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White Coal City: A Memoir of Place and Family
A moving, unflinching exploration of life in Prince Albert, SK, as told through one family's multigenerational story
Robert Boschman grew up in the living quarters of the King Koin Launderette in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, sandwiched between a residential school and a jail built in the aftermath of the Riel Resistance of 1885. White Coal City is the story of this hard hockey-obsessed white-settler town on Treaty Six territory and Boschman's troubled family who lived within it.
Trauma was palpable but never spoken of in the family, and this silence hounded the psychology of their men and boys. Years later, Boschman discovered the reason behind it: the devastating fate of his grandmother, killed by a hit-and-run driver while she was six months pregnant. Her husband, who saw it happen, was plagued by the crime. Their story is gently shared through letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings, and accounts from the coroner's inquest.
With its penitentiary, sanatorium, pulp mill, and half-built hydro-electric dam, Boschman describes the city of Prince Albert as a "circle of pain"--one felt by white settlers but more so for the generations of First Nations and M�tis people in the city and surrounding lands who were forcibly removed, incarcerated, or abducted. The harms of colonialism touched Boschman's own family; his Cree sister Crystal was adopted by his parents during the Sixties Scoop when she was just a baby. Careful to tell his own story, not hers, Boschman accounts for his family's own part in Canada's shameful past.
White Coal City is a poetic, necessary exploration of the painful landscapes of colonial cities in Canada.
Robert Boschman grew up in the living quarters of the King Koin Launderette in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, sandwiched between a residential school and a jail built in the aftermath of the Riel Resistance of 1885. White Coal City is the story of this hard hockey-obsessed white-settler town on Treaty Six territory and Boschman's troubled family who lived within it.
Trauma was palpable but never spoken of in the family, and this silence hounded the psychology of their men and boys. Years later, Boschman discovered the reason behind it: the devastating fate of his grandmother, killed by a hit-and-run driver while she was six months pregnant. Her husband, who saw it happen, was plagued by the crime. Their story is gently shared through letters, journal entries, newspaper clippings, and accounts from the coroner's inquest.
With its penitentiary, sanatorium, pulp mill, and half-built hydro-electric dam, Boschman describes the city of Prince Albert as a "circle of pain"--one felt by white settlers but more so for the generations of First Nations and M�tis people in the city and surrounding lands who were forcibly removed, incarcerated, or abducted. The harms of colonialism touched Boschman's own family; his Cree sister Crystal was adopted by his parents during the Sixties Scoop when she was just a baby. Careful to tell his own story, not hers, Boschman accounts for his family's own part in Canada's shameful past.
White Coal City is a poetic, necessary exploration of the painful landscapes of colonial cities in Canada.
308 pages, Paperback
Published February 13, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
May 6, 2022
Every once in a while, I come across a book that angers/frustrates me. This is one such book.
Why, you may ask?
1. Content - I'm still trying to figure out the author's purpose of this memoir - was it to share his pregnant grandmother's untimely death by a hit-and-run driver and the trauma it inflicted (long before the author was born and his father was only a 2-year-old toddler who doesn't really remember her), or was it a plea for readers to like his book because he lived near Indigenous people (including his adopted sister) and he's trying so hard to be politically correct? Mr. Boschman, you're NOT Gord Downie!
2. Writing style - The author states "...because the mind doesn't follow the conventional linear narrative. It just doesn't." I agree with this, but if you're going to write a book about your memories, please respect your readers and follow some form of chronological order, not some hodgepodge mishmash plucked from your brain with no rhyme or reason to them. I felt like I needed to take some motion sickness pills with all of his thoughts jumping around - even between paragraphs!
3. It's a dark, brooding, depressing, repetitive look at his family and community - did he not have any happy memories?
4. I was confused by several puzzling and/or pointless anecdotes. So many times I would think What???
5. Why did the author feel it was necessary to recite some ethnic jokes about Ukrainians?
For me, the jaw-dropping part in this book was the brief (2-page) mention about the author's great-aunt, Justina (also pregnant), who suffered a slow, excruciatingly painful death from an accidental poisoning by strychnine. Wasn't anyone in his family traumatized by that??? I know I was (and I still am!)
