small hands escape from mittens and crowd together...

In the back of a station wagon five kids pause in their bickering to push noses up against the long side window of the car. Dusk is creeping down the sharp mountain canyons casting a rosy glow over the limestone and shale. Far, far below on the curving highway along the Columbia River, a huge movie...

Our school continues to grade eight. Grade eight and grade seven share the same classroom. If we were still living in Fort Good Hope N.W.T. I would have to go to residential school in Inuvik for grade seven. I now live in Coppermine, which is located on the shores of the Arctic Ocean in the North...

…We streak (literally) towards the dock. Waves crash over us and the dock as we try to reach Audrey. Grenville Channel, south of Prince Rupert, is deep, dark, long and narrow. Without a north wind, it is well protected. With the north wind a-blowing you are in a wind funnel from hell. Fortunately...

We are aboard The Audrey Eleanor; a custom-built fifty-four foot 1948 wooden yacht headed north to Alaska. After a near disaster with two multi-million dollar U.S. yachts at the Prince Rupert Yacht Club in Prince Rupert B.C. We are ready to take on Dixon Entrance. This is our first salt water crewing...

Spring is late coming to call in Pender Harbour this year. Does that make you in the north feel better? Now you should know that by late I mean the cherry blossoms are out, but the froths of pink flowers haven’t formed archways along the streets yet. This is the beginning of April. Looking up Gunboat...

The Captain, Rick Cousins spent the winter retrofitting Audrey in McLean’s shipyard in Prince Rupert B.C. McLean’s shipyard is reputed to be one of the oldest working shipyards on the west coast. This a great place to be when you have an old boat. I had to return to Whitehorse, as our home there...