Weaving a tapestry that illuminates
One Arrow Left: A Memoir of Secwépemc Knowledge Keeper Cecilia DeRose
by Cecilia Dick DeRose w/ Sage Birchwater
Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025
$26 / 9781773861586
Reviewed by David Williams
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It was a fortuitous day when my wife Patricia and I walked into the Station Gallery recently in Williams Lake and saw Sage Birchwater’s and Cecila Dick DeRose’s new book, One Arrow Left. I knew I had to have it!
I didn’t know Cecilia other than by reputation, but I know Sage well, both as a pal of shared interests and through his books about the Cariboo-Chilcotin and the great cast of characters that inhabit this sprawling central B.C. territory with its rich history of gold rushes, territorial conflict over resources and land, and sometimes uneasy relations between the First Peoples and those who’ve arrived more recently.
Sage is aptly named, for he wisely draws together the rich threads of local history from their multiple sources to weave a tapestry that both entertains and illuminates just what is going on here. Like me, Sage grew up in Victoria and was drawn to Cariboo early on as a place where life could be lived rich and entire, where one could still try oneself against the rigours of harsh winters in real wilderness, find Indigenous ways and wisdom that one could learn from and, less sublimely, observe the unpleasant reality of racial prejudice and its consequences.
This is Cecilia’s story and it is about a truly remarkable woman, her many accomplishments, and the lives of a quintessential Cariboo family of mixed Indigenous and European blood lines. This mixture mirrors that of my own family and so much of what is presented here is familiar, some of it, like the residential school experience of Cecilia Dick DeRose when a young girl, achingly so.
But best of all, it is a lens held up to the special place that is the Cariboo-Chilcotin Coast and life here over the last hundred plus years. From horses and wagons (some, Bennett Buggies) to trucks, tractors, and automobiles, a progression (if not progress) our generation has witnessed within our lifetimes, from one-room backwoods schoolhouses to a chancellorship of a university for her daughter De De, and a much-deserved honourary doctorate for Cecilia for her work with her Indigenous language of Secwepemctsín, the book covers a journey many home grown British Columbians will recognize.
There is lots about rodeo, too, and why so many are drawn to it, particularly young men, though far from exclusively. Rodeo opens a path to fame and even fortune and the opportunity to excel at something difficult and dangerous.
Predictably, this also leads to some heartbreak. For as in all stories where life may be lived on the edge, something Cariboo and Chilcotin seem so frequently to demand, there is loss here. When Cecilia and her husband Lenny’s son, Wes, is killed in a car crash in 1984, they are inconsolable. Wes had been a rising star in the rodeo circuit, bareback champion of the B.C. Rodeo Association. For those who follow rodeo, you will know what a big deal this is. Wes was only twenty-one.
Cecilia, like all Indigenous women who married non-Indigenous men, lost her Indigenous status under the Indian Act when she married Lenny DeRose, as would her children. However, in 1985, new federal legislation allowed such women to apply for restoration of status and rights. This Cecilia did, thus reclaiming her heritage. Hers is a story of a life rich in love and relationships, and one of overcoming too.
While I don’t know Cecilia personally or many of the people in her memoir, I do recognize many names, as well as the stories. Cariboo-Chilcotin is about stories as much as anything. By the end of the book, it seemed that I did know them. I think this means the book is a success.
Well done, Sage, and congratulations and big thanks, Cecilia, for sharing your story of a life well-lived.
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David Williams has been a university librarian, worked in land surveying, as a seaman, and was a homesteader. His roots go deep into B.C. as a descendent of both the St’at’imc chief, Joseph (Chilwhushalsit) and of a pioneer land surveyor. Lately, he has worked for Indigenous rights as founding president of Friends of the Nemaiah Valley and RAVEN (Respecting Aboriginal Values and Environmental Needs).
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster