December 10th, 2025
Aaron Williams (at right), author of The Last Logging Show: A Forestry Family at the End of an Era (Harbour $24.95) has won the 2025 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.
Williams’ book captures the spectacular setting of Haida Gwaii and the people who call it home. It unravels the lives and dreams of those who log the forests for a living, who have toiled alongside their Haida co-workers for generations—and shows how old approaches to forestry come to an end and new ways come into being. It’s a story of connection, community and the force of fundamental change.
“In Edna [Staebler’s] own creative non-fiction, she often wrote compassionately about communities that were marginal and poorly understood, from Nova Scotia fishing villages to Mennonite farming settlements,” said award juror Harry Froklage, former associate director of development for Wilfrid Laurier’s Faculty of Arts. “Aaron Williams has written a book about such a community.”
“Winning the Edna Staebler award is an incredible thrill,” said Williams. “To be in the company of such great past winners, as well as fellow nominee Martin Bauman, I’m grateful for all of it. It doesn’t get any better!”
An award ceremony and reception honouring Williams will be held on April 1 2026, on Wilfrid Laurier’s Waterloo campus.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aaron Williams is a British Columbia born, Nova Scotia-based writer whose writing has been published in newspapers such as the Globe and Mail, the Halifax Chronicle Herald and the Vancouver Observer. He has an MFA in creative non-fiction writing from King’s College. His first book, Chasing Smoke (Harbour Publishing, Fall 2017)—based on his experience fighting forest fires in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Idaho—was a finalist for the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award in 2018. Having worked for many years in British Columbia, he now lives in Halifax with his family.
ABOUT THE AWARD
Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is a unique award—the only one offered in Canada for the genre. 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 Wilfred Laurier University and is the oldest national literary award bestowed by a university in Canada. The $10,000 prize recognizes Canadian writers for a first or second book that is written in the genre of creative non-fiction and includes a Canadian locale or significance. 9781990776618
Photo of Aaron Williams by Lori A. May
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