A year of interview segments

Reflecting on connecting, with camera
by Trevor Marc Hughes

2025 was an extraordinary year for The British Columbia Review. Publisher Richard Mackie and I spent much of the early part of the year getting in to his Honda and driving to a location on Vancouver Island or in the Lower Mainland and interviewing another wonderful author, historian, literary figure, usually with a pound of coffee on hand as an offering, before settling down to an interview location, usually with a scenic vista which can only be offered in this part of the world, rolling camera, and asking questions.

Our interviewees have been many and varied: from seasoned poet George Bowering to newcomer, Giller Prize-shortlisted author, Eddy Boudel Tan, from bestselling history author Nancy Marguerite Anderson, to acclaimed memoirist Marion McKinnon Crook. It has been a privilege for me to shake the hands of all of the interviewees of 2025, sometimes in their own homes and workspaces, and ask them about their creative process.

Over the course of the year, Rogers TV in Victoria has allowed us two regular spots on air with regular weekly timeslots on Rogers TV in Greater Victoria and the Gulf Islands. Perhaps you’ve seen them? But I continue to upload segments on to our YouTube platform at https://www.youtube.com/@thebritishcolumbiareview and am proud to say that, since we began just under two years ago, we now have 93 uploaded interview segments. Here are the segments that were produced and uploaded in 2025:

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Barry Gough

Did you know that a book authored by historian Barry Gough was the first title published by UBC Press? It was in 1971 and the book was The Royal Navy and The Northwest Coast of North America, 1810-1914: A Study of British Maritime Ascendancy. Since then he has continued to publish history titles, often discussing our maritime past, including Fortune’s a River: The Collision of Empires in Northwest America and Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound. I had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Gough while he sat at his writing desk, one that he carved with his father, as we discussed the lessons that can be learned through history, especially in light of the threats of annexation from our neighbour country south of the 49th parallel.

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Lily Chow

Not only has Lily Chow been a teacher and researcher, she has spent a quarter of a century writing the stories of Chinese Canadians in various parts of British Columbia. Her latest book, Hard Is the Journey: Stories of Chinese Settlement in British Columbia’s Kootenay, features the history of the Chinese community in places such as Cranbrook. She spoke to me about how Chinese migrants contributed to the economy of the province. It was a pleasure to meet Lily in her home in Victoria.

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Chris Arnett

Archaeologist and author Chris Arnett spoke on the significance of Indigenous rock art found in sites throughout the province and the process of turning his PhD into a bestselling book. The Mackie family home in North Saanich was the locale to this candid interview.

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Wendy Wickwire

What a pleasure to speak with Associate professor Emerita and best selling history author Wendy Wickwire in North Saanich earlier this year. Recently having had her book At the Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging published, she spoke about anthropologist James Teit, his immersion in Nlakapamux community in the late 1880s – early 1900s, and his Indigenous advocacy work that led some to label him a “white agitator.”

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Sonnet L’Abbé

An interview over brunch at a diner sounds good to me. Richard and I drove up from Victoria to Chemainus to meet Sonnet L’Abbé at the MotherHen. Sonnet, who teaches in the Department of Creative Writing and Journalism at Vancouver Island University, spoke on her recent book of poetry, Sonnet’s Shakespeare, which takes a new look at the institution of the Bard. It was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize at the BC & Yukon Book Prizes.

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Michael Layland

Michael Layland has a new book out… Turmoil: The Life & Times of Philip Hankin. But when Richard introduced me to Michael at his home in Cadboro Bay earlier this year, his most recent title was In Nature’s Realm: Early Naturalists Explore Vancouver Island. A retired surveyor and mapmaker Michael Layland’s three books, published by TouchWood Editions, look at early exploration of the geography and natural world on Vancouver Island. He spoke about his work life, spent in North Africa and South America, which eventually led him to retire to Cadboro Bay, and further develop his writing.

