Carrie Anne Vanderhoop recently published “Wôpanâak Seasons: Seeqan, Neepun, Keepun, Pup8n” (Tradewind), her first picture book for children. Vanderhoop grew up in Aquinnah, and now divides her time between Haida Gwaii, B.C., her mother’s ancestral territory, and the Vineyard. She is director of the Haida Gwaii Institute, part of the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry. I recently had a chance to interview her by phone about the making of her book. Below are edited excerpts from our conversation.
Kate Feiffer: Congratulations on the book.
Carrie Anne Vanderhoop: Thank you. It’s been exciting.
KF: I read that you were approached by the publisher to write this book? How did that come about?
CAV: The publisher [Michael Katz] is here in Vancouver, B.C., and was a professor at UBC, but he grew up in the Boston area, and when he read David Silverman’s book, “This Land Is Their Land,” he was reflecting on the things he didn’t learn growing up, and that there wasn’t really information on the Wampanoag people of that region, and he thought there should be a children’s book to educate people about the indigenous people there. And he was looking for someone to write it and Googling, and found me through my work at UBC.
KF: So he reaches out and just asks, “Do you want to do this?”
CAV: I was thrilled. It was right before COVID, and so it was a nice little project that I got to work on. My cousin Tobias Vanderhoop was visiting, and then he got stuck here for nine months during COVID. Tobias is a tribal historian, storyteller, and Wôpanâak language learner.
KF: This is your first picture book, then?
CAV: I’ve always been a writer, since I could hold a pencil. I had drafts of children’s book stories and poetry I had written, but never pursued getting published. I do an incredible amount of writing; curriculum development and academic writing for my work, and developing things like cultural lesson plans. I also have published articles in magazines, and so I have experience in those areas. But I had drafts of stories already, and Mike asked me to make a pitch, so I sent him a couple, and he really liked the idea of a book about the seasons. So that’s what we went with. I had the character already from my previous stories, and it was very much based on my childhood growing up in Aquinnah.
KF: This is an amazing story. I love that you already had drafts, and you get approached out of the blue, and you’re like, “Well, actually …”
CAV: “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”
KF: Tell me what it was like working with illustrator Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley.
CAV: It was really important that we have an indigenous illustrator, and they went with an artist and illustrator who was up-and-coming, and was also from out East –– he’s Anishinaabe. So there’s a little bit of similarity. We’re in the same language family, the Algonquin language family. And he agreed as long as he would be able to visit Aquinnah, which I thought was just fabulous. I mean, it made perfect sense, because it’s such a place-based story. It would be kind of strange if he didn’t actually go see the place and meet the community. So he planned a very short trip out there, and it just aligned with the Aquinnah Spring Social, so he actually got to attend one of the community events that’s included in the book.
My dad, David Vanderhoop, who does Sassafras Earth Education, took us out to all of the spots and talked a lot about the history and the plants and the animals. It was a really nice experience for the illustrator. And then I sent him pictures, like a lot of photographs of the different areas throughout the seasons. And then he just came up with his illustrations. I just thought that they captured everything so beautifully, there was not a lot of back-and-forth with us. I think he did an amazing job.
KF: Are you working on another book?
CAV: Well, people are asking me that, and because I have this kind of bicoastal background, people on the Haida Gwaii side have been asking me if I would do a Haida Gwaii version of the book, which is an interesting idea. And also I’ve been working with the Wampanoag language reclamation project, and I’m thinking about expanding that piece in the book, whether it’s another printing of the book, where it has a little bit more on language, and maybe possibly a glossary, or a page that helps you pronounce the words. Maybe an additional little story with the same character. So, yeah, I would love to publish another book, but we’ll see.
“Wôpanâak Seasons: Seeqan, Neepun, Keepun, Pup8n” is available at Edgartown Books and Bunch of Grapes Bookstore.
