Canada’s Rocky Mountains mean many things to many people – playgrounds for climbers and skiers, symbols of inspiration for painters and sculptors and fascinating research sites for geologists and biologists.
But for Canmore author Stephen Legault, the Rockies provide an excellent setting for a murder mystery.
Set for release in September, The End of the Line (TouchWood) is Legault’s fourth book, and third novel published since 2008. It won’t be his last, however, as he admits he’s got six more historically-themed murder mysteries mapped out.
While his first two novels were contemporary environmental movement-themed mysteries, his newest book grew out of his concern that Canadians don’t know much about their own history. Growing up in Ontario, Legault knew little about the Canadian Pacific Railway’s role in Canada’s history until he arrived in the Rockies in 1992 to work as a Parks Canada interpreter. Over the following three years, he read dozens of books about Canadian and Alberta history.
One story that particularly grabbed him was how in December 1883 construction on the railroad ground to a halt because of deep snow, leaving 500 men sitting at Holt City (an early name for Lake Louise), a shantytown of box cars and a few log cabins. Tom Holt ran the general store.
“I was fascinated by the idea that 500 men lived at the confluence of the Bow and Pipestone rivers, and that they would have spent that winter preparing to continue building the railroad in the spring, cutting wood for railroad ties and boxwood to fuel the trains,” Legault said. “I just had to wonder what life would have been like living there. You can’t be trapped in the middle of nowhere in minus 30 for two months with 500 men and not have conflict.”
A disciplined writer, Legault rises – happily – at dawn and writes two to four hours daily, seven days a week while holding down a full-time job. No couch potato, the husband and father of two boys also – and again, happily – runs several times a week.
“Writing totally energizes me,” he said. “When I’m working on a first draft, I’m totally jazzed to get up and start writing at 5 a.m. I believe when you get into the practice of writing you’re able to unlock your potential for creativity we all have.”
Each draft takes one month to write, and no one, not even his wife, reads a word before he completes the sixth draft. And his system appears to be working.
The End of the Line embraces the western genre complete with characters named Deek Penner and Wallace Durrant and bootleggin’, card games, gun fights and teeth knocked out punch ups, creating authenticity of a fairly violent time in Canada’s history. In contrast, Legault is a peaceful Buddhist.
“My characters aren’t though,” he conceded. “I think characters develop themselves, and the job of the writer is to sit at the computer and not get in the way of how the character develops. All the elements of these stories already exist in human history and the collective storytelling that exists in all of us. It’s a random thing, sometimes the characters do things you totally didn’t expect. To be able to write that way, you have to have structure.”
To create structure, Legault begins each book by spreading a big sheet of butcher paper on the kitchen table and mapping out a story board, outlining events, their sequence and the overall timeline. Then he starts writing.
“By chapter 20, it’s a heavyweight going downhill, my job is to sit there and type as fast as I can and make sure the story doesn’t run me over,” he admitted.
His first foray into writing garnered him his only – to date – award for a Grade 6 creative writing contest. That burst of brilliance was followed by a lot of “awful” teenage angst-ridden poetry. Since then he’s written hundreds of magazine articles and newspaper columns and blog posts.
“You have to write for the love of the craft and the joy of telling a good story,” Legault said. “Then if you’re lucky enough or dogged enough to find a publisher who believes in you and an editor who can tolerate your terribly overwritten manuscripts – that’s a very lucky trinity.
“I’ve been wanting to write about the Rockies for 20 years. I had no idea it would be about a murder on the banks of the Bow River in 1884.”
For more on The End of the Line, visit www.touchwoodeditions.com
