Whitecap Books describes Des Kennedy, our October speaker, as ‘someone who tries to see the value in every living thing. A writer, gardener, and advocate of creepy-crawlies, he has made his own unique contribution to the world of nature, conservation, community development and social justice’. Of course Whitecap Books is Des’s publisher, so the praise is not unexpected. But in this case it is also entirely true.

About thirty years ago Des and his wife Sandy purchased and moved to a property on Denman Island. The property at the time had few amenities, to say the least. In fact, aside from the natural beauty of the place it had no amenities at all. Des and Sandy built their own house, did the necessary clearing and made a garden. Clearly, they joined the ‘back to the land’ movement with enthusiasm and abandon, and have been devoted to it ever since, actually now feeling a little out of place while visiting the city. All this is described, sometimes in excruciatingly vivid detail, in his second book Crazy about Gardening. So, considering his reluctance to leave the homestead, we are extremely fortunate in having him with us at the VRS.

Aside from working in the woods and the garden, Des is primarily a writer. As Whitecap describes his occupations, he ‘enjoys gardening, working in the woods and camping in good weather, and reading, writing and listening to fine music in bad’. In other words, the good-weather experiences are expressed lovingly in bad weather. (I maintain a similar pattern, the only difference being—aside from the camping—that the results are more modest.) Des’s first book, Living Things We Love to Hate, was described in the Globe and Mail as ‘a howlingly funny, unbearably enlightening, relentlessly fascinating and endearingly charming collection of essays’. Even on slugs! Referring to his 1998 book An Ecology of Enchantment: A year in a Country Garden, the Globe and Mail said ‘Des Kennedy proves himself one of the best gardening writers in Canada’. Des is also a novelist, with two novels to his credit: The Garden Club (1996) and his most recent book Flame of Separation (2004). He has contributed to several garden magazines, such as GardenWise and Gardening Life, and appeared on such TV shows as Harrowsmith, Country Life, The Canadian Gardener, Guerrilla Gardener, and the CBC’s Midday. He was the host and co-writer of the 2001 documentary mini-series entitled Reinventing the World, and is currently working on another series. Anyone who is familiar with Des Kennedy through any of the above media will know that he disseminates knowledge and wisdom so painlessly that the recipient hardly knows it is being inflicted upon him. Both his gardening and his entertaining are ‘extreme’.

 Aside from bringing humour, irreverence and his passion for gardening, along with real substance, to his lectures, Des Kennedy ‘has been active for many years in environmental and social justice issues, including co-organizing the civil disobedience campaign in Strathcona Provincial Park in 1988’ and having the distinction of ‘getting arrested at Clayoquot Sound in 1993’.

Des Kennedy has a distinct Irish identity. He has a spiritual home in Ireland. Which is a good thing, since he has never had a real home there. Born in Liverpool (which is about as Irish a milieu as you can get outside Ireland), he came to Canada when he was 10. He obtained a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the Passionate Monastic Seminary in Jamaica, New York, with the intention of pursuing a religious life. He has left that, evidently, far behind, but he has not left Ireland behind, and will lecture to the VRS the evening of October 21st on ‘The Gardens and Landscapes of Ireland’.

Des Kennedy