This book review was written by Nature Canada board member Joan Czapalay. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the story of this inspiring conservationist, Joan!

Sanctuary: The Story of Mary Majka

Author: Deborah Carr
Trade Paperback : 260 pages
Publisher : Goose Lane Editions Fredericton, New Brunswick. (2010)
Language: English
List Price: $19.95
ISBN-10: 0864926243
ISBN-13: 978-086492624

Read this book for entertainment, for inspiration and for truth about what it means to be fully human. Travel with the author Deborah Carr on Mary’s life journey thus far, told mainly in Mary’s own words and with the use of photographs which are shared with the reader throughout the book. These pictures carry the threads of Mary’s memories as a beloved child of privilege to a girlhood of poverty in pre-war Poland, to separation from mother and brother after the loss of a beloved father, to prison and enforced labour in Austria, to the University of Innsbruck to study medicine, and then marriage to Mike and immigration to Canada.

The text, which is carried forward by conversations rather than interviews between Mary and the author, invite us (as the pictures do) into Mary’s home and into her private life in a way that no other biography has done for me. We see Mary’s parents, her homes, her children, places and projects as the story unfolds.

The author writes beautifully, as in the passage where Mary speaks of the loss of her dear father whom she still mourns, “She stares out the clouded window, glass stained with time and moisture. A thin pane separates here from there. For a moment she watches the weather and the water, perhaps seeking insight, perception. And truth.”

Deborah Carr seems to have come as close as another can in finding Mary’s truth. An unswerving commitment to conservation of nature and of heritage and a love of people are Mary’s trademarks. Mary especially knows the importance of connecting children with nature. When Mary and Mike were raising their two sons Chris and Marc in rural New Brunswick, a young naturalist, David Christie, became part of their family. David later told the author that Mary “was there when I needed her”. And Mary could say the same for David. He was co-founder of the St. John Naturalist Club, and a student of science. They became, and still are, a team for conservation and preservation causes. They and other naturalist friends founded the New Brunswick Naturalists, and were active in Nature Canada. The Mary’s Point Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve officially opened in August of 1987 thanks to their efforts and in 1989 an interpretive centre was opened.

Obtaining funding has always been a source of difficulty for all conservation causes. Yet Mary and David working together have been able to preserve so much and to educate so many about the importance of the natural world, the inter-relationship of all life forms and the value of our human history.

This is not just a “feel good” book. Part of the truth is that Mary sometimes went ahead with what she perceived as right without considering others. Deborah does not skirt the issues which arose and does not make Mary out to be a saint. Mary Majka is too intense for many people, but history will honour her.

Mary’s lifetime love of nature and love of people, especially children and youth, has been translated into action. She told Deborah that after the death of her father “Nature was my support”. All who have felt the healing power of the woods and trees, the beach and rocky shore can attest to this. Few of us put our love of nature into action, but this book could change that.

After Mike’s death just a few years ago there would be need to find that healing power again. Mike is a background figure in Sanctuary but so important in helping Mary achieve her dreams. He too shared her great love of nature and sense of place. If we are given the right people in our lives when we need them, perhaps we are placed in the right spot.Mary was made for Mary’s Point and the upper Bay of Fundy.

Mary and David publish an annual holiday letter with pictures of Chris and Marc, and more recently Nishka, and others in Mary’s extended family. I am privileged to have been welcomed to Calidris, the cottage near the beach, and to have been welcomed to the Big House be part of that family. And I have been inspired by Mary’s life so well and intensely lived and well told.