Converging Waters: The Beauty and Challenges of the Broughton Archipelago by Daniel Hillert (photos) and Gwen Curry (text) Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $40.00 / 9781771601658 Reviewed by Alex Zimmerman * There’s something attractive about archipelagos. They are, by definition, surrounded by water and therefore have no hard boundaries. Nonetheless, islands grouped into an archipelago… Read more 1012 Behold the Broughton Archipelago
A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living Well in the Anthropocene by Heesoon Bai, David Chang, and Charles Scott (editors) Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $39.95 / 9780889777569 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * Seldom has this reviewer encountered an essay collection that is so topical and as important as A Book of Ecological Virtues: Living… Read more #977 Tips for the Anthropocene
Takaya: Lone Wolf by Cheryl Alexander, with a foreword by Carl Safina Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $30.00 / 9781771603737 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * When I was a child, I lived far more intensely with animals than I did with people. As the somewhat feral daughter of homesteading farmers, I found animals were far… Read more #972 Sea wolf of Discovery Island
A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency by Seth Klein Toronto: ECW Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781770415454 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Seth Klein’s Good War is big and dense and not a fun read. But it’s a timely and important book. The more I knew I just had to finish it,… Read more #965 A call to arms for the planet
A Story of Karma: Finding Love and Truth in the Lost Valley of the Himalaya by Michael Schauch Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $25.00 / 9781771604673 A review essay by Trevor Carolan * Adventure travel goes through phases. In the Sixties you went off to Formentera in the Balearics or Corfu to find yourself. India… Read more #964 Travelling the higher heights
I’m Right and You’re an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean it Up by James Hoggan with Grania Litwin Gabriola: New Society Publishers, 2019 (second Edition, first published 2016) $19.00 / 9780865719149 Reviewed by Logan Macnair * That the public discourse surrounding certain social and political topics (particularly in online… Read more #958 In with civility, out with vitriol
Family Walks and Hikes in the Canadian Rockies, Volume 1: Bragg Creek, Kananaskis, Bow Valley, Banff National Park by Andrew Nugara Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $20.00 / 9781771602242 * Family Walks and Hikes in the Canadian Rockies, Volume 2: Bragg Creek, Kananaskis, Moraine Lake, Yoho, Icefields Parkway, Jasper by Andrew Nugara Victoria: Rocky Mountain… Read more #953 Gently into the mountains
Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $29.95 / 9781771622240 Reviewed by Molly Clarkson * I can’t help but chuckle as I read through the reader reviews on goodreads of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas’ Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga, two of which read: Exuberant art and a non-linear… Read more #935 Haida cosmology transformed
Legacy of Trees: Purposeful Wandering in Vancouver’s Stanley Park by Nina Shoroplova Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $29.95 / 9781772033038 Reviewed by David Tracey * Consider the following thought experiment: the first alien space crew has just landed on Earth (mark your 2020 bingo card). They must quickly discover what our planet is all about. So… Read more #933 Stanley Park trees
Farm the City: A Toolkit for Setting up a Successful Urban Farm by Michael Ableman Gabriola: New Society, 2020 $19.95 / 9780865719392 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * While Michael Ableman’s Farm the City: A Toolkit for Setting up a Successful Urban Farm is written as a primer for those wishing to start an in-town farm,… Read more #932 Ableman’s urban agriculture
Crossing the Divide: Discovering a Wilderness Ethic in Canada’s Northern Rockies by Wayne Sawchuk Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781928195061 Reviewed by Luanne Armstrong * Who wouldn’t want a chance to sit around a campfire with Wayne Sawchuk, and listen to him tell stories? Horses munch grass in the background, his faithful dog, Chancey,… Read more #913 Northern wilderness advocate
British Columbia in Flames: Stories from a Blazing Summer by Claudia Cornwall Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020 $26.95 / 9781550178944 Reviewed by John Gellard * “When a fire is roaring through the crowns of trees and flames are shooting up for fifty metres, the intensity can hit 150,000 kilowatts per metre. In one hour a… Read more #900 Teaching the Cariboo way
Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History by Martha Black, Lorne Hammond, and Gavin Hanke (editors), with Nikki Sanchez Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9780772677686 Reviewed by Daniel Francis * During the summer of 2018 an orca named Tahlequah, a member of J pod of the southern resident… Read more #880 Celebrate the orca
Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries by Daniel Pauly, with a foreword by Jennifer Jacquet Vancouver: Greystone, 2019 $34.95 / 9781771643986 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * …fish are in dire peril, and, if they are, then so are we. — Daniel Pauly (p. 24) In a remarkable collection of essays drawn… Read more #857 Oceans as sustainable commons
Lands of Lost Borders: Out of Bounds on the Silk Road by Kate Harris Toronto: Penguin Random House (Vintage Canada), 2018 $21.00 / 9780345816788 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Kate Harris’s tale of bicycling the Silk Road of Central Asia, her Land of Lost Borders, came out a couple of years ago and it… Read more #852 Plenty of dust but no pilaf
Treed: Walking in Canada’s Urban Forests by Ariel Gordon Hamilton, ON: Wolsak & Wynn, 2019 $20.00 / 9781928088752 Reviewed by Jaime Yard * It took me an inordinately long time to read Ariel Gordon’s Treed. This does not mean that it isn’t a good book. In truth, I think the pace may have been set… Read more #816 Walking through the pandemic
The Weight of the Heart by Theresa Kishkan Windsor, ON: Palimpsest Press, 2020 $15.95 / 9781989287477 Reviewed by David Stouck * This newly published novella by one of BC’s most prolific and accomplished authors eludes easy categorization because it is part travel writing, part family tragedy, part literary history and part cartography. The young narrator,… Read more #815 A confluence of passages
Popular Day Hikes: Northern Okanagan, Vernon Shuswap Lumby by Gerry Shea Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 (revised and updated; first published 2013) $20.00 / 9781771602457 * Popular Day Hikes: South-Central Okanagan, Kelowna Penticton Oliver by Gerry Shea Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 (revised and updated; first published 2015) $20.00 / 9781771602778 Both books reviewed by… Read more #805 Hiking the Okanagan Valley
Lowering Simon Fraser by Maddie Leach (concept and editing) and Michael Kluckner (drawings and interpretation) Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery, 2019 [catalogue; no price] / 9781989503027 Lowering Simon Fraser (the catalogue) is available from the shop at the Contemporary Art Gallery Reviewed by Forrest Pass * 1908 should have been a bumper year for commemorations in… Read more #802 Cutting Simon Fraser down to size
Kings of the Yukon: A River Journey in Search of the Chinook by Adam Weymouth, with a foreword by Harold R. Johnson Toronto: Penguin Random House (Knopf Canada), 2019 $21.00 / 9780345811806 Reviewed by Ken Madsen * Why would a young Brit set off on a 3,100 kilometre river trip through the Yukon Territory and… Read more #786 From Wiltshire to Teslin Lake