Seasons on Matheson Brook: A Journey to Self Through Exploring Nature

"a lively and honest journey through both the beauty and harsh reality of nature" — M. E. Graham, Goodreads

On April 8, 1997, Magi Nams set out on a quest for self, with words tumbling into a notebook she held in her hands while birding on her family's property in northern Nova Scotia. Even more startling than this unexpected outpouring of observation and reflection was the realization that recording sights, sounds, and thoughts was something she must continue to do. So, for a year—most often while walking or running—Nams gathered word images of meadows, forests, birds, and waters she encountered, and in a journal explored the revelations they brought her.

Penned with a biologist's insight and an artist's eye, Seasons on Matheson Brook combines nature writing, autobiography, and personal journey and features sixteen pen-and-ink illustrations by the author. All of the journal entries are based in Nova Scotia, but the author's recollections also take the reader to Nunavut, the Yukon, Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba.

Using vivid prose and detailed imagery, Nams has crafted a loving tribute to the natural world, an honest exploration of her place within that world, and a thoughtful celebration of rural life and family.  

Magi Nams is the author of the travel adventure series, Cry of the Kiwi: A Family's New Zealand Adventure. When not writing, she can be found hiking, gardening, and trying to identify every bird in sight.

What readers say about Seasons on Matheson Brook:

"Embellished with the author's own pen-and-ink drawings, this is no dry scientific treatise but a lively and honest journey through both the beauty and harsh reality of nature. Nams writes with the assurance of her strong background in biology, a child-like wonder, and the professional ability of a seasoned author. The reader is right there whether Nams slogs through mud, harvests her garden, examines a crushed slug on the road, extols the magnificence of maple in its autumn red, or lays bare her own worries and fears." — M. E. Graham, Goodreads

"Second Nature

If you're stuck indoors due to Covid (or fear of Covid) and can't get out and enjoy the big, beautiful world, this book is the next best thing. Like Thoreau, Nams takes a small territory and explores it thoroughly in all seasons. But not to worry; it doesn't feel at all claustrophobic, because she gives us plenty of flashbacks to other times and other places in which she developed her biophilia—her love of all living things (plus a lot of non-living ones).  Like nature itself, the book is so full of all manner of things that it's best read in small doses (if you can limit yourself). Nams is by turns scientific, philosophical, and poetic—often all on the same page. There's nothing stodgy or academic about the prose, though; it's as crisp and colorful as autumn leaves and as tempting to dive into. She livens things up even more with her delightful, accomplished pen-and-ink drawings; I only wish there had been twice as many." — Gary Blackwood, Amazon