Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place

by Daniel Coleman

2018 RBC Taylor Prize for Literary Non-fiction How can you truly belong to a place? What does being at home mean in a society that has always celebrated the search for greener pastures? And can a newcomer ever acquire the deep understanding of the land that comes from being part of a culture that has lived there for centuries? When Daniel Coleman came to Hamilton to take a position at McMaster University, he began to ask himself these kinds of questions, and A Biography of an Urban Place is his answer. In this exploration of his garden – which Coleman deftly situates in the complicated history of Cootes Paradise, off of Hamilton Harbour – the author pays close attention to his small plot of land sheltered by the Niagara Escarpment. Coleman chronicles enchanting omnivorous deer, the secret life of water and the ongoing tension between human needs and the environment. These, along with his careful attention to the perspectives and history of the Six Nations, create a beguiling portrait of a beloved space.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Nature, History, Biography

274 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 29, 2018

About the author

Daniel Coleman teaches in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. His research covers Canadian Literature, cultural production of categories of privilege, literatures of immigration and diaspora, and the politics of reading. His publications include White Civility (2006) and In Bed with the Word (2009) as well as co-edited scholarly volumes.

Reviews

[Jane Mulkewich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Daniel Coleman's writing, and particularly enjoyed this book about his backyard in Hamilton - a place that has become home for him after a childhood and young adulthood of migrations until he settled here and has been here for 20 years or so. By contrast, I have lived in this area all of my life, and enjoyed seeing him pull together all kinds of different strands of knowledge about this place into one book. As someone who researches genealogy and local history, I loved his section on the Binkley genealogy and also the story of Brant Johnson's daughters who had owned the land before the Binkley's. He mentions the story of Sophia Pooley, one of Joseph Brant's slaves whom I have written about. He gives a thought-provoking rendition of local wildlife, particularly deer, and explores water management in Hamilton with mention of the CSO (combined sewage overflow) storage tanks and the Randle Reef in the Hamilton Harbour and the efforts of the BARC (Bay Area Restoration Council). Although he stops short of delivering an understanding of karst water flow in the limestone or dolostone environment of the Niagara escarpment, he does describe how water in limestone will create its own underground rivers. I love the way he writes about Cootes paradise and the Dish With One Spoon and how such a place has engendered a peaceful population, in his chapter about the Broken Pine and how the white pine is the tree of peace for the Haudenosaunee. Perhaps one of his most important messages is about how he came to appreciate this land as holy land for the Haudenosaunee and other indigenous people, and how he researched with great respect and attention to detail about the Haudenosaunee creation stories, and appreciated the connection between this place and its stories (as opposed to the holy land of the bible, which he learned about as the son of missionaries). It seems to me that this is a true act of reconciliation, when a settler can learn to be a steward of the land through active awareness of the stories of a place.

[Amarah H-S · Rating 5 out of 5]

so beautiful, and maybe rewired my brain a little bit. as someone else who is new to hamilton, loves hamilton, and wonders what it means to belong in a place (and especially this one), this book really resonated. i learned SO much about hamilton and its history. and then obviously the writing is beautiful.

[Anna Farley]

highly recommend for my hamilton friends!!

[Scott Neigh]

A thoughtful meditation on place and relation grounded in a back yard in a neighbourhood I lived in (more or less) for half a decade in the '90s, by a local writer and scholar who settled here as an adult after an early life spent constantly moving. Meanders through memoir to ecology to local history to Haudenosaunee tradition to city politics to hydrology to much more, with richly descriptive yet conversational writing. There are perhaps one or two places where the writing felt like it was trying just a little too hard to captivate, and one or two places where the political framing of this or that is not quite what I might have said, but overall I liked it very much. Most of all, I appreciate the sense of deep attention and listening that permeates the book, the intense reflection, and the great humility. A modelling, I think, for those of us taught in out everyday lives, in our schooling, in our grassroots politics, and in our writing to project a sort of talk-led false mastery.

[Dianne Everson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating inspiring informative book.
It will especially be enjoyed by those familiar with the terrain of Hamilton Ontario, but its message of observing and appreciating your natural surroundings is for all readers.
Several topics are covered, including local history, first nations as first residents, geology, biology, ecology, and others. The chapters act as essays, some you will love, others you learn from, and others you will relate to less, but all are part of a loving philosophy by a man who awakens your senses to your own backyard, anywhere.

