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both good and bad. Feedback from his superintendent and staff suggested he was a good principal, but he also found the job “almost all consuming.” “I think some people are wired to be principals and other people aren’t,” Galeski says. “I was not the kind of person who could put unfinished business away men- tally at the end of the day. It would nag at me.” As the years progressed, the stress and anxiety that Galeski was feeling built to such an extreme that his doctor asked if he wanted to go on leave. Galeski refused. But he also realized he was on an unsustainable path. After five years as principal, he decided to step down and return to the classroom. “When I talked to my superintendent about this … I wept on the phone with him, feelings of relief and feelings
TURNING THE PAGE Once he was no longer a principal, Galeski realized more fully the toll it had taken on him and his relationship with his family. As he embraced his return to teaching, he also embraced his reconnection with his family, some found-time in the evenings and weekends, and a reunion with old loves like watching televised Flames games, golfing and camping. About four years after stepping away from the prin- cipalship, Galeski decided to tackle a lifetime ambition that had long remained idle: write a novel. “It really started as a challenge to myself. I wanted to see if I could do it,” he says. Relying on the old adage, “write what you know,” Galeski once again turned to the Franklin Expedition. Within a couple months he’d finished a historical novel called Starvation Cove , named after the final resting place of the expedition’s last survivors. “When I finished writing it … I was so happy,” he says. “It was imperfect and it had problems, but it was a complete story.” For most first-time novelists, finding a publisher is a harrowing adventure all its own, but for Galeski, all it took was one email. He was aware of an Ottawa-based publisher, Justin Press, that specializes in books with a Catholic flavour. His matched the criteria, so he sent an email. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I just took a shot,” he says.
Imag
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"You see other people who are able to handle it … and it’s like, why can they do it and I can’t?”
of shame because I felt … like I couldn’t hack it as a principal,” he says. Although leaving the principalship meant returning to what he
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loved—teaching social studies— it took Galeski a couple of years to get over the shame of feeling like he’d failed. “Pride gets in the way ... you’re the principal, you’re the boss, and you see other people who are able to handle it and it seems like the stress doesn’t bother them … and it’s like, why can they do it and I can’t?”
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ATA Magazine Fall 2025
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