Vancouver, BC.
Whenever I visit I always look for tradeswomen in this city of high rises and construction cranes. On this trip I was lucky to meet up with Kate Braid, the tradeswoman poet laureate of Canada (my christening). I’ve known Kate for decades, and we published her poems in Tradeswomen Magazine regularly, but she and I figured we hadn’t seen each other for 30 years. If you’re not familiar with her writing, go to her web page, Katebraid.com. Her book of poems about working construction, Covering Rough Ground, was published in 1991. Her newest book, Rough Ground Revisited, includes some of the original poems and new ones as well.
Kate has a memoir too: Journeywoman: Swinging a Hammer in a Man’s World, published in 2012. She speaks to tradeswomen all around Canada, and she reminded me as we reminisced that the very first national tradeswomen’s conference happened in the nation of Canada in 1980! We discussed the possibility of Canadians hosting the next tradeswomen conference, since it looks like our building trades in the US have dropped the ball. Come on Canadian tradeswomen: Pick it up and run with it!
One does not always plant one’s feet daintily when one is covering rough ground.
–Emily Carr, Journals
I was delighted to learn that Kate and I share an interest in the Victoria artist and writer Emily Carr. In fact, Kate is a Carr scholar, having published two books of poetry and a biography of Carr. These I can’t wait to read, but when I tried to order them from the San Francisco Public Library they were not in the stacks. So I have my work cut out for me when I return home. It seems we in the US are not very literate where Canadian authors are concerned, a prejudice that must be rectified.
Walking around downtown Vancouver I passed many high-rise construction sites but the only tradeswomen I saw this time were flaggers. I flagged down two of them and they assured me there are lots of tradeswomen working up above. While most of the signs here are gender neutral, I did find one of the old Men Working kind, an advertisement that this contractor discriminates against women. Why would anyone want to advertise that?
tradeswomn musings 
you do get around! love, Y.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yvonne, I think you will love Kate’s poetry. She published a book called In Fine Form: The Canadian Book of Form Poetry. I’ll bring it to our writers group for all to peruse.
LikeLike