In 1959, just one step ahead of the law, Ian Ferguson's parents left the sophisticated big-city life of Edmonton and ended up 846 km due north in Fort Vermilion, the third-poorest community in Canada. It was meant to be a temporary move. Like their neighbours, the Ferguson kids -- Ian and his six brothers and sisters -- grew up without indoor plumbing, central heating or electricity. In Village of the Small Houses, Ferguson has crafted a delightfully idiosyncratic account of growing up in the north.

Ian Ferguson won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour for his book Village of the Small Houses and is the co-author, with his brother Will Ferguson, of How to Be a Canadian, which was shortlisted for the Leacock and which won the CBA Libris Award for non-fiction. He was selected for inclusion in the Penguin Anthology of Canadian Humour, was a contributing essayist to Me Funny, an anthology of Aboriginal humour, and has had his writing published in the Globe & Mail, the National Post, Reader’s Digest, Maclean’s, and EnRoute, among other publications. For the past ten years, he has worked as a writer and creative director in the film and television industry.

Ian Ferguson's profile page

• Nominated, Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour