Canadian Lakes by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

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

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

 https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Canadian Lakes

 I am a Canadian and all my mystery, historical, romance, and young adult novels are set in Canada. Canada is the second largest country in the world and has about 20% of the world’s freshwater. It also shares the world’s largest body of freshwater-the Great Lakes-with the United States. Lake Superior, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, are divided by the border while Lake Michigan is totally in the United States.

Nearly 14% of the world’s lakes over 500 sq km (193.05 sq mi) are within Canada’s borders. The largest lake totally within the country is Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. It is the 4^th largest in North America and the 9^th largest in the world. The name comes from the Chipewyan word satudene which means ‘grizzly bear water people’.

Great Slave Lake, also in the Northwest Territories is the second largest freshwater lake in Canada and the 10^th largest on the Earth. With a depth of 614 metres (2,014 ft) it is the deepest lake in North America. It was named for the Dene, the first nation’s people who were called Slavey by the Cree first nations.

Lake Winnipeg, in Manitoba, is Canada’s third largest freshwater lake and has the largest watershed (the rivers that drain into a lake plus all the land with streams that drain into those rivers) in Canada. Its watershed is about 982,900 square kilometres (379,500 square miles) which is about 40 times its size. This ratio is the biggest of any other large lake in the world. Waters flow into Lake Winnipeg from the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario and from the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Montana making it the 11^th largest freshwater lake in the world.

Lake Athabasca sits on the northern border of the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan with 26% in Alberta and 74% in Saskatchewan. It is the fourth largest lake totally in Canada and waters from it flow northward through the Slave and Mackenzie river systems to the Arctic Ocean.

It is estimated that there are about 2 million lakes of various sizes in Canada and they make up about 9% of the country’s mass. This means that 891,163 square kilometres (344,080 sq mi) of Canada’s total area of 9.985 million square kilometres (3.8 million sq mi) is covered by freshwater.

 

How I Became a Published Author by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

 

I took a few writing courses and began my published, writing career (as opposed to my unpublished writing career) with a short story titled  A Hawk's Reluctant Flight, in a small magazine called Western People. With that on my short resume, I had travel and historical articles accepted by other magazines, one of which didn't pay anything to the author. Then I took another writing course and one of the speakers was Grant Kennedy owner of Lone Pine Publishing in Edmonton, Alberta.

       At the time Alberta was divided into tourist zones and I had been thinking about doing a book on what there was to see and do in each zone. I sent a query letter to Lone Pine Publishing and the senior editor responded with a phone call. We set up a time for me to go to the city and meet with her and Grant Kennedy.      

      I outlined my idea and Grant said yes it was a good one but he thought that the books should be more on the people and culture of each zone. He liked his idea and I liked mine so we decided we couldn't work together. As I stood to leave I said. "Well, at least as I research the zones I will see all the backroads of Alberta." He replied. "I've always want to do a book on the backroads of Alberta." I sat back down and that was how I began my backroads series. Over the next ten years I travelled through and wrote two books on Alberta, four books on British Columbia and one on the Yukon and Alaska.
       My favourite books to read have always been mystery novels and after much thought I decided to write one. Since one of the mantras of writing is to write what you know I made my main character a travel writer. She was headed to southern Alberta to do research for a magazine and was drawn into the mystery of a skeleton found in a septic tank. When I was finished I sent it out to a few publishers. One wrote back that they liked it but my travel background was coming out and I had too much travel information in it. I was asked to remove some. So I did and resent my manuscript. Again, I was asked to cut back on the travel info. Again I did. The third time I was told that this was a mystery and I should stick with the mystery and leave out the travel stuff. I wrote back and said that the main character is a travel writer and is working on an article. She is not going to drop that and concentrate on the mystery. So needless to say we parted ways.
      I sent out the manuscript again and another publisher said they were interested in publishing it. They had one stipulation and that was that I should add in more travel information.
      I sent the second novel of what I was calling my Travelling Detective Series to the same publisher. After about a five month wait I received a letter that told me the publishing house had been bought out by another one and that my manuscript and all my information had been sent to them. I waited a few months the emailed the new publisher to find out what was happening. A couple of days later I received an email stating that they had no record of my manuscript. My heart sunk. But a few days after that I received an email from another editor at the publishing house that they had found my manuscript and they wanted to publish it.
       However, in the time between that email and the publishing date for my novel, the publishing house was sold again. The new owner was going to honour my contracts, but in the future wasn't going to publish mysteries. I knew there was no use sending my third manuscript to that publisher and after checking around I sent it to Books We Love. They immediately accepted it and e-published it. After two years of talking with my former publisher I was able to get the rights to my first two novels of the series and now all three are published with Books We Love Ltd. as a boxed set.

     Since then I have published one more mystery novel, two young adult historical, and one adult historical romance, Romancing the Klondike through Books We Love. The sequel to that historical romance, Rushing the Klondike, will be out in September 2022.