Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New Eldorado by Daniel Marshall Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018 $24.95 / 9781553805021 Reviewed by Mark Forsythe First published Dec. 3, 2018 * We are pleased to reprint Mark Forsythe’s review of Daniel Marshall’s Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New Eldorado, a…
Read more #438 The Americans are coming
Dunmora: The Story of a Heritage Manor House on Vancouver Island by Valerie Green Surrey: Hancock House Publishing, 2017 $59.95 / 9780888390080 Reviewed by Patrick A. Dunae * “Dunmora” is the name of an impressive Tudor Revival-style house that was built in 1922. It is located north of Victoria, on the west side of the…
Read more #434 Unto the Saanich manor born
Before and After the State: Politics, Poetics, and People(s) in the Pacific Northwest by Allan K. McDougall, Lisa Philips, and Daniel L. Boxberger Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780774836685 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * One cannot these days escape the slogan of the Trump campaign: “Make America Great Again.” Set aside GDP, living…
Read more #433 Discord on the Pacific slope
Blossoms in the Gold Mountains: Chinese Settlements in the Fraser Canyon and the Okanagan by Lily Chow Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $24.95 / 9781987915501 Reviewed by Henry Yu First published Nov. 26, 2018 * Lily Chow’s Blossoms in the Gold Mountains is the culmination of a series of popular, accessible, and groundbreaking histories of…
Read more #432 Rescuing a Chinese minority
MEMOIR: The Spider Hunters by Lee Reid First published Nov. 23, 2018 * We are pleased to present The Spider Hunters, a coming-of-age memoir by Lee Reid (née Batchelor) of her early life in England (1946-1952), and then on densely-forested and thinly-populated Curteis Point near Sidney, Vancouver Island, between 1952 and 1964. The Spider Hunters…
Read more #431 The Spider Hunters
Codename Project 9: How a Small British Columbia City Helped Create the Atomic Bomb by Ron Verzuh CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018 $13.08 / 9781720820703 Reviewed by Michael Sasges First published Nov. 22, 2018 * Codename Project 9 is a small book that engenders reflections on some big history. Since 1945, journalists and scholars…
Read more #429 Trail, the bomb, and Blaylock
Island Forest Embers: The Japanese Canadian Charcoal Kilns of the Southern Gulf Islands by Rumiko Kanesaka and Brian Smallshaw (editors) Ganges: Japanese Garden Society of Salt Spring Island, 2018 $8.00 / 9780973781410 Reviewed by Bob Muckle First published Nov. 20, 2018 * While walking in the forest on his home island of Galiano one day…
Read more #428 Gulf Islands charcoal burners
Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels, and Counterculture in Canada by Linda Mahood Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $32.95 / 9780774837347 Reviewed by Lauren Harding First published November 19, 2018 * In this fascinating history, Linda Mahood takes a look at changing views of youth mobility in twentieth century Canada, from the early days of automobile travel…
Read more #427 Counterculture wanderlust
Iron Road West: An Illustrated History of British Columbia’s Railways by Derek Hayes Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $44.95 / 9781550178388 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek First published Nov. 17, 2018 * Derek Hayes’ latest venture into railway history is focused entirely on British Columbia. Although thus limited geographically, Hayes spins a very rich and comprehensive…
Read more #426 Moving amid the mountains
Spaces and Places for Art: Making Art Institutions in Western Canada 1912-1990 by Anne Whitelaw Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2017 $39.95 / 9780773550322 Reviewed by Martin Segger First published Nov. 16, 2018. * Geography challenges power. Anne Whitelaw has written an impressive geopolitical history of art institutions in western Canada. She demonstrates how…
Read more #425 Let them have art galleries
The Last Suffragist Standing: The Life and Times of Laura Marshall Jamieson by Veronica Strong-Boag Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $32.95 / 9780774838696 Reviewed by Patricia Roy First published Nov. 15, 2018. * The Life and Times is an old-fashioned title, but nothing is old-fashioned about this book. The sub-title is especially appropriate for a biography…
Read more #424 In search of Laura Jamieson
One Hundred Years of Struggle: The History of Women and the Vote in Canada by Joan Sangster Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $27.95 / 9780774835336 Reviewed by Barbara Messamore First published Nov. 12, 2018 * Joan Sangster’s clear, concise, and lively treatment of the women’s suffrage movement in Canada provides a broad historical survey while presenting…
Read more #421 Suffragist city
ESSAY: A century since Vimy and Passchendaele: Two wars, two families, one message by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published Nov. 11, 2018 * For Remembrance Day 2018 we offer a moving reflection by Howard Stewart — reprinted from Ormsby no. 195 (November 11, 2017) on this centenary of 11.11.18 — on war’s impact on his…
Read more #420 Why the red poppies matter
A Bright and Steady Flame: The Story of an Enduring Friendship by Luanne Armstrong Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Books, 2018 $22.95 / 9781987915822 Reviewed by Lee Reid First published Nov. 9, 2018 * I first came across the Buddhist term Kalyana-mitra in the 1980s when, as a struggling single parent, I was desperate for creative stimulation….
Read more #418 Boswell’s woman of words
Klee Wyck Journal: The Making of a Wilderness Retreat by Lou McKee Fairbanks, Alaska: Epicenter Press, 2017 9781935347750 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published November 07th, 2018 * Pantheism has a long and storied history. Nature exalts in a way that is simultaneously nameless and named; unconditional and conditional; joyous and painful. But many people…
Read more #416 Nootka Sound Nirvana
Murder by Milkshake: An Astonishing True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and a Charismatic Killer by Eve Lazarus Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $21.95 / 9781551527468 Reviewed by Larry Hannant First published November 6, 2018 * True crime “may be the dominant genre of our time,” according to Globe and Mail media writer Simon Houpt. And…
Read more #415 Murder by Milkshake
Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Cub and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and ‘60s by Marian Jago, foreword by Don Thompson Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $29.95 / 9780774837699 Reviewed by Brian Fraser First published November 02, 2018 * Good books on jazz are filled with intriguing stories about the relationships…
Read more #412 Vancouver jazz scene
ESSAY: A Person of Some Consequence: Attorney-general George Hunter Cary (1832-1866) by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor First published October 31st, 2018 * Victoria historian Robert Ratcliffe Taylor previously contributed an essay to these pages on the career of the forgotten architect Hermann Tiedemann (The Ormsby Review no. 211, November 26, 2017). Now Taylor turns his attention…
Read more #411 The boy Attorney-General of B.C.
A Not-so-Savage Land: The Art and Times of Frederick Whymper, 1838-1901 by Peter Johnson, foreword by Robert Amos Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $24.95 / 9781772032208 Reviewed by Michael Layland First published October 29th, 2018 * The English artist Frederick Whymper (1838-1901) spent the years 1862-66 in colonial Vancouver Island and British Columbia, producing technical and…
Read more #409 With Whymper to the Pacific
Not Extinct: Keeping the Sinixt Way by Marilyn James and Taress Alexis Nelson: Maa Press, 2018 $30.00 / 9780968530283 Reviewed by Paula Pryce First published October 24, 2018 * Editor’s note: Anthropologist Paula Pryce, author of the pathbreaking Keeping the Lakes’ Way (1999), revisits the Sinixt people, previously known as the Lakes people, whose traditional territory comprised…
Read more #406 The Sinixt are not extinct