Alumni Book Nook: Mix Melissa Hart (BEd’92)

Mix Melissa Hart’s new book is Hotel Beringia, a work of literary fiction inspired by her own experiences in the late 1980s as a 21-year-old USask student who took a summer waitressing job at an isolated hotel in the Yukon Territory. Published in June 2024 by Tidewater Press, Hotel Beringia follows Hart’s 2015 book, Queen of the Godforsaken.

Hart is an author and fine artist who currently lives in Kelowna, B.C. She earned a Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) in 1992, followed by a Master of Arts degree at the University of British Columbia, where she also engaged in PhD studies.

The Green&White asked Hart about the inspiration for Hotel Beringia and how readers are responding to the novel so far.

Disillusioned with their university studies, sisters Rumer and Charlotte take summer jobs as live-in waitresses on the edge of the Arctic Circle, Yukon. The big-city sisters soon learn that the Klondike (Gold Rush) still exists, and that everyone at the Hotel Beringia seems to have a hidden agenda.

My personal experiences are essentially what inspired me to write Hotel Beringia. I’ve always been a little obsessed with the Arctic. My father travelled to the High Arctic when I was a child and brought me back stories about his adventures and an Ookpik—an Inuit toy owl made from fur. Thus, as a young student at the University of Saskatchewan, I was keen to take a summer job at an isolated hotel in the Northern Yukon, to create my own Arctic “adventures.” I’ve had the privilege of visiting the Canadian, and American, Arctic a few times since that summer. Most importantly, it is the wondrous beauty of the Northern Yukon that inspired me, in part, to write Hotel Beringia. In modern history, the Arctic has been viewed as a boundless natural resource to exploit, and its peoples (human and other species) are often viewed as obstacles to obtaining these resources. I wanted to dig into this mindset from within a fictional space. Also, I wanted to create a narrative with an honest portrayal of sisterhood—both the intimate, familial, and the broader, societal meaning of sisterhood. The characters in the novel, and the Klondike mentality that was still prevalent in the Arctic in the late 1980s, allowed me to explore these “sisterhood” relationships.

I am thrilled with the response I’ve received from readers who have reached out to me. Many readers have told me that they couldn’t put the novel down and stayed up into the wee morning hours reading, finished the novel in a day or two, and then passed it on to a friend or family member, who also enjoyed it. I’m humbled by the wide variety of readers who have said they loved the book—both men and women, from teens to seniors. They delve into the characters and tell me who made them angry, and which characters they identified with. Those readers who have been to the Yukon tell me how much they related to the novel, and how it brought back many memories from their time spent in the territory. The readers who have not yet been to the Arctic say it has inspired them to want to travel to the Yukon. I’ve also have had quite a few readers emphatic that that they want to see this as a movie—I’m game.

Writing is the best way for me to process emotions and life events. In telling stories, I get to create worlds and live in these worlds for short periods of time. It’s a bit like acting—becoming someone else for a while—exploring someone else’s psyche and the world they live in. In that way, it’s almost a cathartic escape, a phenomenological immersive experience for me. I’m innately curious; I like to observe and listen to all life experiences. I’m inspired by personal experiences and also the experiences of others. Sometimes, I feel inspired to be a voice for those who have been silenced or ignored. The first draft is the least fun; it’s spilling out the basic story. The editing is where the fun begins. I dive deep into the world I’ve created. I can put in 15-hour days and love it. I try to limit myself to shorter days—looking at a computer screen all day isn’t the best for one’s eyesight or cardio. Importantly, a tale is not a story without readers. I view a novel as a ticket and a map—an invitation for others to come inside and explore the story world.

“Walk toward wild!” It’s a Canadian story set in the late 1980s with adventure, intrigue, betrayal, and juicy relationships between a colourful cast of characters and the Yukon wild.