Reaching for the Beaufort Sea: An Autobiography

Patricia Morley is professor emeritus of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University and the author of Margaret Laurence: The Long
Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

Al Purdy—poet, raconteur, and quintessential Canadian—is not a
typical bard. If that fact has slipped your attention, his autobiography
should convince you that this senior Canadian writer likes to conceal
his sensitivity behind a mask of self-deprecation and humor.

Reaching for the Beaufort Sea is dedicated to Stan Rogers and takes its
title from one of Rogers’s lyrics. Purdy (b. 1918) moves
chronologically through a small-town childhood in Trenton, Ontario; some
hazardous teenage years spent riding the rails during the Dirty
Thirties; world travels; and the ripe anecdotage of old age. Purdy has
published more than 30 books in the last 50 years. He won the Governor
General’s Award in 1965 and 1987, and the Order of Canada in 1982.

The authorial captions accompanying the black-and-white photographs
reveal the style that marks the man: “I got out of that Lord
Fauntleroy suit damn quick in case other kids should see me” (age
three); “1966, my first GG. ... The GG explained one of my poems to
me”; “with Margaret Laurence, deciding whether St. Paul was a
misogynist”; “with Ron Everson, pretending to be sensitive.”

Purdy’s combination of profundity and slapstick comedy makes for good
reading.