Watershed

by Doreen Vanderstoop

A fast-paced dystopian novel, about family bonds in the face of climate change, set in near-future Alberta after the glaciers have gone.

In Watershed, water is now the most precious resource in Alberta. With the glaciers gone, the province's oil and gas pipelines are being converted to water pipelines. Tensions are high as "water terrorists" threaten to violently cut off the water supply. Against this precarious backdrop, Willa desperately tries to keep her family's failing goat farm afloat.

But when her son, Daniel, goes to work for the water corporation whose high-priced commodity is putting the farm out of business, Willa is stunned. A string of betrayals fractures the family, potentially beyond repair. Willa feels herself losing everything that she values most - her farm, her son, her past, even her very grip on reality. Is there any way to put the pieces back together?

Watershed is a fast-paced, page-turner of a novel that cleverly explores the shattering effects of climate change on one ordinary family.

Genres: Fiction, Canada, Dystopia, Climate Change, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, Climate Change Fiction

360 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2020

Reviews

[Barbara McEwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to read such an interesting and topical book from a local Alberta author. This book takes place in the future and follows a woman trying to save her family farm despite dealing with the devastating effects of climate change. The book touches on a number of scientific topics worthy of discussion such as water scarcity, introduction of foreign pathogens, societies reliance on fossil fuels, etc. but it is not all negative doom and gloom. It is firstly a fiction story about family getting through tough times.

[Anne Logan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve got another work of climate fiction for you; a genre based on some of our worst anxieties based on what the world may look like as we continue our climb into warmer temperatures. What’s different about Watershed by Doreen Vanderstoop is that it takes place right in my backyard of Southern Alberta. And while it’s always a delight to read a book set in your own province, it certainly takes on a darker tone when you’re reading about a future where indoor plumbing has become a luxury of the past (yikes!). So if you’re feeling optimistic about our climate future, read on, because this will spur you into even greater action to help protect our environment. If you’re already feeling a bit anxious about the state of things, I suggest picking up some David Sedaris instead.

Plot Summary

Willa Van Bruggen is one tough lady. Having worked on her family farm all her life, she inherited it when her father passed away, and ever since then she’s been toiling away on it, alongside her dear husband Calvin. They have one son, Daniel, who left the farm to become an engineer, landing an impressive job at Crystel, a company building pipelines across Canada transporting water back to the barren deserts that have been created due to climate change. It’s 2058, and oil no longer runs through pipelines; water does, as it’s the most precious commodity. Other places are drowning due to flooding, while many others have experienced years-long droughts. Because of the dry air and landscape, large segments of the population are forced to wear masks whenever outside ( I know, I know, this hits a little too hard right now!). Willa is fiercely protective of her family’s farming legacy, but she is fighting a losing battle as the environmental state is just too ruinous to make any sort of living off the land. Meanwhile, there are local terrorists intent on blowing up any new water pipeline construction because they are worried it will drain the prosperous Northern Alberta water reserves to serve the dried out Southern Alberta. There is also concern that the Crystel corporation will sell water down to the U.S. for more profit. As you can tell, there is no shortage of conflict in this book!

My Thoughts


I should assure readers it’s not ALL bad in the future. There are some bright spots of optimism on our horizon, including this author’s suggestion that by 2058 Indigenous people in Canada won’t be relegated to the margins of society and routinely discriminated against. Roy and Lily are introduced into the plot under less-than-ideal circumstances, but their appearances turns out to be a beacon of light for Willa. Roy is an extremely successful and wealthy indigenous man whose company is leading the clean-up of former oil drilling sites in Northern Alberta. He has married Lily, a white woman, and together they live in a beautiful home, happy and healthy, taking a keen interest in helping others too. His generosity and intelligence both end up helping Willa, and although this is only a small part of the overall plot, it was such a nice change to see an indigenous character incorporated into a story this way. He still maintained his culture, his way of being in the world, yet it didn’t chafe against anyone, or become a plot point in itself. He was simply allowed to be himself. I’m still hoping we can have it both ways in the future; an eradication (or at the very least, a steep decline) of racism, and a healthy environment.

