³Ô¹ÏÍø

Nov. 3, 2025
For Immediate Release

WATERLOO – ³Ô¹ÏÍø has named two finalists for the 2025 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, a $10,000 prize that recognizes Canadian writers for a first or second work of creative non-fiction that includes a Canadian locale or significance.

The 2025 finalists are authors Martin Bauman for Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada and Aaron Williams for The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era.

"In selecting titles for Edna's award, it's interesting to see areas of overlap between the books we settled on,” said juror Harry Froklage, former associate director: development, in the Faculty of Arts. “While superficially very different, each of this year's honorees tells a story of a father and a son against the backdrop of Canada's implacable landscape and the quirky characters who populate it.”

Other jurors are Bruce Gillespie, associate professor, User Experience Design and Katheryn Wardropper, publishing professional, and previous award administrator.

“Congratulations to Martin and Aaron on their work being named as finalists,” said Gavin Brockett, vice-dean of the Faculty of Arts, who chairs the Edna Staebler Endowment Committee. “³Ô¹ÏÍø is proud to host the annual award ceremony each spring and to feature a lecture by the winner on CBC Ideas.”

Established and endowed by the late writer and award-winning journalist Edna Staebler in 1991, the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is administered by ³Ô¹ÏÍø and is the oldest national literary award bestowed by a university in Canada.

Judges’ citations:

Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada by Martin Bauman

In Hell of a Ride: Chasing Home and Survival on a Bicycle Voyage Across Canada, Martin Bauman recounts the solo transnational trip he took to raise funds to support community mental health resources. Bauman admits at the outset to having little experience as a cyclist and no experience with planning or undertaking a long-distance journey of this sort. Still, as unlikely as the trek seemed, he was undeterred. As he explains it, he was driven by an inchoate but urgent desire: to pay tribute to a cousin who died by suicide, to connect with his father who had depression, to challenge his own limits, and to embark upon an adventure. Starting from the West Coast after a short training period on the flat roads of southern Ontario, Bauman’s journey almost ends before it begins when he gets his bike stuck in the mud of a Vancouver beach. But he starts out as he ends up continuing: by muscling his way through with grit and a sense of humour. Along his way from British Columbia to Newfoundland, he meets and is supported by an inspiring number of strangers who share their homes, food and personal stories of struggle. Hell of a Ride is a highly readable travelogue, stitching together postcard vignettes of the people and places Bauman encounters throughout his trip, while also a moving reflection on mental health.

The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era by Aaron Williams

Any discussion about clearcut logging in British Columbia, and on the island of Haidi Gwaii in particular, is bound to spark strong and irreconcilable points of view. Forestry giants argue the efficiency of their harvesting methods and the benefit to the economy. Environmentalists express alarm at the desolate mountainsides and the global consequences. More recently, the Indigenous peoples of Haida Gwaii have successfully asserted their sovereignty over the traditional lands of their ancestors and the resources they hold. The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era by Aaron Williams adds an often-neglected voice to this conversation. Williams’ family has been logging Haida Gwaii for generations. Communities have been built and families raised on its remote shores thanks to the harvesting of timber. Now, with his father’s approaching retirement and Williams’ own decision not to follow in his footsteps, Williams returns to write an elegy for a way of life. In writing that is immediate and humane, Williams documents the evolution of logging as a profession through his clear-eyed encounters with a curmudgeonly gallery of aging practitioners. The things that remain unspoken between working men and fathers and sons lies at the heart of this account. The result is a book that does not defend logging but adds greater understanding about what it has meant to the people who made it their livelihood.

The winner of the 2025 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction will be announced in early December. An award ceremony will be held at ³Ô¹ÏÍø’s Waterloo campus in the spring.

Learn more about the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.