Marjorie: Too Afraid To Cry. A Home Child Experience by Patricia Skidmore Toronto: Dundurn, 2012 $30.00 / 9781459703391 * Marjorie: Her War Years. A British Home Child in Canada by Patricia Skidmore Toronto: Dundurn, 2018 $30.00 / 9781459741669 * Both books reviewed by Sylvia Crooks First published December 26, 2018 * …
Read more #454 The home children of Cowichan
Seeking the Fabled City: The Canadian Jewish Experience by Allan Levine Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2018 $45.00 / 9780771048050 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Dec. 21, 2018 * Have you heard the one about the Winnipeg paper that tried to explain the ways of this strange new people, the Jews,…
Read more #452 Jewish arrival and survival
The Collectors: A History of the Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives by Patricia E. Roy Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2018 $39.95 / 9780772672001 Reviewed by Chad Reimer First published Dec. 18, 2018 * In The Collectors: A History of the Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives, Patricia Roy sets herself a daunting…
Read more #450 Classifying British Columbia
Revolving W and Flying Pigs: A Neon Journal of Vancouver Vintage Cafes and Theatres by Keith McKellar/ Laughing Hand Victoria: BoneYard Ink Books, 2018 $50 / 9781775357704 Orders: direct from author at www.laughinghand.com Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published Dec. 16, 2018 * This publication is an exciting and colourful recasting of Keith McKellar out-of-print,…
Read more #449 Keith McKellar’s Vancouver
Raven Walks Around the World: Life of a Wandering Activist by Thom Henley Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $32.95 / 9781550178074 Reviewed by Philip Van Huizen First published Dec. 15, 2018 * Autobiographies by environmentalists are nothing new, especially in BC. Greenpeace alone is its own cottage industry, with practically all of its founders producing…
Read more #448 South Moresby activist memoir
A Mill Behind Every Stump by Marianne Van Osch Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772031164 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * Sage Birchwater reviews Marianne Van Osch’s A Mill Behind Every Stump, the story of the life and family of 94-year old Louis Judson, son of versatile American homesteaders and longtime operator of portable and…
Read more #447 The Judsons of South Cariboo
Dancing in Gumboots: Adventure, Love and Resilience. Women of the Comox Valley Lou Allison with Jane Wilde (editors) Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $24.05 / 9781987915761 Reviewed by Susan Mayse First published Dec. 13, 2018 * Mountains and glaciers glittered under a deep blue sky, fields and forests rolled all the way down to tidewater…
Read more #446 Comox Valley counterculture
Dreamers and Designers: The Shaping of West Vancouver by Francis Mansbridge, with photographs by John Moir Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $29.95 / 9781550178517 Reviewed by Trevor Carolan First published December 12, 2018 * Illustrating Irving Layton’s maxim that “Geography is fate,” this newest exploration of West Vancouver’s development as a civic and cultural polity…
Read more #445 Sitting pretty on Burrard Inlet
Ron Verzuh reviews two books: A Carpenter’s Tale: Ian Ridgway, A Life by Ian Ridgway with Jim Brown and Pat Ridgway Elphinstone: Gypsy Deluxe Books, 2017 $30.00 / 9781775008309 Orders: patridg201@gmail.com * Mudflat Dreaming: Waterfront Battles in 1970s Vancouver and the Squatters who Fought Them by Jean Walton Vancouver: New Star Books, 2018 $24.00 /…
Read more #444 Carpenters and vagabonds
Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth by Leslie H. Tepper, Janice George, and Willard Joseph Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2017 $40.00 (U.S.) / 9780803296923 Reviewed by Liz Hammond-Kaarremaa First published Dec. 8, 2018 * Imagine a blanket spread out on a table. It is a Salish blanket, over a hundred years old, humble,…
Read more #442 Honouring Salish blankets
Shared Histories: Witsuwit’en-Settler Relations in Smithers, British Columbia, 1913-1973 by Tyler McCreary Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2018 $24.95 / 9781928195047 Reviewed by Keith D. Smith First published Dec. 5, 2018 * Long before the release of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report in 2015, many observers struggled to figure out how we got to a…
Read more #440 The future is settler-Witsuwit’en
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 Chinese settlers
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