My only problem with this book is the uneven tone. Willa’s storyline is reminiscent of a literary novel, steeped in old resentments, painful family history, all taking place in a barren, dangerous landscape: essentially, a very ‘canlit’ book. But Willa’s chapters are interspersed with Daniel’s, who is living in what seems like an entirely different world. The pacing of his sections are completely different, and at one point, he’s caught up in what can only be described as an action-packed thriller, which completely eclipses whatever is going on in Willa’s life (which, in her defense, is still quite difficult, but pales in comparison to Daniel’s life). I’m never one to complain about variety in books because it certainly keeps the pages turning, and I did find myself racing through the pages of Watershed, but it seemed strange that both these storylines belonged in the same book together. Both Willa and Daniel’s lives were enough to fill one book each, rather than being crammed together in 350 pages.

Considering this is a debut novel, my quibble above is quite minor. Tackling a major subject like this is not easy for a writer, it’s the exact opposite of ‘write what you know’, so building the intricacies of a future none of us recognize can be difficult. The intensity of her plotting is something I’d like to see further explored in a more literary context, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for her next release.

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[Louise Shade]

I really enjoyed the book. It was a very easy read and quite thought provoking.
I would totally recommend it. Congratulations Doreen on your premiere novel!

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 2058 and the glaciers are gone. Southern Alberta had been in drought for over a decade and pipelines built for transporting oil are now being repurposed to bring water to the desperate people of the south.
This is a dystopian future world of climate change catastrophe, but it feels all too real and possible. Conflict centres on access to life sustaining water, but as we follow Willa and her family as they struggle to save their farm we learn that it's the ties between people that will, as always, help us survive.

[Kenn Coombes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love story! A story of love of family, love of land and way of life. The book portrays the realities of life where the basics are in limited supply. The story assaulted my senses and kept me turning pages to the end. Sadly, in 2054, it will probably be a true story... This book should be on the high school curriculum reading list.

[Janis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in an Alberta roughly fifty years in the future and devastated by drought, this climate fiction is more warm-hearted than bleak, centred on characters who care for each other and are determined to do the right thing, and rich with details about goat farming, Dutch immigrants, and a very good marriage.

(But don't be fooled: Watershed is not a cozy or gentle read. It's smart and subversive, with a spine of steel.)

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Characters who are easy to identify with, an interesting plot, and most of all believable. I would like to think the future depicted here won’t happen, but, although I don’t live in southern Alberta,it sounds all too likely to me given the direction we are heading with environmental concerns. Congrats to this author for a well-developed book and the research she must have worked so hard on.

[Annie Yotova · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2058 the glaciers had melted completely and Southern Alberta (in Canada) is dying from the drought. With no water left, all the water is delivered by truck - to be metered and dumped into the cisterns that everyone owns. Just a short few decades earlier, the same area was drowning under the constant rains and floods caused by the melting - and the cisterns were built to catch the rain water. And then the rain stopped coming.

Willa and Calvin are trying to survive on their goat farm (goats need less water than cows) and things do not look especially well for them. The work is too much for the two of them and their own child, Daniel, is away, trying to make his way in the big world. Costs are spiraling out, the bank wants its money and on top of everything, Willa starts getting hallucinations.

Meanwhile a big corporation is trying to build a pipe into Southern Alberta, connecting the desalination plant which cleans water from the ocean (reusing the old gas pipes, now cleaned) to the area that lacks water. Willa and Calvin's son Daniel is hired by them as a scientists and sent to the south for "Water Talks" - a discussion with the locals about the pipe. The whole plan of the pipe is a problem for a group in Northern Alberta who decides to blow up a pipe or three, take a hostage or 2 and mess up with the plans of anyone.

And somewhere under the domestic story of the farm and the thriller sequence of Daniel's story, there is the underlying story of memories and choices, old secrets and new problems, death and loss. A child loses both his parents, Willa seems to be losing her mind and they all lost almost everything to the drought and the years. The past comes bubbling up from the past - abandonment and death had been part of Willa's life for a long time. And at the end things get resolved almost too neatly.

