A Bounded Land: Reflections on Settler Colonialism in Canada by Cole Harris Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780774864411 Reviewed by Barry Gough * Canada is usually described as an unbounded land, limited only by political borders with foreign states and physically by its seas and coasts. Here the distinguished historical geographer, Cole Harris, retired…
Read more 1041 A country of bounded spaces
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 East Kootenay off-grid, old-style
People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point by Robert D. Watt Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing in collaboration with UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2019 $50.00 / 9781773270425 * Susan Point: Spindle Whorl by Grant Arnold and Ian Thom (editors), with a foreword by Kathleen Bartels Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and London: Black Dog Press,…
Read more 1039 Outward from Musqueam
All Fracked Up! The costs of LNG to British Columbia by Alice de Wolff and Delores Broten (editors) Comox: Watershed Sentinel Books, 2020 $30.00 / 9780995328655 Reviewed by John Gellard * “What are you reading?” asked a highly educated neighbour. “A book about fracking,” “What’s fracking?” “How do you heat your house?” “With natural gas.”…
Read more 1038 Welcome to the sacrifice zone
Our Backs Warmed By the Sun: Memories of a Doukhobor Life by Vera Maloff Halfmoon Bay, Caitlin Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781773860398 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Doukhobor Diaspora: A family oral history offers an antidote to past misunderstandings about the Russian sect When I was in my teens, a terrible explosion rocked my West…
Read more 1036 Kootenay Doukhobor family saga
Doing Politics Differently? Women Premiers in Canada’s Provinces and Territories by Sylvia Bashevkin (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $34.95 / 9780774860819 Reviewed by Barbara J. Messamore * Do women “do politics differently?” Not so much. That said, it is not at all clear that we need even ask the question “is it worth electing more…
Read more 1034 Women trailblazing in politics
Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia by Crawford Kilian, with a foreword by Adam Rudder Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 (3rd edition, first published 1978) $26.95 / 9781550179484 * “Where Are You From?” Growing Up African-Canadian in Vancouver by Gillian Laura Creese Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019 $34.95 /…
Read more 1030 Blacks in BC then and now
Thinking a Modern Landscape Architecture, West & East: Christopher Tunnard, Sutemi Horiguchi by Marc Treib Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2020 $45.00 (US) / 9781943532780 Reviewed by Martin Segger * Thinking a Modern Landscape Architecture is a tale of two architects — or rather of two prominent books: Christopher Tunnard’s Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1948)…
Read more 1028 Christopher Tunnard’s gardens
The Fraser: River of Life and Legend by Carol Blacklaws and Rick Blacklaws White Rock: Image West Productions, 2020 $39.95 / 9780994817518 Reviewed by Peter Grant * Of those who raft (and swim) the Mighty Fraser In this album, appealingly balanced between text and pictures, Rick Blacklaws’ photos capture the Fraser River’s fabulous landscapes, especially…
Read more 1027 Tribute to the Fraser River
The Clean Body: A Modern History by Peter Ward Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 $37.95 / 9780773559387 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * This review is late. Very late. It took McGill-Queen’s a staggeringly long time to get the book into my sanitized hands — due in part to pandemic understaffing at a…
Read more 1020 Dishing the dirt on soap
Finding the Daydreamer by Estella Kuchta Laramie, Wyoming: Elm Books, 2020 $14.95 (U.S.) / 9781941614327 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Vancouverite Estella Kuchta’s debut novel incorporates her academic interests in ecocriticism and the Canadian literary love story. Her American publishers call it “A tale of survival, set in the Canadian wilderness” (back cover) thereby placing…
Read more 1014 Cariboo teacher & the cowboy
Railway Nation: Tales of Canadian Pacific, the World’s Greatest Travel System by David Laurence Jones Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $34.95 / 9781772033496 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Riding the Rails into Canada’s History: Illustrated anecdotes offer famous and lesser-known stories about the CPR. We can still hear the distant call of a diesel engine’s whistle…
Read more 1013 Coast to coast with the CPR
Converging Waters: The Beauty and Challenges of the Broughton Archipelago by Daniel Hillert (photos) and Gwen Curry (text) Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $40.00 / 9781771601658 Reviewed by Alex Zimmerman * There’s something attractive about archipelagos. They are, by definition, surrounded by water and therefore have no hard boundaries. Nonetheless, islands grouped into an archipelago…
Read more 1012 Behold the Broughton Archipelago
Kwanlin Dün: Dǎ Kwǎndur Ghày Ghàkwadîndur – Our Story in Our Words by Kwanlin Dün First Nation Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2020 $50.00 / 9781773270784 Reviewed by Daniel Sims * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that Kwanlin Dün: Dǎ Kwǎndur Ghày Ghàkwadîndur – Our Story in Our Words,…
Read more 1009 Reclaiming Indigenous history
The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain by Dukesang Wong, edited by David McIlwraith, translated by Wanda Joy Hoe Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2020 $18.95 / 9781772012583 Reviewed by May Q. Wong * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from…
Read more 1008 Mighty land, small laws
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Introduction to Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: We are pleased to present the first instalment of the late Brenda Callaghan’s biography and selected correspondence of East Kootenay settler Frederick Paget Norbury (1867-1940). In 1887, Norbury became…
Read more Frederick Paget Norbury: Introduction
Modern in the Making: Post-War Craft and Design in British Columbia by Daina Augaitis, Allan Collier, & Stephanie Rebick (editors) Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing and Vancouver Art Gallery, 2020 $40.00 / 9781773271224 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This substantial, fact-packed volume doubles as a reference authority and as an exhibition catalogue; the subject enthusiast must…
Read more 1002 Saving west coast Modernism
Big Ledge: The Triumphs and Tribulations of Robert E. Sproule by Brian D’Eon Nelson: Home Star Press, 2018 $20.00 / 9781775387206 Reviewed by Art (Sean Arthur) Joyce To obtain copies of Big Ledge, contact Brian D’Eon here. * Big Ledge by Brian D’Eon is that rarity in historical fiction — a story that combines historical…
Read more #999 Kootenay hardrock intrigue
LETTER: Dear Readers of History, and all that Jazz by Mariken van Nimwegen * What does the Oxford historian Peter Frankopan’s hefty 2015 book The Silk Roads have in common with “Vancouver man about town,” Andreas Nothiger’s skinny 1984 synchronoptical World History Chart? I think I have a case, and a story. Frankopan gives us…
Read more #994 Letters from the Pandemic 8: Dear readers of history
Great Expectations: Reflections on Museums and Canada by Jack Lohman Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2019 $14.95 / 9780772673039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “Isn’t it amazing that in 2019, Canadians are so passionate about the past?” In this era seen by some as haunted by a toxic past which must be erased as…
Read more #989 Passionate about the past