Art Beat
Local author Rick Gillis revisits the Crowsnest Pass in his second novel “Buckskin Girl and Blackheart.”
But unlike his first book, “ The Boy Who Couldn’t Die”which was directly inspired by his childhood growing up in the Pass, this book comes directly from his imagination.
Gillis returned to Crowsnest Pass artist’s retreat the Gushul House Blairmore last March to get his idea about a woman, Danielle, who inherits the memoirs of an elderly woman’s adventures beginning with growing up in the Crowsnest Pass at the beginning of the twentieth century.
“It’s completely different than the last book,” Gillis said, describing it as ““Buckskin Girl and Blackheart follows the extraordinary life of Rebecca Sarah Deering ( Buckskin Girl) from her birth in a simple, rough cabin in the north valley woods north of the Pass from her birth in 1907. Her terrible birth left her father an embittered widower and Sarah a confused and lonely child.”
Gillis noted the story, told through Danielle’s reading of the memoir, takes the reader through Buckskin Girl’s life as Danielle learns about the woman who turns out to be her long lost mother.
She meets a massive black wolf (Blackheart) and forms a mystical bond with him throughout the story. He provides a mystical guiding influence throughout her life.
“It plays with the preconceived idea that people have of wolves and darkness are bad,” Gillis explained, adding writing the book itself was fairly quick, but a lot more work went into editing it and researching the era, so the background was as accurate as possible.
“It was all in my imagination, so I just let loose and wrote it all down in about four months,” Gillis said.
“I did a lot of research into things like whether they actually had school buses in the early twentieth century. I also researched the language, some of the language might not fit into that era, but Sarah was writing her memoir in the ’80s so it fits then,” he said, adding even though the story is fictional, ensuring his historical details were accurate was essential to not distract from the story.
“ I Have to write when I’m inspired to write. I’m not just going to sit in front of a desk and write like professional writers who have to release books every couple of years or so. If something comes to me, I’ll write it down,” he said.
