The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens, my new historical novel

 

Sjoholm is a gifted storyteller, eloquent on the subject of Sámi prejudice and the poignant dilemma for all immigrants: Make a life for yourself in this new world, or surrender to the emotional pull of the old country? And while Dagny has her own demons, she ends up being not just a survivor, but a humane model for all of us. An engrossing novel that features a memorably strong, vibrant female character.

Kirkus Reviews

 

Through the journals of Dagny Bergland, Barbara Sjoholm has given voice to the challenges of immigration from a variety of viewpoints – Norwegian, Chinese, Sami. Their stories are complex, touching, sometimes tragic. It is above all, a story of America and what it means to be assimilated into American culture and geography.

Marlene Wisuri, Chair, Sami Cultural Center of North America

 

I’m thrilled to announce that my new historical novel, The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens, is now available in print and ebook editions. I had the idea for a novel set in Port Townsend, where I live, many years ago, but it took a long time to come to fruition. It involved a lot of research into not only this city’s boom-and-bust history in the late 1800s, but also research on the “Reindeer Rescue” expedition that brought Sámi from Lapland to Seattle, Port Townsend, and Alaska in 1898, in an ill-fated attempt to supply the Yukon Gold Rush miners with food by reindeer. I also explored Port Townsend’s Chinese district, Norwegian-American newspapers, seafaring in the waning Age of Sail, Seattle’s history, especially the Ballard neighborhood—and much more. No wonder that with all this research, in addition to a number of other books and translations I published over the last decade, that The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens took me over twelve years to complete. 

Norwegian-born Dagny Bergland and her husband arrive in turn-of-the-century Port Townsend, Washington after years of sailing their merchant ship around the globe. They’re just in time for the Yukon Gold Rush and the arrival of a group of Sámi reindeer herders from Lapland on their way to Alaska to supply the ill-prepared miners. Dagny’s journals, beginning in 1897, tell a fresh and riveting history of the Pacific Northwest and its immigrants. A novel of friendship, love, loss, and motherhood, The Reindeer of Chinese Gardens is the story of a remarkable woman who learns to steer a new course in a new country. 

 Although the official publication day is February 1, you can find it on sale now at Amazon, in print and as an ebook, or from other vendors via Draft2Digital, such as Apple, Kobo, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. It is also available or can be ordered from brick-and-mortar independent bookstores or online from bookshop.org.

I’ll be giving a reading at the Port Townsend Library Thursday evening at 6pm on February 20. I’ll also be in conversation with Amy Swanson King of the Pacific Sámi Searvi at the Nordic Museum in Seattle on Thursday, March 20. Amy and I previously had a great talk for Crossing North about my previous book, From Lapland to Sapmi.

Barbara Sjoholm and Amy Swanson King, Seattle, Nov 2023

 

Emilie Demant Hatt in Greenland: New Exhibit by Ivínguak' Stork Høegh at North Atlantic House in Copenhagen

From Emilie Demant Hatt's Sketchbook, Greenland, 1932

A new exhibit, through February 16, 2025, at the North Atlantic House in Copenhagen, explores the work of contemporary Greenlandic artist Ivínguak' Stork Høegh, along with some of the Danish women artists who traveled to Greenland in the twentieth century.  

The exhibit, titled YOU GAZE ON ME — AS I GAZE UPON YOU features the digital photo collages of  Ivínguak' Stork Høegh (b. 1982), who "humorously plays with stereotypical notions of the exotic, which are staged and renegotiated."

The website description continues "Christine Deichmann (1869-1945), Oda Isbrand (1904-1987), Ellen Locher Thalbitzer (1883-1956), Emilie Demant Hatt (1873-1958) and Jette Bang (1914-1964) all traveled to Greenland before 1940. As Greenland travelers female artists, they have largely been written out of Danish art history. Unlike their male colleagues, they did not depict magnificent landscapes and Inuit in national costume, instead they depicted women and children in everyday situations, which are not only looked at, but also look back at the viewer."

It's also possible to watch an interview with the artist (with English subtitles), and download the exhibit catalog from the Danish version on the site. The catalog is in Danish and English and reproduces many of the paintings from the older artists as well as Høegh's collages. 

Emilie Demant Hatt, 1932

The two sketches here were done by Emilie Demant Hatt on a three-month trip to Greenland with her husband Gudmund Hatt in the summer-fall of 1932. Gudmund was there as a geographer and archeologist to help map and excavate ruins of early sites of the Greenlanders, including Erik the Red's home at Brattahlid. Emilie spent her time doing pencil and watercolor sketches of the local people, especially women and children. Some of the paintings she did there and afterwards back in Copenhagen also show Greenland's landscapes and coastlines.

In my biography of her, Black Fox, I talk a bit about the art she did based on Greenland. For the most part Emilie is identified with paintings of Sapmi, so I found it exciting to hear about this new exhibit, which gives her a place, albeit a colonial one, in another milieu, and places her work in dialog with a contemporary artist such as Ivínguak' Stork Høegh.