Miriam Körner won a Young Adult Award for novel on Thursday. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

winner

Körner earns third Saskatchewan Book Award

Jun 25, 2021 | 2:35 PM

Miriam Körner’s young adult novel Qaqavii is a winner at the 2021 Saskatchewan Book Awards announced June 24.

It was a winner in the Young Adult Award category and it marks the third time Körner has been a Saskatchewan Book Awards recipient.

In 2020, When We Had Sled Dogs: A Story from the Trapline: ācimowin ohci wanihikīskanāhk, a collaboration with late local Elder Ida Tremblay won in the Children’s Book category. In 2018, Körner and Bernice Johnson-Laxdal won with their collaboration When the Trees Crackle with Cold: A Cree Calendar. pīsimwasinahikan.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Körner said about her recent award win. “The competition was really strong and Qaqavii isn’t your usual young adult novel. It’s about 15-year-old Emmylou who is in search of a place where she feels she belongs. To her surprise, she finds this place at the edge of the Arctic when given the opportunity to train sled dogs with 17-year-old Barnabas Ulayuk and his grandfather.”

Qaqavii, published by Red Deer Press, is inspired by Miriam’s personal experience of racing sled dogs between Churchill, Manitoba, and Arviat, Nunavut along the coast of Hudson Bay, and spending time with Inuit racers on the trail. While the story is fiction, lots of the current and historic events that form the backdrop of Emmylou’s experiences is rooted in actual facts.

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The University of Regina was also recognized for Harold Johnson’s book Cry Wolf: Inquest Into the True Nature of a Predator. The university received the Indigenous Peoples’ Publishing Award.

Saskatchewan Book Awards recognizes, celebrates, and rewards the excellence of Saskatchewan authors and publishers, building greater awareness and appreciation of Saskatchewan books, and increasing reader engagement.

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno