My Fourth Klondike Novel

 

BWL Publishing Inc has published three different genre collections. The first is The Canadian Historical Brides. They wanted a book set in each province and territory and we Canadian authors, who wanted to participate, were invited to pick one of the provinces or territories to write a book about. I chose the Yukon and wrote my first Klondike book, titled 'Romancing the Klondike'. Then I wrote a sequel to it titled 'Rushing the Klondike'.

BWL decided to publish a second set, The Canadian Historical Mysteries, I again chose the Yukon and wrote 'Sleuthing the Klondike'. Now, BWL is presenting The Paranormal Canadiana Collection. I don't read paranormal novels or nor do I know much about paranormal phenomena but I like a challenge. I read a lot of books, watched paranormal shows, and researched on the Internet to learn about hauntings and ghosts and Haunting the Klondike is the result. It is set in the 1930s and is the fourth and final of my Klondike novels.

The main characters of Romancing the Klondike were cousins, Pearl Owens and Sam Owens so it seemed fitting that they should be the main characters in this last one.

Here is the first chapter for your enjoyment.

Struggles with the Setting in My Novels

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https://books2read.com/Romancing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/Romancing-Klondike-Yukon-Joan-Donaldson-Yarmey/dp/1772992682

https://books2read.com/Rushing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/Rushing-Klondike-Joan-Donaldson-Yarmey/dp/0228622328

https://www.bookswelove.com/shop/p/sleuthing-the-klondike

https://books2read.com/Sleuthing-the-Klondike

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0228624762?tag=books2read02-20

I have written in many different genres, non-fiction, mystery, romance, and historical. According to the professionals, I have to make sure my characters are multi-dimensional, my story plot is fast paced, and my setting is exciting. Readers want to identify with the main characters so they have to be believable and likeable. Readers want action in the story so the plot has to move along at a good clip. And readers want to learn about the place where the story is set, so it is important that I know the setting itself.

For my Travelling Detective Series, I had been to each of the places in the story and knew my setting. My descriptions of a town or a building or a street were true because I had seen them. I’ve heard of some authors who write about a place they’ve never been to by using Google Maps to check out the buildings or streets.  

However, this is much harder in historical novels because that setting is no longer readily available in the way it was in the time period. Research is important and this is where non-fiction books, museums, archives, and paintings or photos of that time come in handy. And, of course, the Internet. It is the easiest and quickest way to learn about a historical event or a place or what clothing was worn, and even people’s names at the time.

I have written seven Canadian historical novels in two different sets. My Young Adult Canadian Historical books are: West to the Bay, West to Grande Portage, and West to Fort Edmonton. For each one I spent as much time researching the areas, the history, and the people at the time as I did writing the story since I hadn’t been to the Hudson’s Bay or Montreal or Edmonton in the mid-1700s to early 1800s, I hadn't paddled a canoe or York boat, nor had I taken part in trading furs.

Luckily, for my Yukon books set during the Klondike Gold Rush, I’ve been to Dawson City three times and even hiked the Chilkoot trail on the hundredth anniversary of the gold rush. Many of the buildings in Dawson today are still from that era. However, I still had to research the clothing, the founding of Dawson City, the people who headed north, and what life was like for the newcomers from 1896 to 1898.

I enjoy research so much, that sometimes I go down the rabbit hole and my actual writing suffers.

Romancing the Klondike is one of the twelve books of BWL Publishing, Inc. Canadian Historical Brides Collection.

Rushing the Klondike is my sequel to that book.

Sleuthing the Klondike is one of the twelve books of BWL Publishing Inc, Canadian Historical Mystery Collection.

Haunting the Klondike is one of BWL Publishing Inc. Paranormal Canadiana Paranormal Collection and will be out in June, 2026

Sleuthing the Klondike

 

Helen Castrel and her lady’s maid, Mattie Lewis, have just arrived in Victoria, British Columbia, from England. Helen hires Detective Baxter Davenport to go with them to Dawson City and help find her brother David, who was sent to Canada as a remittance man ten years ago. Mattie has come along to look after Helen and also because she has her own motive to find David.

     The last word the family had from David, he was on his way to the Klondike gold rush at Dawson City. Before they leave Victoria Helen and Baxter discover that a man had been killed the summer before and had never been identified. They wonder if he was David.

     But Helen is determined to find her brother alive and the three head north armed with an old photograph and a recent description provided by David’s former landlady. When they arrive in Dawson City, the gold rush is in full swing and they are challenged by deceit, fraud, and danger in their quest to find David.

 

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Paranormal Sightings

Coming June 2026

Paranormal Sightings

In the past, my publisher, Books We Love, has brought out the Canadian Historical Brides Series and the Canadian Historical Mystery Series. There are twelve books in each series, each one set in a province to territory of Canada. Starting this year and continuing into 2026 and 2027, Books We Love is publishing the Canadian Historical Paranormal Series.

I chose the Yukon for each series and wrote Romancing the Klondike for the first series and Sleuthing the Klondike for the second. I am now researching and writing Haunting the Klondike for the third series.

As far as I know, I have never seen a ghost. However, I did live in a haunted house, although without my knowledge. When my husband and I and my brother and sister-in-law first moved to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island we bought a house that had been converted into a duplex. My sister-in-law told me that she was continually seeing a man coming and going from their side. I saw no one on our side.

When I returned to Alberta to visit family and friends I described where our place was to a friend. She began asking questions about it and said that a friend of hers had lived in that house years earlier. She also asked me if I had seen the ghost who occasionally wandered through the house there. I said no, but my sister-in-law had.

My friend said a man had died in that house and her friend had seen his ghost often while living there. I wondered if that was the same man who my sister-in-law was seeing.

I’m not sure if the reason I did not encountered that ghost nor any other ghosts in my life is because I don’t believe in them or because I have been lucky. So I have nothing personal on which to base my novel. I will have to do it all by research.

However, if a ghost is reading this, this is not an invitation to come to me and tell me your story or start moving things around to prove you are real.

Vikings in North America

 

The Vikings in North America

 

It has been long thought that the first European to step on the soil of North America was Christopher Columbus. But excavations done at a site in northwest Newfoundland, called L’Anse aux Meadows, in the 1960’s recovered artifacts like jewellery, a stone oil lamp, a bone knitting needle, and tools that were compared to ones used at Viking settlements in Greenland and Iceland around the year 1000. They have been carbon dated to between the years 990 and 1050, proof that the Vikings were in North America long before Columbus.

       Vikings were people from Scandinavia, present day Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, who were merchants as well as warriors. During the late eighth to eleventh century they raided, pillage, and conquered settlements in Scotland and throughout Europe. They also had settlements in Iceland and Greenland.

       Surnames ending in "-son" or "-sen" are considered to have Viking ancestry. My great-grandparents emigrated from Scotland. Plus, the little finger on my right hand does not lay flat when I set my palm down. My sister has the same condition but worse. Her little finger had a permanent bend to it. She went to her doctor and received a botox shot to relax it. When she went for physio she was told that a bent finger like that was a sign of being a Viking. I also have a friend of Norwegian ancestry with the same little finger.

       But, that bent little finger comes from my mother’s side who also had one. Her maiden name was Relf, which I learned was first found in the 1000s in Nairnit, a town in northern Scotland. So, with this ancestry on both sides I consider myself a Viking. In 2017, I visited L’Anse aux Meadows in northwest Newfloundland.

       From the parking lot I walked to the interpretive centre where I looked at the displays of what the settlement would have looked like during its occupation. There are replicas of the longships that the Vikings sailed in, artifacts unearthed during the excavations, write-ups about the Vikings, tools that were found, and maps showing the route the Vikings used to get to Newfoundland or Vinland, as they are thought to have named it. The Scandinavians of the medieval period were known as Norse and they were farmers and traders. When they began raiding other countries they became known as Vikings, the Norse word for raiders.

       There has been a lot of interest in the Vikings recently with televisions shows and documentaries about them and their raiding which began in the 790s and lasted until around 1050. With their longboats and advanced sailing and navigational skills the Viking men and women travelled from Scandinavia south through Europe to Africa, the Middle East, and Asia and west to North America.

       I left the centre and followed a long, wooden boardwalk through grass and small bushes to the actual site. There I found a post fence around a yard with large mounds covered in grass. When the Vikings landed here there were forests from which they were able to get material for their boat and house building. The remains of eight buildings were found in the 1960s and they are believed to have been made of a wooden frame and covered with sod.

       The structures have been identified are a long house, an iron smithy, a carpentry shop, and smaller buildings that may have been for lower-status crewmembers or even slaves or for storage. There are three replicas of those sod buildings with their thick walls on the site. One is a long house which is equipped with clothes, beds and bedding, household utensils, tools, a fire pit and has a couple dressed in period clothing cooking a meal. The Vikings hunted caribou, bear, and smaller animals plus whale, walrus, and birds for food as well as fished.

