In her debut novel, Watershed, Doreen Vanderstoop envisions a future in which water, a life-giving resource that we take for granted, is not easily obtainable. Indeed, in Alberta in the year 2058, water is being rationed and the government’s scheme for water distribution to the province’s parched southern region is a subject of debate and controversy and even sparks a violent response from a terrorist group determined to preserve Northern Alberta’s water supply.

The main action of Watershed centres on the Van Bruggen goat farm, located near the southern town of Fort MacLeod. Willa Van Bruggen inherited the farm from her father and feels a primal connection to the land that is shared by her husband Calvin. But this is not the case for their son Daniel, who left the farm to study and as the novel begins has accepted a position as hydrologist with a crown corporation called Crystel. Crystel has been contracted to adapt the pipelines left over from the days of big oil for the purpose of moving water, and also to extend the lines south. But the project is plagued by a lack of trust. People in the north suspect the water distribution scheme is a ruse, and that Crystel’s real objective is to push the pipeline across the US border and sell water to thirsty Americans at enormous profit, leaving the northern supplies depleted.

Vanderstoop’s dystopian future is alarming but similar to the present day in which violent conflict can erupt over scarce natural resources. Thankfully, she doesn’t focus solely on the politics. Willa and Calvin’s dedication to the farm and their struggle to keep it going against mounting odds is the novel’s primary focus, though most readers will recognize early on that it’s a losing proposition. Willa Van Bruggen’s stubborn commitment to the farming life, which is all she knows, seems misguided—driven more by nostalgia than practical considerations—but she remains a character for whom the reader feels great empathy as, in addition to the financial squeeze, she faces a serious health issue, a rift in her relationship with Daniel, and the death of a close friend. In the end, Watershed is a suspenseful, thought-provoking, layered and emotionally potent novel informed by science and the looming threat of catastrophic climate change. But it is also written with the human element front and centre, which encourages us to reflect upon the value of honest human striving, knowing when to pack it in, and caring for one another and the things that matter most. In addition, and perhaps most indelibly, Doreen Vanderstoop builds her successful first novel around a vision of the future that is frightening and disturbingly plausible. ( )

In 2058 the glaciers had melted completely and Southern Alberta (in Canada) is dying from the drought. With no water left, all the water is delivered by truck - to be metered and dumped into the cisterns that everyone owns. Just a short few decades earlier, the same area was drowning under the constant rains and floods caused by the melting - and the cisterns were built to catch the rain water. And then the rain stopped coming.

Willa and Calvin are trying to survive on their goat farm (goats need less water than cows) and things do not look especially well for them. The work is too much for the two of them and their own child, Daniel, is away, trying to make his way in the big world. Costs are spiraling out, the bank wants its money and on top of everything, Willa starts getting hallucinations.

Meanwhile a big corporation is trying to build a pipe into Southern Alberta, connecting the desalination plant which cleans water from the ocean (reusing the old gas pipes, now cleaned) to the area that lacks water. Willa and Calvin's son Daniel is hired by them as a scientists and sent to the south for "Water Talks" - a discussion with the locals about the pipe. The whole plan of the pipe is a problem for a group in Northern Alberta who decides to blow up a pipe or three, take a hostage or 2 and mess up with the plans of anyone.

And somewhere under the domestic story of the farm and the thriller sequence of Daniel's story, there is the underlying story of memories and choices, old secrets and new problems, death and loss. A child loses both his parents, Willa seems to be losing her mind and they all lost almost everything to the drought and the years. The past comes bubbling up from the past - abandonment and death had been part of Willa's life for a long time. And at the end things get resolved almost too neatly.

This book could have been a lot better than it ended up being. It is not a bad book but it had its problems:
- If you are going to use existing locales, make the math work. Watershed is supposed to be set in a future Canada but when you add up the years, Southern Alberta should already be drowning at this point (2020). Which makes it an alternative Canada. Moving the year from 2058 to 2078 would have solved that neatly (although then it would have messed up so later year references). It felt like the author could not reconcile her timelines so it went into an alternative timeline instead. And I checked - it was published in 2020 so it is not that.
- 2058 is not that far away. Unless the educational system collapses (and it does not seem to have done that), Saddam Hussein will not be "some dictator from the 20th century".
- While I can see how Willa's hallucinations can fit the plot and be used to drive the story, the "vivid memories" of pretty much everyone just sound like a bad way not to write a flashback or just a scene in the past.
- When you have two main lines, you do not almost ignore one of them for long periods of the novel -- as they were uneven in length, Daniel's story felt almost forgotten for long stretches.
- Outside of the main characters, the characterization is almost cartoonist - the bad aunt, the First Nation man, the bank manager, the CEO, the chair of the Water Talks, the old friend, the villain.
- Whatever happened to the "show, don't tell". You do not need someone to explain what we just saw to someone else on the phone; neither you need to use a character to explain something when you can just show it.

It was supposed to be Willa's redemption story I think but it got a bit too heavy handed.

Despite all that, it was a pretty readable novel if you like the genre, especially from a debut novelist. It had its charms and the style mostly worked. ( )