Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products: How a Sikh Immigrant Created BC’s Largest Independent Lumber Company by Jinder Oujla-Chalmers Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $28.95 / 9781550178890 Reviewed by Gurpreet Singh * Asa Johal and Terminal Forest Products is a special interest book for those who wish to learn more about British Columbia’s forest industry,…
Read more #678 A life of lumber and sawmills
Searching for Pitt Lake Gold: Facts and Fantasy in the Legend of Slumach by Fred Braches Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $9.95 / 9781772032765 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Searching for Pitt Lake Gold stands in a long series of popular adventure books that celebrate gold, wilderness, and British Columbia’s adventurous colonial past. This is one…
Read more #677 The lurid lure of lucre
The Last Whistle: Hillcrest Lumber Company Ltd. 1917-2018 by Cecil Ashley Self-published, 2018 $29.95 / 9780228500735 Available from Cecil Ashley email address: cecil.ashley@gmail.com and at Volume 1 Bookstore, Duncan Reviewed by Robert Griffin * Cecil Ashley has produced an amazing book that is clearly a labour of love. The Hillcrest Lumber Company represents a major…
Read more #675 Stump to dump at Mesachie Lake
The Survival Guide to British Columbia by Ian Ferguson Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $19.95 / 9781772032840 Reviewed by Patricia E. Roy * The Survival Guide to British Columbia offers some useful information about the province but it is unlike a Boy Scout handbook or a Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture publication. Ian Ferguson seeks…
Read more #664 Bring cash and raincoat
Ranch Tales: Stories from the Frontier by Ken Mather Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $19.95 / 9781772031881 Reviewed by Warren Elofson * Ken Mather’s Ranch Tales is a readable and interesting account of ranching in what is now British Columbia from the establishment of the Alkali Lake Ranch in 1861 to the twentieth century. Mather provides…
Read more #652 Mather’s ranch tales
Island Craft: Your Guide to the Breweries of Vancouver Island by Jon C. Stott Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019 $25.00 / 9781771512923 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * Jon Stott knows and likes his beer. This comes out loud and clear in his twentieth book, Island Craft: Your Guide to the Breweries of Vancouver Island. It…
Read more #651 Goodbye ladies and escorts
Greenwood by Michael Christie Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (McClelland & Stewart), 2019 $22.00 / 9780771024450 Reviewed by Heather Graham * Michael Christie’s latest novel unfolds over a span of one hundred and thirty years, from 1908 until 2038. The precipitating event for what will follow is a head-on collision between two passenger trains near the…
Read more #642 Tales of timber & heartwood
The Codfish Dream: Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide by David Giblin Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772032420 Reviewed by Kenneth Campbell * In The Codfish Dream: Chronicles of a West Coast Fishing Guide, David Giblin compresses fifteen years of experience as a sports fishing guide into one remarkable summer, resulting in an…
Read more #641 Big Bay fishing stories
Tiny House, Big Fix Victoria: Orca Books, 2019 $9.95 / 9781459821200 by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Reviewed by Valerie Green * This small book by novelist Gail Anderson-Dargatz is a delightfully quick read for young adults. The story is told in just 136 pages. In the book, the author describes many aspects of rural life while at…
Read more #632 Living small on a tired planet
Photo essay: Revolving W and Flying Pigs: A Neon Journal by Keith McKellar (Laughing Hand), with an introduction by Robert Amos Victoria: BoneYard Ink Books, 2018 $50.00 / 9781775357704 Orders: direct from www.laughinghand.com A photo essay by Keith McKellar and Robert Amos * In December 2018 we published a review (Ormsby Review #449) by Grahame…
Read more #614 Waterfront industry & memory
Along the E&N: A Journey Back to the Historic Hotels of Vancouver Island by Glen Mofford Victoria: TouchWood Press, 2019 $22.00 / 9781771512879 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * For 125 years, beginning in 1886, the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway served as Vancouver Island’s main railway line running from Victoria to Courtenay, with branch lines…
Read more #605 Island hotels & beer parlours
At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada’s West Coast by J.I. (Jack) Little Montréal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019 $29.95 / 9780773556409 Reviewed by John Douglas Belshaw * Bear with me, please. Shouldn’t “Wilderness” be in the possessive? At the Wilderness’s Edge maybe? If so, this is a shocking…
Read more #593 Wilderness campaigns & cultures
Chop Suey Nation: The Legion Cafe and Other Stories from Canada’s Chinese Restaurants by Ann Hui Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $24.95 / 9781771622226 Reviewed by Imogene Lim * In March 2019, B.C. Bestseller Chop Suey Nation, by Ann Hui, was awarded the 2019 Dr. Edgar Wickberg Book Prize by the Chinese Canadian Historical…
Read more #592 Ginger beef and fried macaroni
Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest by Joy Davis Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $22.95 / 9781772032703 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Joy Davis’s book, she writes, “…focuses on the perspectives and experiences of people who live on Pacific Northwest islands, particularly those not served by ferries…” Life on these islands, she tells…
Read more #587 Islands and ingenuity
Cornelius O’Keefe: The Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Pioneer by Sherri Field Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $9.95 / 9781772032482 Reviewed by Ian Pooley * Sherri Field’s new book, Cornelius O’Keefe, the Life, Loves, and Legacy of an Okanagan Rancher, is a welcome addition to the short list of serious works about Okanagan history…
Read more #583 From Nepean to Okanagan
Boom & Bust: The Resilient Women of Historic Telegraph Cove by Jennifer Butler Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $26.00 / 9781771512985 Reviewed by Heather Graham * In 1911 or so, Alfred Marmaduke Wastell, known to all as Duke, informed his wife, Mame, that he had “bought out a bad loan on some land across the Johnstone…
Read more #578 Roughing it at the Cove
Rolf Knight (1936-2019) An obituary by Alan Twigg * Born on March 4, 1936, the son of an itinerant cook, Rolf Knight grew up in remote B.C. logging camps, without other children to play with. He gained his M.A. in anthropology at UBC in 1962, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1968. For decades…
Read more #570 Rolf Knight (1936-2019)
The Co-op Revolution: Vancouver’s Search For Food Alternatives by Jan DeGrass, with a foreword by Rick Scott Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781987915952 * Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants by Jon Steinman Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2019 $19.99 / 9780865719071 * Both books reviewed by…
Read more #563 BC’s community food co-ops
Vancouverism by Larry Beasley, with a prologue by Frances Bula Vancouver: UBC Press, 2019 $39.95 / 9780774890311 Reviewed by Michael Kluckner * Anyone looking for evidence of Vancouver’s essential weirdness could consider these two events: in 2005, a mayor named Sam Sullivan personally trademarked the term “EcoDensity” for a style of highrise development; and, five years later,…
Read more #550 From sawmills to EcoDensity
First published April 30, 2019. The Co-op Revolution: Vancouver’s Search For Food Alternatives by Jan DeGrass, with a foreword by Rick Scott Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $24.95 / 9781987915952 Grocery Story: The Promise of Food Co-ops in the Age of Grocery Giants by Jon Steinman Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2019 $19.99 / 9780865719071…
Read more #541 Co-opting the food chain