       I wandered through the rooms divided by hand carved wooden plank walls. Light came from the fire and holes in the ceiling which are partially covered with upside down wooden boxes to keep the rain out.

       One of the other buildings is the smithy complete with anvil, forge, bellows, and various tools. I wandered the rest of the site and saw the outlines of other buildings that have not been reconstructed. It is estimated that between 30 and 160 people lived there over the years.

       The Vikings arrived in Newfoundland from Iceland via Greenland. According to historical records the site was inhabited by the brothers and sister of Leif Ericson plus a series of explorers. It is believed the settlement was there for seven or eight years before being abandoned. This is the only confirmed Viking site in North America and is the farthest west that Europeans sailed before Columbus.

       After viewing the buildings I followed a trail along the rocky shoreline and then turned inland to walk on a boardwalk over a bog back to the parking lot.

       One of the best things is that not only does the interpretive centre have the history of the Vikings, but there is also extensive displays showing the history of the aboriginal people who inhabited the area over thousands of years before any European arrived.

       In 2018 I visited the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, just outside Copenhagen, Denmark. In the museum is a permanent exhibition of parts of five original Viking ships excavated nearby in 1962. A thousand years ago these ships were deliberately scuttled (filled with rocks and sunk) in a river to stop the enemy from invading the city by water. Over the decades since they were found, the pieces have been preserved and put together on a metal frame to show how the ships would have looked. Also at the site are replicas of the Viking ships and I became a Viking for an hour. A group of us sat on the seats and rowed the ship out of the harbour using the long oars. Once on the open water we hoisted the mast and set sail. After sailing for a while we headed back to the harbour. As we neared it I had the honour of pulling on the rope that lowered the mast and sail and we glided back to our dock.

       It would be fun, someday, to write a novel about my ancestors.

       

Canadian Authors-New Brunswick

 

 

 

https://books2read.com/Romancing-the-Klondike

 

https://books2read.com/Rushing-the-Klondike

https://books2read.com/Sleuthing-the-Klondike

https://bwlpublishing.ca/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

     I am a proud Canadian author of over twenty fiction and non-fiction books in my long writing career. But I am just one of thousands of published writers from this huge country. Canada has had a long and illustrious history of producing world renown authors and books going all the way back to the 18^th century.

     Frances Moore was born in England in 1724. She was a well-known poet and playwright in England before she and her husband, Reverend John Brooke moved to Quebec City in 1763, for John to take up the post of army chaplain. During her time there Frances wrote The History of Emily Montague, a love story set in the newly formed Quebec province.

     The story is told through the voices of her characters by way of personal letters between the two. This is known as epistolary (of letters) type of writing and it was popular during the1700s in Europe. The Brookes’ returned to England in 1768 and the novel was published in 1769 the London bookseller, James Dodsley. The History of Emily Montague was the first novel written in what is now Canada and the first with a Canadian setting. Frances died in 1789.

 

New Brunswick

Julia Catherine Beckwith was born on March 10, 1796 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her mother, Julie-Louise Le Brun, was from a wealthy French family that had immigrated to Canada in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. Her father, Nehemiah Beckwith, moved from New England in 1780 and owned a successful ship building business. Julie-Louise had given up her Roman Catholic faith when she married, but Julia spent a lot of her early life visiting her French cousins in Nova Scotia and Quebec. One of her cousins became a nun of the Hotel-Dieu in Montreal.

Her mother’s previous religious background was the source of the idea for her first novel St. Ursula’s convent, or the nun of Canada. She wrote it in Fredericton when she was seventeen and it had complicated plots, romance, suspense, and heroic adventures. It was not to be published for almost ten years.

     In 1820, in order to lessen the burden on her mother after her father’s death by drowning, Julia moved in with her aunt in Kingston, Upper Canada (now Ontario). She married George Henry Hart on January 3, 1822. George was a bookbinder and Julia operated a boarding house for girls. Her novel was published in 1824 by Hugh C. Thomson as St. Ursula’s Convent or, The Nun of Canada; Containing Scenes from Real Life. According to Beckwith’s wishes, the author was listed as anonymous. It was the first work of fiction written by any man or woman who had been born in Canada and the first to be published in what is now Canada. Julia Beckwith is considered Canada’s first novelist.

     Julia and her husband moved to Rochester, NY, in 1824 where her second novel, Tonnewonte; or, the adopted son of America, was published and portrayed as having been written by an American. It, too, had suspense and depth of feeling, but as some critics said it had the same stilted expression and moral overtones as her first novel. Besides entertainment value, Julia wrote to express attitudes toward society.

     By 1831 Julia and George had six children and they moved back to Fredericton. There she contributed to the weekly paper, the New Brunswick Reporter. She also wrote her third book Edith (or The Doom), which was never published.

     Julia Catherine Beckwith died in Fredericton, New Brunswick on November 28, 1867, the age of 71.

 

Raymond Fraser was born on May 8, 1941 in Chatham (now Miramichi), New Brunswick, the youngest of three children. His older sisters left home and his mother died when he as a teenager. He spent a lot of his alone time reading. He attended St. Thomas University in Fredericton. There he played sports in his freshman year and was co-editor of the student literary magazine Tom-Tom in his junior year.

     He worked as a teacher for a year then moved to Montreal in 1965 where he and poet Leroy Johnson created the literary magazine Intercourse: Contemporary Canadian Writing (1966-1971). He was also one of the founders of the Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group, which put on readings in local high schools. To earn money while writing he worked as an editor, chief staff writer, and a freelance writer for the tabloid newspapers. Fraser’s first book of short stories, The Black Horse Tavern, was published in 1973.

     Raymond Fraser and his wife, Sharon, travelled through Europe during the 1970s. The Struggle Outside came out in 1975 and The Bonnonbridge Musicians in 1978. The Bonnonbridge Musicians was a finalist for the 1978 Governor General Literary Award for Fiction. He finally settled in Fredericton and began writing full time. He also was the Writer-In-Residence at the Fredericton High School.

     Raymond Fraser wrote a total of eight books of poetry and fourteen novels and short story collections, five of which were listed in Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books (2009). He also received the first Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for High Achievement in the Arts that year. He became a member of the Order of New Brunswick in 2012 and received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from St. Thomas University in 2016.

     Fraser died in Fredericton on October 22, 2018, at the age of 77 from cancer.

Are There Rules for Writing

 

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Are There Rules to Writing?

Some new writers believe there is a formula for writing, that something should happen by a certain page in the manuscript and another thing so many pages further. In some genres, like romance, that may be the case but for most it isn’t. And even some of those who write romance say they just present the story. For mystery stories, some believe it should start out with the murder, or disappearance, or some sort of mysterious or secretive action while others begin their story with the characters and setting. And remember there are all sorts of sub-genres with every genre and for each one of them the story can be started according to the author’s taste.

So, if there are no rules for writing are there rules for being a writer? Maybe. It depends on who you listen to. Some writers follow a set pattern of writing, such as outlining, using a certain software, or doing their first draft with pen and paper. But there are more dimensions to writing other than putting words on paper.

Don’t try to write like a famous author you admire. You have your own way of writing that is your style and voice. Stay with it.

Before a manuscript is sent to an editor, agent, publisher, or beta reader, it should be free of mistakes in spelling, punctuation, and in the story line—make sure there is no change to a character’s hair colour or what a character did when in the story. Don’t have a character talk about something before they’ve even experience it or witnessed it.

Once their manuscript is complete some writers look for beta readers to give them feedback on the story. It is important to remember that not everyone will like the same story. Even famous writers can’t please their readers all of the time. So don’t be angry or hurt if someone doesn’t like yours. Take what they have to say about your manuscript and see if it needs changing. Bottom line, though, is that it is your work so your opinion comes first. And to add further, there are a lot of people who will resent your success. Ignore their cutting remarks.

Don’t sit back after you’ve sent your manuscript away. Start your next book, compose a short story, keep writing. And if you find that the writing of a story isn’t going well, feel free to set the manuscript aside and start another. You can pick the first one up again at a later time.

And after having said all that, here are some of my quirks about my writing. I have a set way of developing the story before I start to write it depending of the genre. If it’s historical I will do a lot of research to get to know the era, the clothing, the hairdos, etc, before starting and continue researching as the story advances to make sure I get all the facts right. If it’s a mystery then I decide on the death or disappearance then add the characters and let them tell the story. A lot of the time I don’t know who did it until part way through or even at the end of the manuscript. If it’s a romance, then I start with the characters and the setting and see what happens.

I say that I am a pantser writer in that I don’t use an outline but once the story progresses then I will plot out scenes that will be coming next so I do a bit of outlining.

Bottom line about writing: do what works best for you and ignore the rest.

 

Pantser Writing

 

https://books2read.com/Romancing-the-Klondike

https://books2read.com/Rushing-the-Klondike

https://books2read.com/Sleuthing-the-Klondike

 

 Pantser Writing 

If I had to chose between being called a plotter or a pantser writer I am definitely a pantser. I have never worked with a solid outline or arc for my novels, whether they are mystery, historical, romance, or young adult. And this is mainly because I find that my characters seldom end up the way I first pictured them and the plot never takes the route I thought it would.

