Porcupines, Politicians and Plato

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

Small-town British Columbia life is special, says Kishkan, a columnist
with the Cariboo Observer. And to live in Nazko, a small community 75
miles south of Prince George, is to invite many kinds of adventures
involving animals of all kinds, and neighbors with diverse penchants.
Kishkan is also a schoolteacher at the Nazko rural school. “Teaching
in a rural school,” he says, “means that you will get to know your
community and your community will get to know you, warts and all ... It
means that you will probably know the dogs on the playground by name. It
means that you will probably also know the cow that donated second
base.”

Kishkan does for Nazko what Hugh Curtis does for New Brunswick’s
Miramichi, and what Kinsella’s fiction does for rural Alberta. He is a
thoughtful, gentle humorist who has an abiding fondness for the people
with whom he has chosen to share his life. Recommended.