If the pen is truly mightier than the sword, you want Peterborough writer D’Arcy Jenish in your corner.
Millbrook’s 4th Line Theatre certainly recognized that, producing his play The Tilco Strike for its outdoor stage at the Winslow farm, which is on now until Saturday, July 22nd.
But others had an epiphany long before that, bringing Jenish on board to benefit from what he does so very well — meticulous research before setting down words in a manner that will get our attention and keep it.
From writing for weekly newspapers and news magazines to authoring several books and plays, the Adam Scott Collegiate alumnus has enjoyed a career that any aspiring, or current, writer can’t help but envy. The road travelled has taken him across Canada and the United States, where he has met characters from all walks of life and told their stories.
Coming to mind quickly is former National Hockey League president John Ziegler Jr. — “A classy guy; a real gentleman” — who Jenish befriended and interviewed for his 2013 book The NHL: A Centennial History.
Then there’s Montreal bomb squad member Bob Coté — “This guy defused 33 (FLQ) bombs with his bare hands” — whose recollections were central to Jenish’s latest book, 2018’s The Making of the October Crisis: Canada’s Long Nightmare of Terrorism at the Hands of the FLQ.
“It’s been a pretty amazing ride,” Jenish reflects.
Not unlike the case for many who follow their passion and excel, Jenish’s journey started when he was young and in possession of a curiosity that begged to be fed.
One of six siblings raised in Estevan, Saskatchewan, Jenish found himself in Peterborough after his father died and his mother opted to move the family to the city where she was herself raised by an aunt.
“We had a subscription to the daily newspaper, we got the Saturday Star, and my mother received Time magazine,” recalls Jenish. “I read that stuff cover to cover.”
“When I came out of high school, my first instinct was to study journalism. It was the end of the 1960s. There was so much stuff in the news — civil rights, assassinations, Vietnam — and Watergate was starting to break. There was a lot of big news that made the world of journalism seem very exciting, so that’s what I felt I wanted to do.”
After attending Trent University for one year, Jenish eventually attained a degree in English from the University of Western Ontario. But formal journalism training wasn’t in the cards, despite his being “pretty studious.”
“I got my foot in the door with a weekly newspaper in Dunnville south of Hamilton,” Jenish says. That later led Jenish to a job with a daily newspaper in St. Thomas from where headed west in 1979 to take a position with Alberta Report news magazine.
“That was a real turning point for me,” recalls Jenish. “The workplace was definitely my (journalism) school. It was a chance to work with a great journalist (Ted Byfield). The first few jobs I was just learning on my own, but here was a guy who really knew how to shape and drive a story. Then, when I got to Maclean’s (in 1986), I was again working with really good editors who worked the copy hard.”
“Some people can step into a newsroom or into a business and they’re fully formed, but I put in my 10,000 hours. It was a long apprenticeship.”
Over the next 15 years as a senior writer with Maclean’s, Jenish put all he had learned to good practice, never forgoing the need to do his research and to do it as thoroughly as he possibly could.
“For the first six or seven years (at Maclean’s), I was hopping on a plane all the time,” says Jenish, who covered breaking news and wrote profiles of leading personalities on both sides of the border.
“It was a golden age — the last blast of the big mainstream media. We were a smaller organization, so it was pretty easy to pick up great assignments. It was a good place to learn how to deal with big stories.”
Having left Maclean’s in June 2001, Jenish embarked on his next chapter as a freelance writer. Besides writing for a long list of corporate heavyweights such as BMO and Canada Post, he contributed pieces for The Globe and Mail, National Post, and The Toronto Star. At that point, he had written two books — The Stanley Cup: 100 Years Of Hockey At Its Best and Money To Burn: Trudeau, Mulroney And The Bankruptcy Of Canada.
“When I first started writing books, I was working full-time at Maclean’s and had three young children, so I realized early on that discipline was key to the whole thing,” says Jenish, offering some sound advice for any author.
“Write 200 good words, five days a week. That’s 1,000 words a week. Do it 50 weeks a year and you’ve got 50,000 words and, in 18 months, you can have a book. I did that for 25 years.”
More books followed, including one in 2014 he was commissioned to write to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Trent University, Trent University: Celebrating 50 Years of Excellence, an undertaking that saw him come to Peterborough again “about 40 times.”
“That was a very sweet assignment for me … a little bit of a nostalgia trip. I started using the library at Trent when I was in Grade 11. I’d go there to research my essays. I really had an adolescent attachment to Trent. I finished at Western but Trent was my spiritual home academically. I just loved the place.”
As an author, Jenish has put his finely honed research skills to full use. His diligence in learning as much as there is know about his topics and interview subjects has paid off. His two 2003 books about the opening and settlement of the Canadian West — Indian Fall: The Last Great Days of the Plains Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy and Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West — won national awards while his hockey books, including 2008’s The Montreal Canadiens: 100 Years of Glory, a detailed look at the history of his beloved Montreal Canadiens, were best sellers.
Living full-time in Peterborough since June 2020, Jenish has a treasure chest of memories; a dizzying blur of names and faces and experiences that few jobs provide those who undertake them.
“When I did my seaway book (2009’s The St. Lawrence Seaway: 50 Years And Counting), my son and I rode a laker — one of those 730-foot ships — from Montreal to Thunder Bay,” says Jenish, recounting but one of those unique experiences.
Having spent much of the past few weeks at the Winslow farm for the season-opening run of The Tilco Strike, Jenish says that has given him a unique perspective in terms of live feedback from audiences.
“You get a little bit of audience reaction when you’re out doing talks about your books, but it’s not the same. You can’t sit there and watch somebody read your book but you can sit there and watch people watch the play you wrote.”
After learning the back story of the mid-1960s strike action against Tilco Plastics in Peterborough from a paper written by Canadian historian and Trent professor Joan Sangster, Jenish’s lifelong curiosity kicked into gear.
“You’re always chasing the next big story but sometimes stories come to you,” he recalls of the chance discovery he made while researching his Trent University 50th anniversary book, and the idea of writing a play about the late 1965 strike by 35 female Tilco employees that eventually led to a major public inquiry into labour practices in Ontario.
“I first saw a play at 4th Line during its second season in 1993 and I’ve seen at least a dozen of their productions over the years, so I was very familiar with the physical layout of the theatre and everything you could do with it. It fit the mandate. It’s local history. It’s a significant story. I had the grain of a good story.”
4th Line Theatre managing artistic director Kim Blackwell agreed and here we are. In the meantime, one of Jenish’s two short plays, The Last Time, will be featured at the Port Hope Arts Festival as one of several 10-minute plays presented at five venues on August 12th. His first 10-minute play, Ray’s Big Day, was performed at the festival last year.
As for what’s to come, Jenish will keep an eye out for the next great story. But then again, it might find him.
“I’ve still got the itch, as I call it,” Jenish says. “As long as you’ve got the fire still burning in your belly, yeah, you can still do something.”
For more information about D’Arcy Jenish and his books, visit his website at darcyjenish.com.
Jenish’s The Tilco Strike runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays at 6 p.m. until July 22. Tickets are available online at www.4thlinetheatre.on.ca, by calling 705-732-4445 (toll free at 1-800-814-0055), by emailing boxoffice@4thlinetheatre.on.ca, or in person at 4th Line Theatre’s box office at 9 Tupper Street in Millbrook.