This book could have been a lot better than it ended up being. It is not a bad book but it had its problems:
- If you are going to use existing locales, make the math work. Watershed is supposed to be set in a future Canada but when you add up the years, Southern Alberta should already be drowning at this point (2020). Which makes it an alternative Canada. Moving the year from 2058 to 2078 would have solved that neatly (although then it would have messed up so later year references). It felt like the author could not reconcile her timelines so it went into an alternative timeline instead. And I checked - it was published in 2020 so it is not that.
- 2058 is not that far away. Unless the educational system collapses (and it does not seem to have done that), Saddam Hussein will not be "some dictator from the 20th century".
- While I can see how Willa's hallucinations can fit the plot and be used to drive the story, the "vivid memories" of pretty much everyone just sound like a bad way not to write a flashback or just a scene in the past.
- When you have two main lines, you do not almost ignore one of them for long periods of the novel -- as they were uneven in length, Daniel's story felt almost forgotten for long stretches.
- Outside of the main characters, the characterization is almost cartoonist - the bad aunt, the First Nation man, the bank manager, the CEO, the chair of the Water Talks, the old friend, the villain.
- Whatever happened to the "show, don't tell". You do not need someone to explain what we just saw to someone else on the phone; neither you need to use a character to explain something when you can just show it.

It was supposed to be Willa's redemption story I think but it got a bit too heavy handed.

Despite all that, it was a pretty readable novel if you like the genre, especially from a debut novelist. It had its charms and the style mostly worked.

[Susan Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can I not give this local author 5 stars for this near-future dystopian look at what happens when water is scarce due to climate change and families are torn apart just trying to survive? It seems all too familiar and closer than we think. Engaging characters, twisty main and secondary plot with a surprise ending. I'd say literary in the character development and themes, with a dash of popular fiction as so much happens. Can't say more without spoilers. Read it!

[Andrea McDowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

*106th climate book*

This was a fairly strong first novel, and the only work of fiction I've found so far that deals with the impacts of climate change in Canada.

The setting is Alberta in the 2050s; the glaciers are gone, the rivers have dried up, and the south of the province has been in a severe drought for a decade. Farmers are deep in debt and out of options, but don't want to give up on the family farm. And after the collapse of the oil industry, the pipelines that are so contentious today have been scrubbed out and repurposed to carry water from a new desalination plant in northern Alberta to the south. Enter hijinks in the form of anti-pipeline protesters, only in the 2050s, they're not protesting against oil and climate change. They're protesting against sharing their water with anyone, including their fellow Albertans, and particularly Americans south of the border.

It is evidently a first novel: the dialogue is entirely functional, for example, and a bit stilted. The ending is too pat. The writing is decent and the story advances at a good clip but I never felt myself in it.

It is also a peculiarly Canadian climate novel. If you have been reading climate fiction from America for any time at all (given that that's where most of it seems to have come from), you will be used to themes of civil war, political destabilization, the end of the Union, societal collapse, etc--like the Walking Dead, only with climate change instead of zombies. In Watershed, we have angry farmers, NIMBYs, concerns about federalism and equalization payments, terse public meetings, pipeline protesters and a couple of fairly incompetent would-be terrorists.

On the science side, for all of Alberta's glaciers to melt completely and then for all of the rivers to dry up by the mid-late 2040s with no rain falling for the next ten years would be an extremely accelerated outcome. The projections I've seen put this around 2100 or shortly thereafter. Which is not to say everything's going to be sunshine and roses in Alberta up until then; the general progression of heat -> melting glaciers -> flooding rivers -> dead rivers -> drought is about right; it's just likely to take more than 20 years. I can well believe that there will be people hanging on to their farms right through it all, insisting that things will turn around and the rains will come back. I think if Vanderstoop gave the story a bit more space to breathe, and allowed the characters more time to come to their conclusions (and maybe an extra generation in the middle to better match the projections), this could easily have been 4*.

[John Everard Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A debut novel by Doreen Vanderstoop, a storyteller, writer of short stories, and musician. Loaned to me by another storyteller. The book is set in 2058 where climate change has turned to southern part of Alberta into a desert and farming transitions every year and becomes more challenging as they wait for a water pipeline to be built. Northern Alberta and Southern Alberta have been divided by the scarcity of water. This is the story of the Van Bruggen family who have lived on the land in southern Alberta for generations, through good times and now impossible conditions. Job opportunities draw young people to the big city and a pay check. This book is about the struggles within a family and between communities in Alberta. Threats of violence and the wisdom of past generations vie for the hearts and minds of those who seek to eek out a living on the land. This is an interesting story that pulls at the heart strings time and again. I enjoyed the book. It lacks depth of character as the story evolves. Difficult decisions are made as change is necessary to move on. I would call this a good summer read but not a top ten contender. I would read a second book by Doreen to see how her writing evolves.

[Chuk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. It’s set in an entirely too plausible future Alberta which is pretty close to home for me (just one province over), but the main flow of the book is about a family and their connection to their land. There were some twists and mysteries I didn’t figure out or see coming and the ending was satisfying. The prose was transparent and did a good job showing the characters feelings and I liked the use of flashback. There was a bit of necessary exposition but it didn’t feel out of place.

[Eliana Chia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doreen Vanderstoop portrays a very convincing picture of southern Alberta in 2058. I appreciate how she pulls in climate change, water politics and environmental degradation at the higher level and then draws it down to a family story and how those relationships can make or break us. At some times, the story's pace can feel slow, but I am happy with how it ended, wrapping with the greater life lessons about letting go.

[Hernan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book presents a very good story about Alberta in 2057, where water is scarce and oil is a thing of the past. The story is very well done, but the gallop to the finish was not as good as it could have been. I find that in the rush to solve things, the book lost quite a bit of its grip and the opportunity to teaches us all something : line is tough and we don't always get a happy ending.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be engaging and informative. It should serve as a wake-up call to all of us about what could happen in the near future with climate change. I think the author depicted that scenario quite well, reflecting that in times of hardship individuals should bond together vs. seeking their own self-interests. A good read based on Alberta's local cultures.

[Pam Medland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book--a fantasy future that is all too plausible. Vanderstoop's characters are interesting and her future-forward look at post-climate change Alberta is convincing. I recommend this novel to anyone looking for a good read, but also to teachers and librarians looking for homegrown young adult literature. This is a good book club title for adults and teens alike.

[Gillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn’t sure what to think of this book at first - written by an Alberta author, published by a small firm, etc. But I was pleasantly surprised! This “dystopian” future that Doreen writes about seems an all too likely scenario. Every Albertan should read this book!

[Florence Scott-Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent story forewarning us of what we have to look forward to, should we choose to ignore that Global Warming is real, and that the choices we make now will affect our children's lives in the future.
An interesting glimpse in to our potential near future.

[Judy Hansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was our book club selection. Doreen Vanderstoop attended our book club. The book produced some thought provoking questions about a future Alberta under severe water shortage caused by climate change. Doreen Vandestoop was wonderful to meet.

[Jill S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked up this book at the library because the cover stood out to me. The synopsis didn't stick out to me too much but I am happy I grabbed it! The story kept me invested throughout the whole thing and the message was beautiful at the same time. This book is so underrated! Highly recommend!

[Abbey LeJeune · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book!! I’d probably rate it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. The author is a really good writer and made the mundane so descriptive and beautiful. A little cliché at moments but I don’t mind.

[This Is Corley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved listening to this, a haunting telling of what’s to come- based right in my neighbourhood. Sadly, it’s not too hard to believe, despite the extremity of the anti-‘pipline’ folks, and the rapid destruction of the land. I hope many folks read this and think about what is being discussed.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF

[Jodie Siu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this dystopian future set in southern Alberta (where i grew up). Interesting vision of climate change and one family's response that felt extremely plausible.

[Heather Neufeld · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great dystopian plot, but writing and characters were weak. The concept will stay with me for a while, lots to think about.

[Trish Biggs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in Calgary, I loved the dystopian future that was painted. I can easily envision some of the events that Vanderstoop portends.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book was a very timely read considering the situation in Alberta and around the world. It has a bit of everything we are dealing with right now.

[Jay Heethuis-Dubois · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fabulous read this was!

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

While reading this novel is very dark. In retrospect, the plot is well-constructed and complex. The personal relationships are central to the story. The ending is hopeful. The goat farming is great!

[Francis Tessier-Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5*