Dirty Work

My Gruelling, Glorious, Life-Changing Summer in the Wilderness

By: Anna Maxymiw

Narrated by: Anna Maxymiw

Winner, Louise de Kiriline Lawrence Award for Nonfiction

Lands of Lost Borders meets The Electric Woman in this vibrant coming-of-age memoir about a young woman's fierce, filthy, exhausting, and joyous experience working at a wilderness lodge.

When Anna Maxymiw accepts a summer job as a housekeeper at a fishing lodge in Northern Ontario, she has little idea what to expect. At 23, she has decided to step away from her master's degree and city life to board a floatplane bound for the remote boreal forest. For 67 days, Anna will be working and living alongside 12 strangers. Together this group of young men and women will keep the lodge running. While the fishing guides head out on the water with the fishermen who are the lodge's guests, the women stay on land to clean and serve.

Against the backdrop of a vast lake, wild storms, and hot days and eerily still nights, Anna encounters bears, bugs, and the lore surrounding the lake's legendary pike. As the summer progresses, complex (and sometimes fraught) bonds form between the men and women who work at the lodge, the ownership of the lodge changes hands, and tensions build. And Anna notices a shift in her outlook, too: She finds herself letting go of fears and insecurities and welcoming surprises and possibilities, both good and bad, with a willingness to be changed by them.

Warm, funny, vulnerable, and wise, Dirty Work offers a singular perspective on the age-old impulse to leave familiar surroundings behind. This memoir is for anyone who has ever felt the urge to test themselves and wondered how they'd fare and who they'd be when they come out on the other side.

©2019 Anna Maxymiw (P)2019 Penguin Random House Canada

Critic reviews

"[Maxymiw] reminds us of the enormity and unruliness of the Canadian wilderness. Maxymiw writes with painterly prose and a strong sense of humour. She makes the landscape seem mythic, grotesque, boring, itchy, and magical, swallowing any contradictions whole.” –Maisonneuve

“Anna Maxymiw is a beautiful writer. She weaves her memories into a vibrant and spectacular narrative that makes it impossible to stop reading. I'm in awe of her willingness to be so open and candid and honest and warm, and we're all very lucky she lets us go with her on such an incredible and transformative adventure. She also achieved the impossible: she made me want to spend time outdoors.” –Anne T. Donahue, author of Nobody Cares

“Dirty Work is a sparkling gem of a book, showcasing the enduring, complex magic of this country’s unforgiving yet rewarding terrain. Beyond being an exquisite writer, Maxymiw has a real gift for revealing the glory and the cruelty, the beauty and the filth of both the natural and human world. We are lucky to have her perspective and singular voice—one that’s not only refreshing, but necessary.” –Stacey May Fowles, author of Baseball Life Advice