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place is a very interesting and novel book. When I hear the word biography, I think of a person – usually one of note somehow. I never really thought of a place in need of a biographer, and then a second later, I think, why I haven't thought of it before, because it's obvious. A place, an object, practically everything has a story if we look and hear hard enough and willing to give it voice. Coleman has done this for Hamilton, a city in Canada.

However, this is more than just a biography – a history of a city, because one could buy a book about that anywhere. It also has an existential nuance about the meaning of home and to put down roots and when is home considered home. It is written in a somewhat poetic manner – almost a love letter to the land and city.

The book is meticulously researched, particularly in its study of Hamilton's First Nations Peoples and their stories. Questions to who was on the land first, who settled the land first seems quite easy, but like most things in life, very difficult to answer and Coleman embraces the complexity. He continues to walk the readers through a very complicated history of the city with surprisingly accessible prose.

In short, Coleman pays close attention to the ground he stands on that it almost becomes spiritual. He reminds us that the more we give focus on a small place, the bigger it grows and the more it can tell us about the larger world – the global network. Which is why, even though I never been to Hamilton, I am connected to the city through the natural world to which we all belong.

All in all, I quite enjoyed Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place, it tells about a city and her past and how important her history is to the future and the world around her.

[Mark Lisac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked the intention more than the execution. The 3 stars I gave it may be a generous rounding up from 2.5, although that partly reflects the fact the book was not really what I expected. The "urban place" turned out not to be the Coleman yard but a large swath of territory around the western end of Hamilton, Ontario, where he lives. The book does a good job of indicating how this fairly compact territory has served and still serves as a connection point of natural life and human cultures. It also delivers some interesting vignettes from the history of the place since the late 1700s.
I did not like the writing style, which too often felt imitative of other works on nature and human relations with nature. Some pages descended into semi-mystical attitudes. Nor did I like the way that Coleman adopted Iroquois (specifically Mohawk) creation myths and world views all the way through. That felt partly like cultural appropriation and partly like an artificial, forced choice. It also gave a strange preference to a people who were themselves fairly recent invaders who wiped out the last of the 10,000 or more Attawandaron (aka Neutral) people living in southwestern Ontario until 1650; Coleman acknowledged the grim war but used fairly circumspect language in his cursory description of it. The emphasis on Iroquois tradition and on semi-mystical views (particularly his interpretation of a discarded deer antler as an Easter present from a local herd of deer) crowded out the rather sparse account of the region's geological history and the history of its plant and animal life. Even accounts of small local watercourses and the legacy of toxic sludge in Hamilton Harbour (thankfully subject to cleanup attempts in recent decades) did not fully offset the more fanciful passages.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are very few books I can honestly say opened my eyes to a new way of perceiving and contemplating the environments around me, but Daniel Coleman's Yardwork was definitely one of those few.
Truthfully, I'm not the biggest fan of nonfiction work. I find them dense and hard to follow, often getting lost in my own thoughts when I'm supposed to be concentrating; but Coleman's writing offers a whole new way to read, understand, and cherish nonfiction. Not only was it easy to get lost in Coleman's elegant prose, but upon finishing I felt overwhelmingly inspired to really look (for probably the first time) at all the human and non-human relationships and histories on, under, and within the land around me. I'm pleased to admit Yardwork will from now on be a staple in my personal collection.
I definitely recommend Yardwork to anyone wanting to take a stab at reading nonfiction but does not know where to begin.

[Sandra Bunting]

Surprisingly compelling. Delving into an urban backyard in Hamilton, a deep investigation reveals a fascinating history and the story of the landscape including flora and fauna and water sources which make up this small piece of ground, often taken for granted. It marks new people, plants and animals over the centuries and deals with pollution problems (water, land and air) from the city's industries. Charming. Nice illustrations.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been spending a lot of time during Covid on the trails of Royal Botanical Gardens and Dundas Valley, so really appreciated this thoughtful look at the history of the area, and the push and pull of people versus the environment. Learned a ton. Will look at the neighbourhood with more knowledgeable eyes!