In my novel Wildwood, my heroine Molly inherits an abandoned farmhouse in northern Alberta with no electricity, and faces the challenge of using an old-fashioned cookstove.
Welcome to Letters From Windermere, where I write about:
- HISTORY: mostly Western Canada history.
- WRITING: info about my writing journey.
- BOOKS: one book recommendation each month.
Letters From Windermere is free and will always remain free!
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First, My Book News
My ranching novel, coming in April 2027, has a new title: GRASSLANDS! (The capital letters and exclamation mark are mine.)
Choosing a title is harder than you might think. My publisher liked the first one, Touching Grass, because it had the same verb and noun combination as my bestselling novel, Finding Flora.
But it soon became apparent that the words had a different connotation. In case you didn’t know, “touch the grass” has become a common term on the internet, a somewhat sarcastic reminder to get off your device, and go outside into nature.
I like Grasslands much better — it captures the essence of the book, since early ranching was based on the existence of the wild, natural grasslands.
Here’s a photo I took myself in southern Saskatchewan, marvelling at the way the wind causes the grass to ripple across the prairie, accompanied by a magical whispering sound.
So Grasslands it is!
Next month I will be there in person, since I’ll be one of the presenters at the Saskatchewan Festival of Words in Moose Jaw from July 16 to 19, and we plan to visit Grasslands National Park afterwards.
For more information, or to register: Saskatchewan Festival of Words.
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Back to the Farm
This month, I took a break from my writing schedule to visit my brother’s farm east of North Battleford, Saskatchewan — the same farm founded by my parents, where I grew up.
No matter how long I live, I will always feel a rush of pleasure when I drive up the gravel road to the farmyard. (The black dot on the driveway is the farm’s current dog, Sophie, coming to meet me).
My brother and his son both live in newer houses on the property, while my childhood home has been empty since my mother died in 2017. Read more about the farm here: Growing Up With Air Force Ghosts.
During my visit, an amazing coincidence occurred.
I received an email from a complete stranger named Sue Hill, who lives in New Zealand. She and her husband George were on their way to North Battleford, where her mother Dorothy Blower grew up before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division in 1941. Dorothy later moved to England where she married Sue’s father.
Sue read my novel Bird’s Eye View, about a Canadian woman in uniform, back in 2014 when it was first published. And she has been a subscriber to this newsletter ever since.
I invited them for a visit and here’s a photo of Sue and me, looking rather windblown, in front of the old farmhouse. What a treat it was to meet her!
Bird’s Eye View is slated to be reissued in November 2026 and you can preorder it now from any bookseller.
Whenever I visit my former home, I usually drop into the Fred Light Museum in Battleford.
I come from a family of historians on both sides, but one of the most prominent was my mother’s uncle Fred Light, who accumulated so many antiques during his lifetime that the Town of Battleford renovated an old school and created an entire museum named after him!
I was delighted to see Great-Uncle Fred’s photograph transferred to a huge mural on the exterior wall of the museum. In the image he is holding one of the guns from his extensive collection, on display in the museum. It is well worth a visit if you are passing through the area.
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Cookstove Challenge
While writing Wildwood, I knew that my heroine Molly would have to master the challenge of the cookstove.
I didn’t have to do any research because our family used the cookstove shown in the top photo, still sitting in the old farmhouse kitchen.
Behind the door on the left side is the firebox where the wood burns, with a drawer underneath to catch the ashes. The fire heats the flat surface of the stove, plus the interior of the oven in the middle, plus the water in the reservoir on the right.
One of the trickiest things about a cookstove oven is how to maintain a consistent temperature. Put another stick of wood into the cookstove and the temperature will rise, let the fire die down and the temperature will fall.
In my novel, Molly finds an old copy of the Five Roses Cook Book, first published in 1913, long before the advent of electric ranges. It was once the most popular cookbook in Canada, distributed to one million households!
Published by the Five Roses Flour Company in Montreal, there have been many editions over the years, but this cover appeared on the 1913 original.
Here are the baking instructions for using a cookstove, from the Five Roses Cook Book: “A good oven test is the following: if the hand can be held in from 20 to 35 seconds, it is a quick oven; from 35 to 45 seconds, it is a moderate oven; from 45 to 60, it is a slow oven.”
Talk about an imperfect science!
I included several original recipes in my book. One of them is for Spice Cake, which Molly learns how to bake in the cookstove through trial and error.
SPICE CAKE
3 eggs
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup hot water
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
1 cup raisins
1/4 pound chopped walnuts
3 cups Five Roses flour
No instructions are given other than to bake in a moderate oven!
After Wildwood was first published in 2018, I challenged my readers to bake a cake using one of the old recipes.
My friend Leslie Vass from Kelowna bravely accepted the challenge and baked a Spice Cake from the original recipe above. Although she used her grandmother’s wooden rolling pin to crush the walnuts, that was her only concession to historical accuracy.
She used a nine-inch-square pan, and baked the cake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about fifty minutes in a modern electric wall oven.
As Leslie explained: “I chose the smaller baking pan because I wanted the cake to fit on my Belleek plate! I totally understand why Molly’s great-aunt in Wildwood cherished her set of Belleek china, sent from her home in Ireland.”
Thank you for taking up the challenge, dear Leslie!
And here’s an image of the Belleek china, adorned with shamrocks, used by Molly in Wildwood.
And for the cooks among you, here are three previous posts related to food:
What Homesteaders Ate: February 2025
Publish Your Own Cookbook: April 2021
My Farmhouse Kitchen: March 2019
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Happy Heavenly Birthday, Mum
My mother was born on June 17, 1924. She chose to end her life with a medically assisted death in 2017 at the age of ninety-three.
This is also the tenth anniversary of federal legislation allowing Medically Assisted Death in Canada, which came into effect on June 17, 2016.
Today, ten years later, more than 75,000 Canadians have chosen to determine the time and place of their own deaths. My mother strongly supported this legislation and urged me to become an advocate for medically assisted death.
I wrote about her experience here: My Mother Chose Her Own Death.
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Book of the Month
It’s wonderful to discover a literary gem that I have somehow missed. I Capture the Castle, published in 1949, illustrates one of my favourite themes — an old house in the English countryside (in this case, an actual decrepit stone castle) inhabited by a cast of eccentric characters. The narrator is a brilliant 17-year-old who keeps a journal filled with pithy observations about her family members. The author later wrote the children’s classic, One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
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Friends, you will receive your next email from me as usual on the third Wednesday of the month, July 15, 2026, when I’ll be enjoying the Land of the Living Skies in my prairie homeland. I hope you are loving the long summer days, and taking every opportunity to touch the grass!
Fondly, Elinor
