E is for Elk River

Elk Valley Alphabet Adventures: A Rhyming Journey in the Heart of the Canadian Rockies
by Charné Baird

Fernie: Charné Baird Photography, 2025
$28.95 / 9781069751409

Reviewed by Brett Josef Grubisic

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To those who are in years but Babes I bow
My Pen to teach them what the Letters be,
And how they may improve their A. B. C.

—from A Book for Boys and Girls, or, Country Rhimes for Children by J.B. Bunyan (1686)

For many a child, over many a century, an alphabet book has represented an important first: a first book, a first experience of turning pages, and a first time of making the world-altering connection between made-up shapes called letters and actual physical objects in the outside world: A is for Apple, B is for Banana. 

Okay, that’a not exactly true. The book given to pint-sized me long ago, Dr. Seuss’s ABC, began with Aunt Annie’s alligator—and to this day I’ve never witnessed an elderly woman riding a saddled alligator (that possesses enviable eyelashes).

Before the familiar, brightly coloured and often deeply whimsical primers familiar to us, earliest versions in the sixteenth century and onwards, known as hornbooks and battledores, often featured sobering religious instruction (U is for Upon: “UPON the wicked, God shall rain an horrible tempest”)—or else good ol’ didacticism (“He that ne’er learns his ABC, / For ever will a Blockhead be”). By the nineteenth century, however, the fun had begun in earnest. 

At the end of 2025 in a small town in BC’s Kootenay district, a deep-rooted literary tradition continues with Charné Baird’s Elk Valley Alphabet Adventures. 

Subtitled “A Rhyming Journey in the Heart of the Canadian Rockies,” and tagged on the cover with “Explore Learn Enjoy,” the thoughtfully-composed, useful, and appealing book contains photographic images and letters and rhymes, which are great for kids. And, for adults in teacher roles, there are handy prompts—keyed to exploration, literacy, and adventure (along with a laissez-faire note: “Use them when you feel inspired, skip them when you don’t, and make them yours along the way.”)

Rather than Apple, Elk Valley Alphabet Adventures begins with Ammonite: “An ancient ammonite, / Resting in stone / A fossil from waters / Where fish once roamed.” Mineral-themed, a reader might ask? Extinct marine mollusk-themed? Then, for Baird, B is for biking. 

The author’s eye is roving in this book. Instead of a single thematic through line—Apple, Banana, Cantaloupe, say, or Xerus, Yak, Zebra—these alphabet adventures survey the immediate environment a child in the region might encounter. A child near Fernie, where Baird resides, will soon understand the relationship between that thing on the page with two intersecting lines (t) and the Titan truck that rumbles by now and then. 

There’s biking, coal train, and derrick, and so on, all the way to XC skiing, yoga, and zipline. (The literacy prompt for Z begins, “Z is for zipline and zucchini. Can you name two more Z words?”) 

In between, an assortment of words—truck, larch, ukulele, rainbow, miner—tours readers through an environment that might seem exotic to city kids (aka, the majority of Canadian children), for whom Titan trucks, fly fishing, coal mining, oil derricks, and Mount Hosmer are far less known than shopping malls, condo towers, and traffic snarls.

But just as Canadian kids learn about marsupials, chameleons or hippos without having ever seen one in person, Baird’s book depicts everyday sights in a remote place and gives young readers the opportunity to connect the sights with the arrangement of letters called “words” they will write (or type) for the rest of their lives.

(Or maybe not: as AI-reliance becomes normalized, literacy as we currently practice it will undoubtedly transform. How is the question. In the meantime, kids looking at pages that feature words and images and ushering in a creative phase of cognitive development will both benefit from and enjoy the wonders and sights and activities of a town in BC’s Kootenay district that Charné Baird portrays with a loving eye in Elk Valley Alphabet Adventures.

Brett Josef Grubisic assigns, edits, and posts fiction, poetry, and children’s lit reviews for BCR; occasionally, he contributes reviews as well. [He’s written about recent books by Zsuzsi Gartner (ed.), Jennifer Cooper, Caroline Adderson, Sunny Dhillon, Wanda John-Kehewin, Ryan O’Dowd, Michael V. Smith, David Bouchard, Alice Turski, Louise Sidley, K.J. Denny (ed.), Sonali Zohra, Carrie Anne Vanderhoop, Kristen Pendreigh, Sam Wiebe, Maureen Young, Daniel Anctil, and Adam Welch for BCR.]

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The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
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