06/17/2026
Save the date! *March 8, 2027*
Just got word from my publisher (Douglas & McIntyre) that my next book comes out next spring... This time not just for theologians!
Here's the copy that will go out in publication catalogues next month:
TRACKS IN THE SNOW
Weaving together personal stories and culture-spanning reflections, Carmen Lansdowne draws on her Indigenous heritage and her work as spiritual leader of The United Church of Canada to offer a vision of hope that seeks to build trust, empathy and solidarity in the face of the world’s most urgent crises.
In this chaotic time, Carmen Lansdowne wants us to look squarely at the world’s great crises—the climate emergency, the rise of authoritarianism and pernicious technologies, the growing gap between rich and poor—and approach them from a position of hope. By this, she does not mean optimism, with its reality-denying belief that all will simply turn out well. Rather, as a renowned scholar and theologian, Lansdowne advocates an open, disciplined, community-building stance that revives our widely forgotten ability to dream of a better world based on a nurtured sense of trust, empathy and solidarity.
This is a daunting task, but Lansdowne’s rich experiences as a member of the Heiltsuk Nation and an ordained minister of The United Church of Canada create a uniquely nuanced vantage point. As she describes with moving vulnerability in the memoir-based opening section of Tracks in the Snow, Lansdowne’s heritage has shown her the power of dreaming to withstand suffering and dire circumstances, both in the culture-wide wounds inflicted on Indigenous Peoples by settler colonialism and in her own battles with addiction decades ago. Further deepening this viewpoint, Lansdowne has seen life from the margins as well as from the centre, serving as executive director of First United Church in Vancouver’s poverty-plagued Downtown Eastside, and later as elected spiritual leader of Canada’s largest Protestant denomination—the first Indigenous woman to do either.
Following the book’s second part—an unsettlingly lucid account of the dangers now facing the planet—Lansdowne sends out her call for the “right to dream”, resonating with insight from these years of service, and echoing across destructive political divisions. Blending rigorous honesty with humility and humour, Tracks in the Snow offers an essential vision of healing and openness that transcends the distraction and infighting now keeping us from reflecting on what is and what could be.
AUTHOR BIO:
Born in Alert Bay, BC, minister and theologian Carmen Lansdowne is a member of the Heiltsuk Nation. She was the forty-fourth moderator of the United Church of Canada, and is an assistant professor at Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto. She lives with her family in Toronto, ON.
