Jacob Berkowitz in Manitoba

I went to Manitoba to share a story and found that I returned a week later having found many more. The story I carried was about the search for another living planet, presented in the guise of a puppet show featuring Ambrosia, a lost alien trying to find her way home with the audience’s help.

In Steinbach, a predominantly Mennonite community an hour south of Winnipeg, I performed and talked with students at the Jake Epp Public Library. After the presentation, one of the students who didn’t have money on-hand for a book, asked where else she could buy one. “Just ask in one of the local bookstores,” I said. “No,” she replied. “They just sell bibles.” And she was right. Of the four bookstores I saw in Steinbach, all specialized in The Book. On the drive back to Winnipeg, across the flat, stubble-ridged prairie, I listened to librarian Loraine Trudeau talk about growing-up in a small Franco-Manitoban town. Her grandmother, Exilia was married at 15 and died in childbirth at 37, along with the baby — her 19th child.

In Thompson, a nickel-mining town carved out of the boreal forest 800 kilometres north of Winnipeg, I performed at the Wapanohk Community School, where I heard Cree spoken for the first time in my life. The students, almost all Cree, carried the heaviness of their current poverty and generations of struggle. But their dark eyes shone as I performed. As I looked out, I wanted to hug each one. To hear his or her story. To sing its praises. As the school principal Bonnie Rempel drove me back to the airport I asked her what she did to maintain hope and her buoyant sense of energy. She threw back her head and laughed, “Behind the scenes I’m a big crier.”

I boarded my plane home with the seeds of many stories to come.