Advocates and activists by Graeme Wynn, with Jennifer Bonnell An extract from The Nature of Canada, edited by Colin M. Coates and Graeme Wynn (Vancouver: On Point Press, an imprint of UBC Press, 2019) * Jenny Clayton has reviewed The Nature of Canada for the Ormsby Review — see #603, Deep time to time slipping…
Read more #683 Nature’s advocates and activists
The Hidden Life of Trees: The Illustrated Edition by Peter Wohlleben, translated by Jill Billinghurst, with a foreword by Tim Flannery Vancouver: Greystone Books/ David Suzuki Institute, 2018 $45.00 / 9781771643481 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Scottish-American naturalist John Muir prophetically summarized modern man’s dysfunctional relation to…
Read more #682 Nature as superorganism
Memory by Philippe Tortell, Mark Turin, and Margot Young (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press (Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies), 2018 $24.95 / 9781775276609 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * Historians think we know memory. “Social memory” — how communities, governments, and private interests understand and give the past meaning — is a well-established focus in my…
Read more #676 A trip down memory lane
The New Beachcomber’s Guide to the Pacific Northwest by J. Duane Sept Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $32.95 / 9781550178371 (first published in 1999 by Harbour as The Beachcomber’s Guide to Seashore Life in the Pacific Northwest; reprinted 2002; second edition 2009; third edition 2019) * Seaside Treasures: A Guidebook for Little Beachcombers by Sarah…
Read more #660 For the love of the North Pacific
Captured by Fire: Surviving British Columbia’s New Wildfire Reality by Chris Czajkowski and Fred Reid Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $24.95 / 9781550178852 Reviewed by Sage Birchwater * The wildfires of 2017 are still fresh in the minds of the people who experienced them in the Central Interior of British Columbia. Across the broad landscape…
Read more #626 Fire on the Chilcotin Plateau
The Grizzlies of Grouse Mountain: The True Adventures of Coola and Grinder by Shelley Hrdlitschka and Rae Schidlo, illustrated by Linda Sharp Victoria: Heritage House, 2019 $19.95 / 9781772032772 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski * Grizzly bear! Ursus arctos ! Or is it, more correctly, Ursus arctos horribilis? The first is the species name, the second…
Read more #616 Captive mountain grizzlies
Our Coloured Past: The Arrow Lakes in the Age of Colour Photography by Kyle Kusch Nakusp: Arrow Lakes Historical Society, 2019 $30.00 / 9780969423683 Reviewed by Duff Sutherland * In Our Coloured Past: The Arrow Lakes in the Age of Colour Photography, Kyle Kusch presents 350 colour photographs from the collection of Nakusp’s Arrow Lakes…
Read more #604 BC Hydro’s destructive legacy
The Nature of Canada by Colin M. Coates and Graeme Wynn (editors) Vancouver: UBC Press [On Point Press],2019 $29.95 / 9780774890366 Reviewed by Jenny Clayton * A collaborative effort by some of the leading scholars in the field, The Nature of Canada offers a fresh look at Canadian environmental history. Wishing to showcase research supported…
Read more #603 Deep time to time slipping away
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
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
Before We Lost the Lake: A Natural and Human History of Sumas Valley by Chad Reimer Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $24.95 / 9781987915587 Reviewed by Jeff Oliver * Up until its disappearance, in matter or mind, Sumas Lake never really stood still. Since its birth at the end of the last ice age, it…
Read more #572 Settlers coveted Sumas Lake
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
Inner Ranges: An Anthology of Mountain Thoughts and Mountain People by Geoff Powter, with a foreword by Chris Bonnington Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018 $22.00 / 9781771602877 Reviewed by Stephen Slemon First published April 4, 2019 * Canadian mountaineering writing would have struggled to find its public voice, were it not for Geoff Powter. For…
Read more #523 Powter’s alpine passages
What Forever Feels Like: A Memoir of Johnsons Landing by Ellen Burt New Denver: Maa Press, 2018 $23.00 / 9781999554804 Reviewed by Lee Reid First published March 28, 2019 * The old magic of “once upon a time” can ambush us, especially when we see the loves and challenges of our own lives mirrored in…
Read more #518 Matriarchs of Johnsons Landing
Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees by Harley Rustad Toronto: House of Anansi Press (Walrus Books), 2018 $22.95 / 9781487003111 Reviewed by Mark Forsythe * An immense, solitary Douglas fir stands inside a vast clear-cut. Sun-bleached slash stretches in all directions; the tree’s shadow reaches for a nearby second…
Read more #500 A tall tale from Port Renfrew
A History of Canada in Ten Maps: Epic Stories of Charting a Mysterious Land by Adam Shoalts Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2018 $22.00 / 9780143193982 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * The universe is made of stories, not atoms. American physicist Sean Carroll once used this line by American poet Muriel Rukeyser as a springboard for his…
Read more #493 Canadian maps that mattered
Return of the Wolf: Conflict and Coexistence by Paula Wild Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2018 $32.95 / 9781771622066 Reviewed by Loys Maingon First published Feb. 7, 2019 * As mankind changes the planet’s ecosystems, imperceptibly it also changes the distribution of animals and their genetics. Evolution never stops. So it is with members of…
Read more #480 Witness to wolves and wilderness
Out of the Woods: Woodworkers along the Salish Sea by Pirjo Raits (text) and Dale Roth and Michele Ramberg (photos) Victoria: Heritage House, 2018 $34.95 / 9781772032604 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published Feb. 3, 2019 * There are trees … which in their single lives have spanned the entire history of civilized man. We…
Read more #477 Art of the forest & turbulent sea
Listening to the Bees by Mark L. Winston and Renée Sarojini Saklikar Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2018 $24.95 / 9780889713468 Reviewed by Michael Picard First published January 24, 2019 * This is a book about bees, so the title does not disappoint. But it is also a personal memoir of a life in science by an eminent…
Read more #471 The bard and the bees
Costly Fix: Power, Politics and Nature in the Tar Sands by Ian Urquhart Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018 $39.95 / 9781487594619 Oil’s Deep State: How the Petroleum Industry Undermines Democracy and Stops Action on Global Warming by Kevin Taft Toronto: Lorimer, 2017 $29.95 / 9781459409972 The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks…
Read more #468 Power, petroleum, and pipelines