The Seriousness Of Play: Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas by Nicola Levell London: Black Dog Publishing, 2016 £19.95 (U.K.) / 9781910433119 Reviewed by Eldon Yellowhorn First published October 14, 2017 * Play, playful, and playfulness best describe the visual jazz that Nicola Levell presents in her portrait of Michael Nicoll and the Yahgulanaas experience. After a short preface…
Read more #181 Mousewoman meets Spandex
First published October 12,2017 Nanaimo journalist Julie Chadwick has helped The Man In Black’s manager in the 1960s and ‘70s, Saul Holiff, to posthumously present his recollections for The Man Who Carried Cash (Dundurn $19.95). The long-winded subtitle for this tale of a tempestuous but affectionate relationship is ‘Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, and the Making…
Read more #179 Nanaimo & Johnny Cash
Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane, edited and with an introduction by Kenneth Lister Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2016 $39.99 / 9780888545077 Reviewed by Grant Keddie First published October 3, 2017 * Between November 1846 and November 1847, the Irish-Canadian artist Paul Kane (1810-1871) visited the Columbia…
Read more #175 Artist among the Songhees
Entering Time: The Fungus Man Platters of Charles Edenshaw by Colin Browne Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2016 $19.95 / 9781772010398 Reviewed by Alan L. Hoover First published September 8, 2017 * Charles Edenshaw (c. 1867-1920) is perhaps the most recognized and acclaimed Northwest Coast Indigenous artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An outstanding feature…
Read more #166 Three platters of Charles Edenshaw
Joan Skogan was one of a kind An obituary by Alan Twigg First published August 20, 2017 * Born in Comox on September 29, 1945, Joan Skogan knew joy and sorrow. An intrepid researcher and a conscientious writer, she will be much missed by those who knew her fascinating, passionate nature. Joan Skogan could be…
Read more #159 Joan Skogan was one of a kind
S.C. Heal (1925-2017)An obituary by Alan Twigg First published August 15, 2017 * “In my opinion there is no finer interpreter of the marine scene in British Columbia.” — John M. MacFarlane, nautical historian As a columnist and contributor to specialty shipping magazines, the writer-turned-publisher S.C. Heal made a major contribution to the maritime literature…
Read more #155 S.C. Heal (1925-2017)
Jim Wong-Chu (1949-2017) An obituary by Alan Twigg First published Aug. 15, 2017 * Chinese Canadians weren’t granted the federal vote in Canada until 1947 and they first voted provincially in 1949–the year Jim Wong-Chu was born in Hong Kong on January 28th. Jim Wong-Chu was brought to Canada, aged four, in 1953 where he…
Read more #154 Jim Wong-Chu (1949-2017)
David Watmough (1926-2017)An obituary by Alan Twigg First published August 14, 2017 * “I hope my work is myopically ‘westcoast’ and persistently graceful in language.” — David Watmough “That rarest of birds on the literary scene, the natural storyteller.” — Robert Fulford QUICK REFERENCE ENTRY: Homosexuals in British Columbia can now express themselves openly in…
Read more #153 David Watmough (1926-2017)
Abenaki Daring: The Life and Writings of Noel Annance, 1792-1869 by Jean Barman Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016 $45.95 / 9780773547926 Reviewed by Michel Bouchard First published June 21, 2017 * Too often, scholars must do their best to distill the thoughts and narratives of the destitute, downtrodden, or the illiterate through the…
Read more #141 Retrieving Noel from obscurity
James Legge and the Chinese Classics A Brilliant Scot in the Turmoil of Colonial Hong Kong by Marilyn Laura Bowman Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2016 $37.99 / 9781460288832 Reviewed by Norman Girardot First published June 2, 2017 Born in the Peace River country, Marilyn Bowman studied at the University of Alberta and McGill and taught Clinical…
Read more #134 Resuscitation of James Legge
The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoffby James Fox (editor) Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2016$36.95 / 9781771621298 Reviewed by Catherine Nutting First published May 22, 2017 * The Art of Jeffrey Rubinoff concerns Rubinoff’s sculpture, the park on Hornby Island he shaped as a permanent sculptural exhibit and his conviction that the process of art-making amounts…
Read more #129 Hornby haven for herd of steel
Postcards from unknown soldierby Sandi Ratch First published May 2, 2017 * Faced with a handful of family postcards signed only by “Dick,” Sandi Ratch gave herself a detective quest: to identify the messenger who had gone to continental Europe to fight in World War I. In this Ormsby exclusive, Sandi Ratch relates the specifics…
Read more #127 Postcards from unknown soldier
ESSAY: Chief Tetlenitsa’s Apples: Commercializing Indigenous Horticulture in British Columbia, 1907-1916 by Michael Sasges First published April 25, 2017 * In 1916, orchardist Chief John Tetlenitsa of Spences Bridge took a wagon of 40 boxes of apples into Merritt, the new town in the Nicola Valley, only to have the Chief Constable seize the apples…
Read more #124 Banning Indigenous apples, 1916
A Great Old Tramp: Letters from a Canadian Sojourner in British Columbia, 1873-1875 by Greg Stott First published April 22, 2017 * Editor’s note, December 9, 2022: The SS Pacific, on which George Skippon met his death in November 1875, may have been found! See this CTV news story and a CTV video here. Editor’s…
Read more #123 Out of this world: George Skippon in BC, 1873-1875
Gold Rush Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Nellie Cashmanby Thora Kerr Illing Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2016$18.95 / 9781771511599 Reviewed by Charlene Porsild First published April 11, 2017 * Thora Illing’s Gold Rush Queen retells the life and times of Nellie Cashman, a beautiful, Irish-American businesswoman, entrepreneur, philanthropist, champion dog musher and lifelong spinster with strong…
Read more #118 Grubstake angel
Bill Reid Collected by Martine J. Reid Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2016, in collaboration with the Bill Reid Centre $19.95 / 9781771621151 Reviewed by Victoria Wyatt First Published March 28, 2017 * Much has been written about Bill Reid (1920-1998), the internationally known Haida artist whose monumental works appear in contexts such as the Canadian…
Read more #110 Bill Reid’s legacy enhanced
The Dad Dialogues: A Correspondence on Fatherhood (and the Universe)by George Bowering and Charles Demers Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2016$17.95 / 9781551526621 Reviewed by Christian Fink-Jensen First published March 15, 2017 * Vancouver writers George Bowering, born in 1935, and Charles Demers, born in 1980, had daughters – Thea and Josephine – more than forty…
Read more #104 Literary greenhorn dads
ESSAY: The story of a suitcase by Graham Brazier * From the cryptic contents of a stray suitcase that he inherited from a distant relative, Graham Brazier of Denman Island resurrects the otherwise forgotten personal history of Annie Watson (née Edwards, 1883-1966). Annie arrived in Winnipeg in 1910 and settled in Vancouver a few years…
Read more #101 The story of a suitcase
I Had an Interesting French Artist to See Me This Summer: Emily Carr and Wolfgang Paalen in British Columbia by Colin Browne Vancouver: Figure 1, in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016 $24.95 / 9781927958780. Reviewed by Elisabeth Otto First published Feb. 27, 2017 * Writer, documentary filmmaker, and cultural historian Colin Browne has…
Read more #95 Wolfgang meets Emily
The Hidden Journals: Captain Vancouver and his Mapmaker by Mary Tasi and Wade Baker Vancouver: Sky Spirit, 2015$20 / 9780993843815 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published Feb. 8, 2017 * This book is not a scholarly study, but Wade Baker and Mary Tasi have accomplished something that many scholars would trade their tenure to do….
Read more #83 Vancouver and his mapmaker