The women photographer Lyndsay Doyle captures in her new book not only exude strength and athleticism. They’re often shown sweaty, dirty, tired and sometimes even bruised, doing what they love: Playing and competing in sports.
When Doyle initially set out to photograph a handful of her athletic female friends and hear about the obstacles they faced in their sports careers, she had no idea her project would snowball into a book that includes dozens of stories and colour photos of women participating in 50 different sports including marathon running and soccer to rope jumping and competitive cheerleading.
Doyle self-published Strong and Free: Stories and photos of Canadian women in sport from the popular #superROLEmodels project (Friesen Press) not to highlight well-known athletes but to focus on ordinary women who consider sports an integral part of their lives.
“My goal was to simply show women in sport as role models for younger girls. To show them participating authentically in sport in a variety of capacities and give them the credit they deserve for their accomplishments and successes,” writes Doyle in her book.
By age 10, if a girl has yet to participate in sports, there is only a 10 per cent chance that she will be physically active as an adult, Doyle said, citing this 2016 statistic from Canadian Women and Sport, an organization dedicated to creating an equitable Canadian sport system that empowers girls and women.
“When this collection ends up in the hands of readers, young and old, I hope they see themselves reflected in these role models and feel the same things I do. I hope they feel strong and skilled,” writes Doyle, a professional photographer who is raising her two athletic sons in Tantallon.
“I hope they feel inspired to keep moving and to encourage others to move as well. Like the women in these pages, I hope they recognize their endless capabilities and bright futures, regardless of age or background. I hope this book helps them find their thing. Or rekindles a flame they’d thought they’d lost. I hope they see a future for themselves in sport, and a community that supports them. Because you need to see it to be it.”
Doyle’s inspiration for her project was sparked in 2018. While watching the Winter Olympics on television, she noticed the media was equally covering women’s and men’s events. She knew it wasn’t usually this way, so she dug a little deeper to find out how unequal the coverage usually was. She was shocked to discover that women’s sports makes up three to five per cent of mainstream media coverage.
Doyle also discovered that entering adolescence, sport participation drops by 22 per cent, according to the same 2016 statistics from Canadian Women & Sport. She saw a link between the high dropout rate of adolescent girls in sports and the little media coverage of women’s sports.
Wanting to find more inspiring female athletes interested in being photographed, Doyle put out a call on Facebook. She was overwhelmed with responses. Due to time and budgetary constraints, she had to limit how far she could travel and how many athletes she could include in the book.
“It wasn’t unusual to see me packing up my photo gear to head out to a 10 p.m. practice on the turf across town, or a 5 a.m. gym session to capture some of my subjects,” she writes.
In the book, readers meet women like Denise, a 50-year-old marathoner in Dartmouth who runs with her daughters; Sabra, a 43-year-old highland dancer in Antigonish County who is passing on her knowledge to younger generations; Jordan, a 29-year-old Mi’kmaw athlete and active-living community leader; Brenda, a 20-year-old visually-impaired downhill skier and Marion, a Halifax woman, who in her 80s still works out every day and walks everywhere.
“She is such a wonderful cheerleader,” said Doyle, who is an avid soccer player and runner. “She is someone who I look up to.”
In October, Doyle took 10 and a half days to run 273 km across P.E.I. to promote her book and mark her 40th birthday. “I’m not an elite athlete so I wanted to show that if I can do it, anyone can.”
To order Doyle’s book, visit: www.lyndsaydoyle.ca
The hermit
Author Jan L. Coates’ new book, The Hermit (Nimbus Publishing) follows 11-year-old Danny Marsden, who one summer unexpectedly stumbles across a disheveled man living alone, deep in the woods behind Barnaby’s Brook. Danny’s curiosity gets the better of him, and he slowly befriends the hermit.
Just when he discovers a hidden connection between himself and the old man, disaster strikes, and more secrets are exposed that just might help Danny save a soccer field in his community.
The hermit in the book is loosely based on a real-life man who became known as the Hermit of Gully Lake. Before his death, Willard Kitchener MacDonald lived for 60 years as a recluse in a small, cave-like shelter in the woods of northern Nova Scotia.
Fish and Dicks
Childhood friends Jim Prime and Ben Robicheau co-authored a book called, Fish and Dicks: Cases files from the Digby Neck and Islands Fish-Gutting Service and Detective Agency (Moose House Publications). Illustrated by Catherine Prime, the book’s short stories follow two fishery workers, one from Freeport on Long Island and the other from Westport on Brier Island, who decide to diversify and become old-style detectives. Despite their lack of training, they manage to solve a series of crimes in the Digby County area.
“We dedicate this book to Long and Brier Islands, the people and the places, because both are unique. They shaped our lives in so many ways and gifted us with both a sense of community and a sense of humour. The islands will forever be down home to both of us,” the authors write.
Loose Woman
Author Beth Kaplan’s new memoir Loose Woman: My Odyssey from Lost to Found (Iguana Books) tells how she came to spend four months living and working at a L’Arche community in Provence, France and how the experience opened her heart and transformed her life. L’Arche, an international voluntary organization, runs homes, programs, and support networks for people with intellectual disabilities. Kaplan writes that she returned to Canada, a different person and within a year turned her life around.
Raised in Halifax from 1950 to 1966, Kaplan’s memoir touches on growing up in the city, attending drama classes and her time on stage as a child actor. Her father Gordin Kaplan, taught physiology and biophysics at Dalhousie University, was an active community member and a key figure in the founding of the Halifax Grammar School.
