The Interview - David McGowan

I am proud of the country I was born to and within which I live but how this country came to be is generally presented in our schools in a manner that is as boring and un-entertaining as possible. I believe if there was more entertainment involved more people would know the history and the value of that history and the county’s presence. As a result, I wright what I call “enlightening entertainment”.

More people would understand the development, exploration and discoveries of North America if they understood the contributions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the North West Company and the American Fur Company. However, because today’s entertainment is often focused on areas or events that were inconsequential or perhaps didn’t happen, then that becomes what many understand and believe and then make decisions in their own life that put them on the wrong path.

I can’t say that any one story is the most important part of any legacy that I might leave. I can say that there is at least something, and sometimes more than one thing, that is an important part of what I’m trying to present.

When people in the Western Hemisphere and most of Europe along with many other parts of the world say or hear “the West” or “the Old West” they think of a “B” western movie or lead actor or perhaps a US state west of Kansas or Missouri. I would like to create a time where half of them think of Banff or Calgary Alberta. The many gold rushes in Central British Columbia or raising cattle and horses in the Chilcotin Country.

Perhaps to simply understanding that the first European to view the Pacific Ocean by crossing the continent north of Panama was working for and exploring for a privately held trading company.

There is always research of some sort. Sometimes it is only to verify something I read in the past that I think would augment, strengthen or more fully explain something in the story.

In each of my stories I try to show some of the attitudes and social acceptance of the time and yet marry those with what most experience today. For instance, in many areas - local societies - of a developing North America in the late 1800s woman and children were treated like slaves and their ideas, wants and desires where completely ignored. In most of my stories I allude to that but some of the facts and instances were far too brutal to be accepted as something "entertaining" for today's audience. Therefore I usually "soften" that brutality since I want my stories to be "enlightening entertainment" and NOT "dark destruction."

In my latest novel "Boundaries" (2024) we have the six thousand Chinese brought in

An obvious lack of understanding about how we came to be where we are and what is acceptable.

I don't believe that Asian immigrants came across the land bridge now named after Bering to occupy a vacant land. Over a period of ceveral centuries they either forced the earlier rsidantce out or absorbed and assimilated to form the many diverse and warring or ignoring or co-operating and developing peoples that existed in North America when Europeans arrived looking for treasure and power.

I also believe that Europeans had been fishing (and probably fighting over) the Grande Banks off what is now Newfoundland for centuries before Scandinavians (Vikings) started destroying the aboriginal population.

Let's talk about it. Let's talk about how there is no time in history or no people in history who didn't try - and often succeed - in pushing the original inhabitants out.

Every story has to have a "working title" otherwise there would be no way to find it in the computer (or pile of paper at one time) nor to marry i to the "list of characters and their backstory" or the pertinent research. However, sometimes my characters don't do as they're told ---------

--After writing something completely out of character I say to myself, "There's no way she would do that. However, she would"

Certainly! I found history entertaining and highly informative while in school but many schoolmates found it boring. I believe it was because they were forced to learn dates (how to show the student read the material) and completely missed the people, the excitement and the facts that lead to where we are now.

Samuel de Champlain and his "Company of Gentlemen Adventurers" spent the winter in "Hochelaga"

("Get those lay-about no good bums out of France They're nothing but trouble. Order them to sail west and see if they can claim some of that land the Spanish are talking about")

The Hochelaga winter was a terrible trial and many

"The Great Liquor War" in Kindle, Print and Audible. Built around the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad but specific to the disagreement between the North West Mounted Police (today's RCMP) and the British Columbia Provincial Police (absorbed by the RCMP in 1950) concerning who had jurisdiction over liquor sales.

"Homesteader: Finding Sharon"