I either start with an idea or a character and decide the setting and then start writing. I do begin the story with a character in his/her everyday life so the reader can get to know them then I put in the trigger that is out of the control of my main character or starts the mystery. This puts the main character on his/her quest for a solution.

I do have scenes pictured where characters are going to have a certain conversation or be at a certain place but unexpected conversations or character twists surface as I am writing the story. Some of these are surprises or mishaps or problems that get in the way of my character’s quest. I strive not to make these predictable nor so far out that they don’t make sense to the story. They should leave the reader with the thought that (s)he should have figured that would happen. I find that it is no fun to read a book where you can foresee where the story line is headed and what is going to happen before it does.

 

Sometimes, part way through my story, I have to go back and add chapters at the beginning because one of my characters has decided to say to do something unexpected. I have even had characters try to hijack my story and make it about them. An example is in Sleuthing the Klondike. I had two main characters Helen and Baxter and decided that Helen needed an lady's maid. I introduced Mattie who was supposed to be a very minor character but she suddenly began telling her story and almost took over as the main female character.

For the climax of my stories my character goes through the action of resolving the problem or solving the mystery. This has to be fast paced and sometimes at a risk to the character. By this time the reader should be rooting for the main character and wanting him/her to succeed without injury. Hopefully, too, this is where the surprise comes in, where the reader goes. “Wow, I didn’t see that coming." or "I never thought it would be that person.” I have even been surprised or saddened or happy by the ending of my novels and have said that.

 

I believe that if my emotions are rocked by the ending so, too, should those of the readers.

Canada's Deserts

 

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Canada’s Deserts

Only forty-one of the one-hundred ninety-five countries on this earth have deserts but the deserts cover almost one-third of the earth’s land mass. I am a Canadian writer and all my mystery, historical, romance, and young adult novels are set in Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world and home to one desert and three pseudo-deserts. A pseudo-desert is defined as an area that has some of the qualities that make up a desert, but does not meet the technical standards to be termed a true desert

There are three main features of a desert: less than 250 millimetres (10 inches) of precipitation each year; sparse vegetation; and severe weather changes. Other characteristics include humidity, high winds, little cloud cover, and aridity. The types of deserts are semi-arid, cold, coastal, and hot and dry.

The people of the Southern Interior of British Columbia claim that Canada’s only desert is in the Osoyoos area. Many of the businesses in the region have the word ‘desert’ in their names, such as the Nk’Mip Desert Cultural Centre and the Osoyoos Desert Centre. Tourists come to this part of British Columbia to see this popular desert.

But others say that, although it does have desert type plants like cacti and animals such as the sage grouse and tiger salamander, it is not really a desert because of the precipitation which is 323 mm (12.7 in) annually. It is defined as a pseudo-desert.

Another pseudo-desert in Canada is the Carcross Desert, located outside the community of Carcross in the Yukon. At 2.6 sq km (1sq mi) it is called the smallest desert in the world. But while it is termed a desert it is actually the remains of an ancient glacial lake which left the sand dunes when it dried up. In spite of the strong winds from Lake Bennett which bring in more sand, kinnikinnick, Yukon lupine, Baikal sedge, and lodgepole pines are able to survive.

The local people used the dunes for sandboarding, hiking, beach volleyball, and all-terrain vehicles and there are scenic tours for tourists.

The third pseudo-desert in Canada is the Great Saskatchewan Sand Hills covering 1,900sq km (734 sq mi). Like the Carcross Desert they are desert-like sand dunes situated just north of the village of Sceptre in southwestern Saskatchewan. Also like the Carcross Desert, the hills were left when glaciers melted 12,000 years ago and are home to a variety of plants and animals that have adapted to the dunes.

The Canadian Arctic Tundra is considered the only true desert in Canada. However, it isn’t a hot desert; it is a cold polar desert and covers a large area in northern Canada. The land is covered by thick layers of ice instead of sand and has a cold, harsh climate with temperatures dropping as low as -40 degrees Celsius (-40F). Trees have a difficult time surviving in the permafrost during the short growing season so the tundra is covered mainly by small shrubs, mosses, and lichens. A number of animals--arctic hares, muskoxen, polar bears, arctic foxes, and caribou--manage to live in this cold desert in the far north because they have thick fur coats to keep them warm.