Against the Current: The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron by Cathy Converse Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2018 $30.00 / 9781771512701 Reviewed by Charlene Porsild First published Aug. 26, 2018 * Agnes Deans Cameron (1863-1912) was an educator, writer, reformer, and traveller who made her own way in a rapidly changing world. For more than a…
Read more #352 Teacher, traveller, troublemaker
On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement by Rod Mickleburgh Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $44.95 / 97871550178265 Reviewed by Bryan D. Palmer First published Aug. 22, 2018 * For four tumultuous months in 1983, the grassroots labour initiative in B.C. called the Solidarity Coalition–which took its name as an offshoot…
Read more #348 The ghost of Jack Munro
The Cure for Death by Lightning: A Play Adapted from the Novel by Gail Anderson-Dargatz by Daryl Cloran Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $18.95 / 9781772012057 * Talker’s Town and The Girl who Swam Forever: Two Plays by Nelson Gray and Marie Clements Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $18.95 / 9781772012019 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy First published Aug. 15,…
Read more #344 Curative plays
Mudgirls Manifesto: Handbuilt Homes Handcrafted Lives by the Mudgirls Natural Building Collective Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2017 $29.99 / 9780865718777 Reviewed by Kate Braid First published Aug. 14, 2018 * I was excited about being asked to review this book. In the ’70s and ’80s I spent 15 years as a Red Seal Journey(wo)man Carpenter…
Read more #343 Lasqueti mudgirls manifesto
First published Aug. 14, 2018. My West Coast Surveying Adventure by Richard G. Lipsey, OC, FRSC * We are delighted to present a memoir by Richard (Dick) Lipsey, arguably one of Canada’s foremost economists—and it’s not about economics. Here Lipsey recalls his work as a surveyor’s assistant and axeman on the west coast of Vancouver…
Read more #342 The woodsman & the economist
Julia by Michael Kluckner Vancouver: Midtown Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781988242200 Reviewed by Yvonne Van Ruskenveld * Born into a wealthy manufacturing family in Durham, England, in 1868, and educated there, Julia Henderson came to Canada in 1884 with her sister and brother-in-law. They settled in Montreal, where Julia married broker and merchant Charles Henshaw…
Read more #338 Julia, graphically yours
First published Jul. 8, 2018. Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley by Judith Plant Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017. $19 / 9781554201334 Reviewed by Nancy Janovicek * What had happened to us? Where did it go wrong? What could we have done? What should we have done? What we built together…
Read more #337 True tales of Camelsfoot
Southern Northwest Coast Indigenous Canoe Racing: A Brief History by Alan L. Hoover Victoria: NWC Canoe Publications, 2018 $14.95 / 9781775011903 Reviewed by Sanford Osler First published Jul. 2, 2018 * Once a year my local oceanfront park in North Vancouver fills with campers bringing dozens of long sleek wooden canoes to race over the…
Read more #333 Indigenous canoe racing
First published June 30, 2018. Robin Brunet Let’s Get Frank: Canada’s Mad Man of Advertising Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018. $29.95 / 9781771621816 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Anyone who watched the award-winning TV series Mad Men will be equally discomfited with the advertising industry as depicted in Let’s Get Frank, a biography of…
Read more #332 Frank has still got game at 78
Sculpture in Canada: A History by Maria Tippett Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $39.95 / 9781771620932 Reviewed by Catherine Nutting First published June 26, 2018 * Maria Tippett’s Sculpture in Canada is, she writes, not an encyclopedia, but an introduction; an eye-opener to some of the greatest Canadian sculpture. The book is an ambitious project….
Read more #329 From inuksuit to cyberspace
Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro by Sarah Cox Vancouver: UBC Press (On Point Press), 2018. $24.95 / 9780774890267 * Damming the Peace: The Hidden Costs of the Site C Dam by Wendy Holm (editor) Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2018 $22.95 / 9781459413160 Both books reviewed…
Read more #327 Site C boondoggle unravelled
E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island by Robert Amos, with the participation of the estate of E.J. Hughes Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 $35 / 9781771512558 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * It’s not easy to paint an arbutus tree, although many artists try. Know in Washington State as Pacific madrone, the arbutus (Arbutus menzeisii) above the 49th…
Read more #326 Up-Island with E.J. Hughes
Orca: How We Came to Know and Love the Ocean’s Greatest Predator by Jason M. Colby Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2018 $32.95 / 9780190673093 Reviewed by Anna Hall First published June 18, 2018 * It was a quiet day in the summer … when the shots rang out … the injured mother [killer whale] pushed…
Read more #324 Orcas through history
Beau Dick: Revolutionary Spirit by Darrin J. Martens, in collaboration with the Audain Art Museum Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2018 $40.00 / 9781773270401 Reviewed by Alan L. Hoover First published June 15, 2018 * Chief Beau Dick (Walas Gwa’yam) (1955-2017) was a much-honoured artist and activist in the Kwakwaka’wakw community, the wider Indigenous and non-Indigenous…
Read more #323 Beau Dick’s revolutionary art
First published June 13, 2019. Children of the Kootenays: Memories of Mining Towns by Shirley D. Stainton Victoria: Heritage House, 2018. $19.95 / 9781772031850 Reviewed by Sylvia Crooks * Several books have been written about the Kootenay mines and mining settlements, many of them now ghost towns, abandoned largely during the Great Depression. Now Shirley…
Read more #321 West Kootenay memories
Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir by Chelene Knight Toronto: Book*hug, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771663908 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter First published June 13, 2018 * Amidst the swirl of media reports of rising housing prices, empty houses, and increased property taxes, Chelene Knight’s Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir offers a rare and nuanced view of what…
Read more #320 An East Vancouver childhood
The Plague by Kevin Chong Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018 $19.95 / 9781551527185 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner First published June 6, 2018 * A 1947 modernist novel by an existentialist French philosopher set in a dusty Algerian town? This sounds like an improbable inspiration for a story about glittering 21st-century Vancouver, but Kevin Chong manages…
Read more #317 Channeling Camus
Remembering Chief Kw’eh compiled by Lillian Sam and Frieda Klippenstein Fort St. James: Nak’azdli Whut’en Press, 2016 $10 / 9780995286900 Reviewed by Daniel Sims First published June 3, 2018 * The Nak’azdli Chief ‘Ulh’gweh–aka Chief Kw’eh or Chief Kwah–is mostly widely known as the man who spared the life of (future Sir) James Douglas. Nak’azdli…
Read more #316 Nak’adli Nation honours Kw’eh
E.J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island by Robert Amos, with the participation of the estate of E.J. Hughes Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 $35.00 / 9781771512558 Reviewed by Alan Twigg First published June 1, 2018 * “B.C. is the best place in the world for landscape subject matter.” — E.J. Hughes “One of the main reasons I…
Read more #314 E.J. Hughes renewed
First published June 1, 2018. Born in Toronto on August 14, 1931, Doreen Alice Ellen (Hayes) Armitage died at Lions Gate Hospital in North Vancouver on May 15, 2018. A writer who believed strongly in oral history, Armitage wrote for publications such as Canadian Geographic, Outdoors Canada and Canadian Living before publishing her first book,…
Read more #313 Doreen Armitage (1931-2018)