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
Ranch in the Slocan: A Biography of a Kootenay Farm, 1896-2017 by Cole Harris Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $24.95 / 9781550178234 Reviewed by Daniel Clayton * The Bosun Ranch, in reality a farm just south of New Denver on Slocan Lake, has been in the Harris family since 1896. “The ranch has always been…
Read more #400 The useful people’s ranch
Rebel Muse: My Life With Peter Paul Ochs by Monika Ullmann Victoria: ProWord Publishing, 2018 $25.00 / 9780992144937 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published October 12, 2018 * Editor’s note: In an email to the Ormsby Review, freelance writer and journalist Monika Ullmann recalled that when the new Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal…
Read more #397 B.C. sculptor lost and found
Archaeology of the Lower Fraser River Region by Mike K. Rousseau, editor Burnaby: Archaeology Press of Simon Fraser University, 2017 $30.00 / 9781772870121 Reviewed by Robert (Bob) Muckle Also open access. Free download: http://archpress.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/archpress/catalog/book/72 First published Oct. 8, 2018 * In 2011, Mike Rousseau recruited 33 active archaeologists and scholars in related disciplines to contribute…
Read more #395 Meanwhile, 5,000 years ago
The Tree Trunk Can Be My Pillow: The Biography of an Outstanding Japanese Canadian by Tadashi Jack Kagetsu Victoria: University of Victoria, 2017. $33.95 / 9781550586114 Reviewed by Bob Griffin First published Oct. 4, 2018 * The government of Canada declared war on Japan on December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese attacks on…
Read more #392 From boss logger to zero
From Wah Lee to Chew Keen: The Story of a Pioneer Chinese Family in North Cariboo by Liping Wong Yip Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2017 $17.49 / 9781460294307 Reviewed by Tzu-I Chung * In 1917, Wah Lee and his third wife, Mon Ho, boarded the Empress of Russia in Hong Kong, bound for British Columbia. They…
Read more #390 From Xinhuixian to Quesnel
Those Born at Koona: The Totem Poles of the Haida Village Skedans, Haida Gwaii by Carolyn and John Smyly Surrey: Hancock House, 2018 (first published 1973) $29.95 / 9780888391018 Reviewed by Dan Savard First published Sept. 27, 2018 * In 1957, John Smyly (1924-2002) was hired as carpenter by the Provincial Museum of British Columbia…
Read more #385 The carpenter of Koona
First published Sept. 23, 2018. Aboriginal Peoples and the Law: A Critical Introduction by Jim Reynolds Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 (Purich Books) $29.95 / 9780774880213 Reviewed by Neil Vallance * “Much of Canadian Aboriginal law has evolved from cases originating in the Province of British Columbia,” notes reviewer Neil Vallance. Among the leading B.C. cases…
Read more #382 An Aboriginal body of law
Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada by Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780773552821 Reviewed by Larry Hannant First published Sept. 22, 2018 * Christabelle Sethna of the University of Ottawa and Steve Hewitt of the University of Birmingham,…
Read more #381 Clandestine Mountie bounty
The Age of Walter Gage: How One Canadian Shaped the Lives of Thousands by Shelley Fralic [Vancouver]: The Friends of Walter Gage, 2018 $24.99 / 9780994932938 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Sept. 17, 2018 * People familiar with UBC will know the Walter Gage Towers near the heart of the campus, three 17-storey student…
Read more #378 Love affair with UBC