"The stillness is the time before the change" – celebrating the Canadian North and Northern environment in Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air

• Published in: Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature
• Main Author: Wójcik, Marta
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: www.wydawnictwo.umcs.lublin.pl 2015
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Northwest Territories; Yellowknife
• Online Access: https://journals.umcs.pl/lsmll/article/view/274; https://doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2014.38.1.101

A great deal of Elizabeth Hay's novel entitled Late Nights on Air takes place in Yellowknife, a town in the Northwest Territories of Canada, situated on the edge of the Arctic Circle. In 1974 Judge Thomas Berger came there to hold an inquiry concerning the environmental implications of the proposed gas pipeline. Although Berger is not a protagonist of the story, his inquiry becomes one of its focal points. This article addresses the book's portrayal of the Canadian North and Northern environment. It focuses on the North as one of the protagonists, which becomes increasingly endangered by economic development.