Dawn Kostelnik: 77 books

Puppies, puppies everywhere! Sandy, my brother John’s blue and brown-eyed Siberian husky has given birth to five gorgeous pups. This is my Dad’s future dog team. They are beautiful blue-eyed Siberian Huskies. The runt of the litter is called Shorty; he is an exact duplicate of his father, our...

I remember when I walked five miles through snowdrifts that were up to my butt; packing my little brother on my back cause he didn’t have any shoes. All we had to eat were potato samwitches made out of crumbling home made bread, scooping snow to melt in mouths when we were thirsty, you kids today...

April is a grand month for sliding. Sunshine warms the surface of the snow and ice glazes road surfaces and drifts of snow that have banked up during the long winter of whiteouts. There is no such thing as a fall season when you live without trees that have leaves to drop, there is freeze up. Boats...

Raw winds rip and tear at a tattered hide that barely keeps the old lady and tiny baby from being frozen. The remnants of a fire sputter and threaten to extinguish itself with every blast of frozen gusts. Old moose and caribou hides have been thrown over wind fallen trees. This shanty provides temporary...

You complain that your life is too fast. That there is not enough time to do all of the things that you have to do, to see the people you have to see. If you truly want to slow your life down get rid of your cell phone, and your computer for that matter. There are few phones in 1966 in Fort Norman....

April in the Arctic means there are still three months left until spring arrives. Spring, springs into action overnight and the next day it is summer. And then, just before you realize that it is summer, snow flies and you skip over the season of fall and fast-forward back into winter once again....

‘LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT AND RIGHT…girls, girls keep your eyes to the front, don’t look at your feet!’ ‘And once again, left, right, left, right and split.’ “ No, NO! “ By now the scratchy old 45-vinyl record has run out of brass instruments and drums. Round and round the needle scratches...

Neighbours to the left of the first burst of rifle shots begin to empty their gun chamber skyward as well. Do you remember this? This is Canadian tradition! In the cold black night, the sound is magnified. We all hope that Uncle Ed has his rifle pointed in the right direction; he’s been snipping...

One hundred and twenty six dogs stretch out across the frozen McKenzie River. Eighteen teams of dogs become thin lines of broken black thread that sew their way toward the even blacker ridge of pecker pole pine and spruce that frame out the western shore of the mighty McKenzie. This is the western...

Summer is gone, fading quickly into fall and falling faster into winter. School has begun once again. Older students return to schools in the big “cities” of Inuvik, Yellowknife and Fort Smith NWT. There had been doubt that we would have a second teacher for the grades three, four and five kids....

Grab her, quick, grab her, she runs fast!” I twist and turn; the fur rips on my long parkie. “NO!” I break away and run for an opening in the crowd, I sprint for the narrow escape route, someone knows my tactics, a leg is stretched out and I am tripped. With a hard whoosh the air is knocked...

There has not been a plane in weeks. It is break up in the Arctic. This is 1966 in Fort Norman on Deh Cho, the McKenzie River in the NWT, Canada. I am a little girl sitting on the banks of this mighty river with every other kid in town. Our ears strain for the sounds of cracking ice that will indicate...

Pierre Elliott Trudea is the Prime Minister of Canada. He will be doing a tour of the Arctic. The buzz around here is that he may be coming to Coppermine N.W.T., for a visit. Nothing has been confirmed, everyone is in a tizzy, we must do something special for the Prime Minister of Canada. What do...

THIS IS A DEVIATION FROM THE “FLOW” OF THE WHITE GIRL SERIES. WOLVES HAVE BEEN IN THE FOREGROUND OF THE NEWS AND I AM NOW PROVIDING ANOTHER FACET TO THE DEBATE. Driven snow lashes bodies. Ripping and tearing the fingers of the furies grab at the hollow insulating hair on the backs of thousands...