A local author is writing a children’s book based on a story about a fox that stole her boot last year.
Lana de Bastiani, 28, is set to release the book after she posted on social media asking for help catching the four-legged Northern thief last December.
“A lot of people walk their dogs all around this area so I posted a little story (online) asking people to keep an eye out and a picture of the one boots I had left and went to bed. I woke up the next morning to find this story had kept spreading,” said de Bastiani.
“I got a message from my neighbour across the street who happened to be walking his he sent me a picture of it and I could see it had some nibble marks.”
That took place a day after de Bastiani had a run in with a fox while she was skating on Rat Lake. De Bastiani was shovelling snow off the community rink when a fox stole the boot and a pair of mitts.
She then searched all night with her landlords, but could only find the mitts that evening. However, once she put the story on social media it garnered 141 likes, 61 comments and 144 shares, allowing for the story to reach the maker of the boot – Steger Mukluks and Moccasins of Minnesota – who offered to send de Bastiani a brand new pair.
“Patricia Steger, who has been here numerous times and she sent a message, ‘are you the Lana from Yellowknife who’s boot got stolen by a fox?'” recalled de Bastiani.
At the same time, de Bastiani was trying to decide what she would do for the final project of her masters of special education program.
She said that a lot of people that heard the story told her to turn it into a book. That was when she decided that it could be an educational resource for children across the NWT.
"Children of the North will know the story in my book, they know the locations, they know the animals, because I’m going to involve alot more animals in this book than humans to teach them about the relevant animals that are around in the winter in Yellowknife,” said De Bastiani.
De Bastiani then successfully applied for funding from the Department of Education, the NWT Literacy Council and partnered with local illustrator Janet Pacey to get the project started.
"I want it printed in hard cover which will make it a bit more expensive for printing but still, I can keep selling this at a pretty affordable cost because it’s my final project for school I wanna be able to give free copies away. I want be able to donate stuff I wanna have some swag and merchandise because It's helping me, but I'm doing it for the children,” said de Bastiani.
De Bastiani is now hoping that the book will be released in November of this year. She says that once it’s released she hopes tour across Northern schools.