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Congratulations to Pam Hall and Jerry Evans! Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge Chapter III: Miaqpkek - The Middle River was awarded the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Award for Non-Fiction! The NLBAs celebrate and honour excellence in writing by authors in Canada’s easternmost province and are made possible by the generous support of sponsors. 

Co-published by Memorial University Press and Breakwater Books, and presented in English and Mi’kmaq, Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge Chapter III presents a remarkable and respectful collaboration between an Indigenous and non-Indigenous artist, deepening and diversifying our understanding of the intergenerational knowledge of a Mi’kmaw community in Newfoundland.

Congratulations once again to shortlisted authors Daniel Banoub (Fishing Measures) and Kerri Cull.

Here's what the jury said about Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge:

"By word origin encyclopedia comes to us from the Greek and means a general or all-round education. This third chapter of Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge befits and stretches this definition. The series itself has consistently demonstrated legacy-worthy content and design and here again fills a gap of tradition, science, know-how, and lore, arriving with pitch perfect timing amidst concerns of and attention to knowledge conservation, guardianship, and stewardship.The crisp layout presents the curated wisdom of almost 70 individual contributors not just in two languages side-by-side but embedded with a visual lexicon. Truly an encyclopedic knowledge – thorough, trustworthy, attested. The chapters include “Powwow: Why And How We Gather”; “What Martha Knows About Beading On A Loom”; “Where Wish Benoit Went For What”: the topics; dancing, hunting, beading, berrypicking, wayfinding, games, medicine, cuisine, ritual and regalia; and the knowledge imparted not just how to build a canoe but how to harvest the birch bark and treat the seams, not just how to hunt a moose but how to call it and tan the hide. This is a whole and holistic way of being in the world. In pedigree and experience visual artists Pam Hall’s and Jerry Evans’ resumes are studded with community-minded, socially attuned projects. As in Knowledge, their artworks are not separate from anything else, but in the sinew, weaving and spearing, healing and dance of their subjects."