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John Adams

This was something that I’d not done since a schoolboy in Victoria: take part in a tour of Ross Bay Cemetery. Who better to take me on this tour than John Adams? Among the many historical figures in British Columbia’s history buried there, we visited the gravesites of Amelia and James Douglas and Emily Carr. He tells us about the books he has written, including the recent Chinese Victoria: A Long and Difficult Journey & his earlier Historic Guide to Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, BC, Canada.

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Hanako Masutani

Meeting for an outside interview on a cold blustery day in Victoria, children’s title author Hanako Masutani braved the cold while I shivered behind the camera. But we managed to discuss many of the aspects of the production of a children’s book, including whether the author and illustrator actually do meet and collaborate. The answer might surprise you!

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David Bouchard

Victoria-based Métis poet, author, and educator David Bouchard spoke to me about his special collaborative approach to working with illustrators on his wide variety of books, and how his recent title, in exploring colonial racism, can broach the subject with a new generation. His recent title is I Am Not a Ghost: The Canadian Pacific Railway, with Zhong-Yang Huang, illustrated by Zhong-Yang Huang

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Robert Amos

Victoria author and art historian Robert Amos tells me of his various meetings with the late reclusive artist E.J. Hughes and how he came to become the man entrusted with telling the story of one of the greatest artists in Western Canadian history.

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Vanessa Winn

Filmed at Rutledge Park near Cloverdale Avenue, Victoria author Vanessa Winn tells me about how her research into British Columbia’s historical characters, such as Catherine Work and Charles Wentworth Wallace, and more famed figures in the fur trade such as William Fraser Tolmie, makes vibrant and energizes aspects of Victoria’s early colonial and settler history.

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Rodger Touchie

Rodger Touchie candidly told me about the publishing work of Heritage House, his relationship to J. J. Douglas, co-founder of Douglas & McIntyre, his having thought up the Internet years before its introduction to the world, and the subjects of his own writing on BC history, including Jerry Potts and Edward S. Curtis. The memories he has related to the publishing industry in British Columbia are heartwarming, and hearken back to another time and literary context.

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Yasuko Thanh

It was a real pleasure to speak to author Yasuko Thanh in her Victoria home, in James Bay. As a child of immigrants, novelist, and memoirist Thanh asks the question: What is home? Is she on a search for home? Is she searching for ‘elsewhere’ in her work? I was also the privileged recipient of learning about when she was mid-process with a new novel, which was tentatively called The Falling Maria.

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Nancy Marguerite Anderson

Victoria author Nancy Marguerite Anderson considers herself “the accidental HBC historian’ and writes about the HBC men who made the perilous journey from the west coast. She’s descended from three generations of fur traders who worked west of the Rocky Mountains and tells of the near-impossible conditions and terrain that these men faced when crossing the continent between 1826 and 1854.

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Henry Yu

Henry Yu is a history professor at The University of British Columbia. He spoke to me at Kerrisdale in Vancouver about how his path to becoming an historian was shaped by the exclusion and challenges of his Chinese Canadian ancestors in BC.

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Graeme Menzies

This has been a productive year for Graeme Menzies, with two books being released. His most recent was Trading Fate: How a Little-Known Company Stopped British Columbia from Becoming an American State (very timely right about now). But his early title this year, and the subject when I interviewed him at my townhouse, was Bones: The Life and Adventures of Dr. Archibald Menzies (1754-1842). He told me the extraordinary story of how the bust of Archibald Menzies at VanDusen Gardens was reproduced for Castle Menzies in Scotland, the home of the famous botanist immortalized in the Latin names for the Arbutus tree and Douglas Fir. He also tells of how the botanist, borne of the Scottish Enlightenment, likened First Nation groups in this part of the world to the tribalism of the Scottish Clan system.

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Trevor Marc Hughes has been producing interview segments for The British Columbia Review for nearly two years now. Hughes is a historian, biographer, freelance broadcaster, and former arts reporter at CBC Radio in Vancouver, and member of the board of the Ormsby Literary Society. He launched the series with an interview in Nanaimo with historian Robin Fisher, who discussed his book Wilson Duff: Coming Back, A Life (Harbour Publishing, 2022).

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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