Prince Albert is the third largest city in Saskatchewan and is 430 km (4.5 hour drive) from my hometown in Alberta. I know it's a troubled city, being ranked the 4th most dangerous city in Canada on the 2020 crime severity index. This book may be enjoyable for readers familiar with this city. Truth be told, I really wanted to like this book and looked forward to reading it! Unfortunately, my head still hurts from all the eye-rolling.
Thank you to Lohit Jagwani for providing me a hard copy of this book to read. My review is based on my independent thoughts.
Why, you may ask?
1. Content - I'm still trying to figure out the author's purpose of this memoir - was it to share his pregnant grandmother's untimely death by a hit-and-run driver and the trauma it inflicted (long before the author was born and his father was only a 2-year-old toddler who doesn't really remember her), or was it a plea for readers to like his book because he lived near Indigenous people (including his adopted sister) and he's trying so hard to be politically correct? Mr. Boschman, you're NOT Gord Downie!
2. Writing style - The author states "...because the mind doesn't follow the conventional linear narrative. It just doesn't." I agree with this, but if you're going to write a book about your memories, please respect your readers and follow some form of chronological order, not some hodgepodge mishmash plucked from your brain with no rhyme or reason to them. I felt like I needed to take some motion sickness pills with all of his thoughts jumping around - even between paragraphs!
3. It's a dark, brooding, depressing, repetitive look at his family and community - did he not have any happy memories?
4. I was confused by several puzzling and/or pointless anecdotes. So many times I would think What???
5. Why did the author feel it was necessary to recite some ethnic jokes about Ukrainians?
For me, the jaw-dropping part in this book was the brief (2-page) mention about the author's great-aunt, Justina (also pregnant), who suffered a slow, excruciatingly painful death from an accidental poisoning by strychnine. Wasn't anyone in his family traumatized by that??? I know I was (and I still am!)
Prince Albert is the third largest city in Saskatchewan and is 430 km (4.5 hour drive) from my hometown in Alberta. I know it's a troubled city, being ranked the 4th most dangerous city in Canada on the 2020 crime severity index. This book may be enjoyable for readers familiar with this city. Truth be told, I really wanted to like this book and looked forward to reading it! Unfortunately, my head still hurts from all the eye-rolling.
Thank you to Lohit Jagwani for providing me a hard copy of this book to read. My review is based on my independent thoughts.
May 20, 2021
I always find it difficult to give memoirs a star rating. While I realize people choose to put their life out there for complete strangers, these are very much their own words and experiences.
With that being said, I struggled a lot with this one. The storyline jumped around way too much.
And while I can appreciate that the author states one's mind doesn't follow the conventional linear narrative, I could have used some form of structure. I never found a rhythm while reading this and had to really push myself to continue.
I will be adding this to my Little Free Library. Just because this didn't work for me doesn't mean somebody else won't enjoy.
Thank you to Zgstories and University Of Regina Press for my gifted copy.
With that being said, I struggled a lot with this one. The storyline jumped around way too much.
And while I can appreciate that the author states one's mind doesn't follow the conventional linear narrative, I could have used some form of structure. I never found a rhythm while reading this and had to really push myself to continue.
I will be adding this to my Little Free Library. Just because this didn't work for me doesn't mean somebody else won't enjoy.
Thank you to Zgstories and University Of Regina Press for my gifted copy.
May 6, 2021
It was a 2.5 stars for me. The book looks great, and the work itself is full of interesting pieces of narrative and memoir and cultural/familial history. Sadness too. Unfortunately, it needs a much stronger, aggressive edit.
The writing is largely expository, burdened with description, and missing key transitions in terms of chronology and narrative. I struggled to settle into the stories, feeling like I was being kept at arm's length. There were a lot of unsteady tense shifts, and moments where the lessons were dictated rather than revealed.
So, for me it was a mixed bag. The content being interesting, but the writing needing more to draw out those important details.
The writing is largely expository, burdened with description, and missing key transitions in terms of chronology and narrative. I struggled to settle into the stories, feeling like I was being kept at arm's length. There were a lot of unsteady tense shifts, and moments where the lessons were dictated rather than revealed.
So, for me it was a mixed bag. The content being interesting, but the writing needing more to draw out those important details.
April 16, 2021
Dark and brooding. Like sitting in a room full of smoke, choking for one breath of life-giving air. Not one redeeming word, nor hope to be found anywhere in this book.
Caught between a dark personal family history, and a dark collection of tainted childhood memories, and a need to be aligned politically correct - it tries too hard to be authentic and trending at the same time.
I bought the book because I have lived in PA for 28 years, because I am from a Mennonite past full of abuse, because I am strongly supportive of Indigenous people, because I am fascinated by epigenetics and the physical stamp of trauma... but this book sits like a stone in the sludge at the bottom of a river, stubbornly entrenching itself in everything bleak, and doesn't once partake of the life of the river itself. No light is allowed to penetrate or ripple at all.
Nope. Not recommended.
Caught between a dark personal family history, and a dark collection of tainted childhood memories, and a need to be aligned politically correct - it tries too hard to be authentic and trending at the same time.
I bought the book because I have lived in PA for 28 years, because I am from a Mennonite past full of abuse, because I am strongly supportive of Indigenous people, because I am fascinated by epigenetics and the physical stamp of trauma... but this book sits like a stone in the sludge at the bottom of a river, stubbornly entrenching itself in everything bleak, and doesn't once partake of the life of the river itself. No light is allowed to penetrate or ripple at all.
Nope. Not recommended.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2021
3.5 stars. White Coal City is a memoir that tells of the development of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan through the stories of four generations of the Boschman family. It also tells of the indigenous people who lived there, tracing their decline to the growing development of the settlement. “White Coal” refers to the clean energy that was supposed to be produced by the region. On the surface, white coal, whether wind, solar, or hydroelectric, seems infinitely better than mining, shipping, and burning coal. But when the settlements, waste, industry, culture, and dams create conditions that are culturally traumatizing to the indigenous people, is White Coal the best description? As the US and Canada continue to grapple with both climate change and the impact of imperialism/colonialism on the lands and indigenous peoples of both countries, books like White Coal City take on additional relevance. Even more so with the issue of trauma. The traumatic event that shaped the family was the death of the narrator’s grandmother, Margaret, who was killed by a hit and run driver when she was six months pregnant with what would have been her fourth child. This is the Boschman trauma that opens the book--- the beginning coroner’s report, and the impact on the family, both present (in 1940) and years into the future. The generational trauma of the Boschman family and the cultural trauma of indigenous people of Saskatchewan mirror each other. For me, understanding one trauma helped me understand more of the other. There is hope in the end, I think, as awareness and processing of trauma is important, and acknowledging this trauma is key to moving forward.
Last note: I was given a pdf copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I confess that the format made it hard for me to read. I could only comfortably read it while on my computer, which is not the way I usually read. This means I stopped and restarted this book many times, and it took me a long time to finish. I sometimes lost a sense of continuity, and would have to go back to remember where I was. Still, I found White Coal City to be a thoughtful book, and I expect it will stay with me long after I post this review.
Last note: I was given a pdf copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I confess that the format made it hard for me to read. I could only comfortably read it while on my computer, which is not the way I usually read. This means I stopped and restarted this book many times, and it took me a long time to finish. I sometimes lost a sense of continuity, and would have to go back to remember where I was. Still, I found White Coal City to be a thoughtful book, and I expect it will stay with me long after I post this review.
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June 5, 2021The blurb on the book says it all. Having studied vet medicine in Saskatoon & lived in that area for 5 years, I know people connected to the book (all Mennonite are related). I am pleased to see settlers, refugees thrown off their own lands many time over many generations, wrestling with how to stop the chain of upheaval and pain. No easy answers.
