Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and its North American Workforce, 1668-1786 by Scott P. Stephen Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2019 $44.99 / 9781772123371 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Radishes and Gooseberries: Meet some of the people who are missing from your high school history textbook… “Radishes and Gooseberries!” Our high school social…
Read more #937 Radishes and Gooseberries
Woo, The Monkey Who Inspired Emily Carr: A Biography by Grant Hayter-Menzies, with a foreword by Anita Kunz Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $9.99 / 9781771622141 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * What, ultimately, does a statue represent? A statue is allegory at its most literal. A statue can never be the very person it…
Read more #931 Carr, captivity, creativity
View from the Tower, Tin Pushers and Pilots on the BC Coast by Grant B. Evans Crofton: Osborne Bay Books, 2019; first published 2016 $19.95 / 9780994906571 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * View from the Tower is about as rich and dramatic a memoir as one could reasonably expect to come from a former air…
Read more #922 In the hot seat at Port Hardy
McIntyre House by Sherry McKay, with a preface by Douglas Coupland and photography by Michael Perlmutter Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2020, and Vancouver: UBC School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture [SALA] / West Coast Modern House Series $24.95 (US) / 9781943532940 Reviewed by Martin Segger * As Leslie Van Duzer — series editor of UBC…
Read more #917 McIntyre’s West Coast Modern
The Abortion Caravan by Karin Wells Toronto: Second Story Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781772601251 Reviewed by Donalda Reid * Karin Wells has written an engaging book, The Abortion Caravan, about the 1970 national women’s march on Parliament aimed at forcing changes to Canada’s abortion laws. Her book takes us back fifty years into a period…
Read more #915 Shutting down parliament, 1970
Arrivals and Departures by Christine Hayvice Toronto: Unifor Local 2002, 2020 $35.00 / 9780968150511. Contact address: airlineworker1990@gmail.com Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Flying Union High: An insider’s look at the history of union bargaining at Canada’s airlines I love flying and I’ve done my share of it. Now I’m grounded like most of the world, thanks…
Read more #914 Flying union high
Crossing the Divide: Discovering a Wilderness Ethic in Canada’s Northern Rockies by Wayne Sawchuk Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781928195061 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * Who wouldn’t want a chance to sit around a campfire with Wayne Sawchuk, and listen to him tell stories? Horses munch grass in the background, his faithful dog, Chancey,…
Read more #913 Northern wilderness advocate
Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Charts and a Voyage Through Time by Sam McKinney Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 (first published 2010) $20.00 / 9781771512640 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * I once got the urge to see all the apartments and houses where the British writer Malcolm Lowry had lived during his years…
Read more #912 Now that the coast is clear
Vancouver After Dark: The Wild History of a City’s Nightlife by Aaron Chapman Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2019 $32.95 / 9781551527833 Reviewed by Grahame Ware * On March 12, 2020, Aaron Chapman’s Vancouver After Dark was one of five books shortlisted for the 2020 Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award of the BC and Yukon Book…
Read more #909 Twilight of the club scene
British Columbia in Flames: Stories from a Blazing Summer by Claudia Cornwall Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $26.95 / 9781550178944 Reviewed by John Gellard * “When a fire is roaring through the crowns of trees and flames are shooting up for fifty metres, the intensity can hit 150,000 kilowatts per metre. In one hour a…
Read more #900 Teaching the Cariboo way
Journeys of Hope: Challenging Discrimination & Building on Vancouver Chinatown’s Legacies, by Henry Yu; edited by Sarah Ling, Szu Shen, and Baldwin Wong; translated into Chinese by Szu Shen Vancouver: UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies, 2018. Distributed by the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of British Columbia $50.00 / 9780993659317…
Read more #899 Vancouver apologizes
The Runaway Bride by Jody Hedlund Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bethany House Publishers, 2020 $15.99 (U.S.) / 9780764232961 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Jody Hedlund’s book The Runaway Bride tells the story of Arabella Lawrence who arrives in Victoria in September 1862 aboard the S.S. Tynemouth. Over the years, I have conducted a great deal of…
Read more #898 Back to the brideships
Down the Road: Journeys Through Small-town British Columbia by Rosemary Neering Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2019 (first published 1992, reprinted 2003) $22.95 / 9781770503243 Reviewed by Diana E. French * Rosemary Neering is an accomplished author who began her writing career as a travel magazine contributor. Her visits to many rural areas of British Columbia were…
Read more #897 On the road with Rosemary
Cataline: Uncovering the Life of BC’s Legendary Packer by Susan Smith-Josephy and Irene Bjerky Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860244 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * This is a book about the making of British Columbia by the simple hard work of carrying industrial material, strapped to the backs of horses and mules, across…
Read more #887 A legend of British Columbia
MEMOIR: Writing My Father by Meg Stainsby * After twenty years of carting it around unopened, I unpacked a stale cardboard box stuffed with crackly, yellowed sheets of typescript — some still clinging to their carbons, all faint and fusty — and began a solitary trek across a forty-year expanse of written terrain that my…
Read more #876 Stainsby’s carbons and files
Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood: A Memoir of a Past Lost and Found by Wayson Choy Toronto: Penguin Random House, 2018 (Penguin Modern Classics); first published by Viking Penguin, 1999 $21.00 / 9780735234666 Reviewed by Jessica Poon * When I was six years old, ostensibly as a non sequitur, I announced, “I’m English!” to every…
Read more #875 Chinese but not Chinese
Potlatch Blanket for a China Man by Mei-Li Lee Victoria: Printorium Bookworks, 2019 $19.95 / 9780991808410 Reviewed by May Q. Wong For a complete list of BC booksellers that stock this book see here. It is also available from Amazon. * Mei-Li Lee draws the reader into her novel through a potlatch ceremony, where a…
Read more #874 Keeping company at Fort Hope
Craigdarroch: The Story of Dunsmuir Castle by Terry Reksten Victoria: Orca Books, 2019 (first published by Orca Books, 1987; reprinted 1994, 1997, and 2000) $16.95 / 9781459823846 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * This new printing of the late Terry Reksten’s Craigdarroch: The Story of Dunsmuir Castle provides to a new generation of readers a short…
Read more #873 A castle for all Victorians
Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician by Geoff Mynett Vancouver: Ronsdale Books, 2020 $21.95 / 9781553805755 Reviewed by Tyler McCreary * Service on the Skeena, Geoff Mynett’s first book, presents the story of the northern medical missionary, public healthcare advocate, and later provincial politician, Horace Wrinch. The first doctor to serve Gitxsan and…
Read more #868 Hazelton mission and medic
A Woman in Between: Searching for Dr. Victoria Chung by John Price with Ningping Yu Vancouver: Canadian Chinese Historical Society of British Columbia and UBC Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian Studies, 2019 $30.00 / 9780993659324 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * An immigrant girl, born in Victoria in 1897 and a…
Read more #862 The remarkable Victoria Chung