Date: Mar. 30, 2023
Time: 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Location: Gabriola Community Hall
More Info: All Ages
Contact: iota@artsgabriola.ca
Tickets: $30
Tickets are available at the door.
Tickets can be purchased here, along with tickets to all of our events and workshops for the Isle of the Arts Festival.
Shelagh Rogers and Joan Johnson
This year’s One Book One Community event brings us together through the novel The Power of Story: On Truth, the Trickster, and New Fictions for a New Era by the late Harold R Johnson
Approached by an ecumenical society representing many faiths, from Judeo-Christians to fellow members of First Nations, Harold R. Johnson agreed to host a group who wanted to hear him speak about the power of storytelling. This book is the outcome of that gathering. In The Power of Story, Johnson explains the role of storytelling in every aspect of human life, from personal identity to history and the social contracts that structure our societies, and illustrates how we can direct its potential to re-create and reform not only our own lives, but the life we share. Companionable, clear-eyed, and, above all, optimistic, Johnson’s message is both a dire warning and a direct invitation to each of us to imagine and create, together, the world we want to live in.
Joan Johnson is a Grandmother of the Woptura Tiospaye of the Oglala Sioux Nation. She lived with her late husband, Harold, in an off-grid cabin on his family’s trapline at the north end of Montreal Lake, Saskatchewan, for twenty years prior to relocating to Gabriola, BC. Joan has had a lengthy career in justice and community development that has included work with Correctional Services of Canada, development of restorative Justice approaches in Indigenous communities, Director of Justice programs with the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, and as a complex case needs Probation Officer in northern Saskatchewan. Recognized for her experience and expertise, she was seconded to work along with her husband, Harold Johnson, on the Northern Alcohol strategy in January of 2016 until her retirement in 2020. The focus of the Northern Alcohol Strategy is to assist communities to collaboratively reduce the impacts of alcohol-related harms. She currently continues this work as a mentor and consultant. Joan has been a board member for many non-profit organizations including Elizabeth Fry, Piwapan Women’s Shelter, and North Sask Special Needs. She is a member of Sustainable Gabriola and works with three other Gabriolans on the Climate 12-12-12 project. This initiative presents relevant local information on 12 problems related to climate change, and brings community members together to explore local solutions that focus on adaptation.
Shelagh Rogers
While no longer a Gabriolan, physically at least, Shelagh Rogers is a fixture at CBC Radio, currently host and co-producer of The Next Chapter, the award-winning national radio program devoted to writing in Canada. In 2011, she was named an Honorary Witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Also that year, she was inducted into the Order of Canada. In 2016, she received the inaugural Margaret Trudeau Award for mental health advocacy. Last fall, she was named the 2022 Symons Medallist. Shelagh is Chancellor Emerita of the University of Victoria, and a proud member of the Métis Nation of Greater Victoria. As a broadcast journalist, Shelagh has been blessed to work with story her entire career…almost 5 decades now. But she didn’t truly understand the power of story until she met Harold R. Johnson in 2016. She is honoured to be talking about The Power of Story, Harold’s last words to us, with his beloved wife and collaborator Joan Johnson, and thrilled that Harold’s book was chosen for One Book, One Community, 2023
$30
Tickets:
You must register in advance for this event. Purchase tickets online or in-person at the GAC office.