September 2, 2021
Thank you to ZG Stories for the digital copy of this book for review.
Typical rating for memoirs for this reader is 5 stars out of regard for personal sharing and the critique another's memories.
White Coal City was of interest to me as I have First Nations / Metis ancestry, some of whom are from the same area as the author. Seems a timely publishing as the news of the mass graves at the "Indian Boarding schools" have been unearthed. If anyone thought that Canadians are "nicer" than their US neighbors, also formed by British rule, this work should dispel that notion.
This memoir is primarily about the author's Mennonite family history and culture. The last part of the memoir touches on the topic of First Nations & Metis in a bit more depth.
The author seems to be exploring how inter-generational trauma plays out in the ensuing generations. Without delving into the details of his grandmother's accidental death after being struck by a car, he likely wouldn't have understood how his grandfather and father learned to cope within the structure of their lives. The implication is that once he understands how tragedy plays out in his own family, he has greater awareness of the tragedy in the surrounding communities.
It is also a coming of age story, about learning to accept ourselves for who we are.
Amidst the family trials, the Boschmans decided to adopt a First Nations child who they raised. The author comments that he felt like she could feel her ancestry in her bones. The answer is yes, we can feel our ancestors in our bones no matter where people put us as children. His family supported their adopted daughter in finding her original family, not a common thing in adoptive families who often feel threatened by the adoptee adult returning to their family of origin. Their situation seems to have worked out well as the daughter had both her original mother and her adoptive parents walk her down the aisle in her wedding and sat near each other at table. I would love to read the memoir of the adoptee if she writes one.
There are many geographical and historical points about the area the author grew up in: Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. Those with particular interest in this area and with interest in family history will likely enjoy this memoir.
Typical rating for memoirs for this reader is 5 stars out of regard for personal sharing and the critique another's memories.
White Coal City was of interest to me as I have First Nations / Metis ancestry, some of whom are from the same area as the author. Seems a timely publishing as the news of the mass graves at the "Indian Boarding schools" have been unearthed. If anyone thought that Canadians are "nicer" than their US neighbors, also formed by British rule, this work should dispel that notion.
This memoir is primarily about the author's Mennonite family history and culture. The last part of the memoir touches on the topic of First Nations & Metis in a bit more depth.
The author seems to be exploring how inter-generational trauma plays out in the ensuing generations. Without delving into the details of his grandmother's accidental death after being struck by a car, he likely wouldn't have understood how his grandfather and father learned to cope within the structure of their lives. The implication is that once he understands how tragedy plays out in his own family, he has greater awareness of the tragedy in the surrounding communities.
It is also a coming of age story, about learning to accept ourselves for who we are.
Amidst the family trials, the Boschmans decided to adopt a First Nations child who they raised. The author comments that he felt like she could feel her ancestry in her bones. The answer is yes, we can feel our ancestors in our bones no matter where people put us as children. His family supported their adopted daughter in finding her original family, not a common thing in adoptive families who often feel threatened by the adoptee adult returning to their family of origin. Their situation seems to have worked out well as the daughter had both her original mother and her adoptive parents walk her down the aisle in her wedding and sat near each other at table. I would love to read the memoir of the adoptee if she writes one.
There are many geographical and historical points about the area the author grew up in: Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada. Those with particular interest in this area and with interest in family history will likely enjoy this memoir.
June 28, 2021
it took me a while to enjoy this book but i did! i stuck with it and got used to the little chapters jumping around like fleeting memories. the author had a lot of them to share and had quite a family. great bonding with land and people...
April 1, 2021
Beautiful and heartbreaking
May 7, 2025
It's an interesting experience to read a memoir by a relative. I know the names and some of the stories even if I don't know that side of the family very well.
It was quite sad, as I guess would be expected from a book about inter-generational trauma. I'm grateful to the generation before me for trying to break free from these negative cycles.
It was quite sad, as I guess would be expected from a book about inter-generational trauma. I'm grateful to the generation before me for trying to break free from these negative cycles.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews