Camp Zero by Michelle Min Sterling Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2023 $26.00 / 9781039005273 Reviewed by Zoe McKenna * Vancouver Island-born writer Michelle Min Sterling’s debut novel Camp Zero opens in a barren landscape on the shortest day of the year. It’s 2049, and the temperatures are rising. The United States is unbearably hot and the…
Read more 1855 A ‘careful and nuanced approach to dystopia’
The Power of Dreams: 27 Years Off-grid in a Wilderness Valley by Dave and Rosemary Neads Surrey: Hancock House Publishers, 2022 $24.95 / 9780888397188 Review by Phyllis Reeve * A couple built a house in the wilderness of Precipice Valley, on the ancient trade route linking BC’s Interior Plateau with the coast, and stayed for…
Read more 1837 A dose of planetary reality
Welcome Trevor and Brett by Richard Mackie * On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024. The position was made possible…
Read more 1813 Welcome Trevor and Brett
Remnants: Reveries of a Mountain Dweller by Natalie Lang Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2023 $26.00 / 9781773861043 Reviewed by Paul Falardeau * Natalie Virginia Lang is a promising new writer from British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, where she lives in a reclaimed loft on her family’s property on Sumas Mountain. It is from this home base…
Read more 1794 Sense of place and self
Dig Deep: Connecting Archaeology, Oceans and Us by Nicole F. Smith, with photographs by Alexander Mackie and others Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2023 $21.95 / 9781459826083 Reviewed by Grant Keddie * Over my 50 years as a curator in Archaeology at the British Columbia Provincial Museum-Royal British Columbia Museum I received numerous requests from teachers…
Read more 1792 The 164,000-year classroom
Ghosthawk by Matt Rader Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2021 $18.95 / 9780889714045 Reviewed by Kelly Shepherd * In what is probably one of the earliest examples of ecopoetry (“Smokey the Bear Sutra,” 1969) the American poet and environmental philosopher Gary Snyder describes the presence of several “great centers of power” throughout the North American continent. The…
Read more 1771 Specific to the Okanagan
Scrubbing the Sky: Inside the Race to Cool the Planet by Paul McKendrick Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2023 $28.95 / 9781773272085 Reviewed by Douw Steyn * The strange “naked ape” we are has been on planet earth as a distinct species for about 200,000 years. Most of that time we spent migrating across all continents,…
Read more 1765 Cooling our jets
Announcing the BC Review interview series by Richard Mackie * In November 2022, at the most recent board meeting of the Ormsby Literary Society, the chair, Byron Sheardown, suggested that we open a YouTube channel and start an interview series. Board member Trevor Marc Hughes jumped at the suggestion. “I’ve got filmmaking experience,” he said,…
Read more 1757 Announcing interview series
Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America by Peter Wohlleben and Jane Billinghurst Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $24.95 / 9781771643313 Reviewed by Jodi Lundgren * Immerse yourself in a forest and use all of your senses to pay attention, advises Peter Wohlleben in this information-packed guidebook, a follow-up to his best-selling The…
Read more 1750 Out of the woods
Backpacking in Southwestern British Columbia: The Essential Guide to Overnight Hiking Trips by Taryn Eyton Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771646680 Reviewed by Jocie Brooks * I sometimes ask myself why I backpack. There are the usual hardships to endure: a too-heavy pack, swarms of bugs and unexpected bad weather. Months after the trips…
Read more 1748 Life stripped down to the core
This Unlikely Soil by Andrea Routley Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $24.95 / 9781773860985 Reviewed by Amy Reiswig * Anyone who has spent time in a BC forest knows it can be hard to navigate. Spaces between tall trunks are filled with thick tangles of salal, huckleberry, and ferns, and the way forward is strewn…
Read more 1746 Much grows in shadow
Why Humans Build Up: The Rise of Towers, Temples and Skyscrapers by Gregor Craigie, illustrated by Kathleen Fu Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2022 $29.95 / 9781459821880 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Was the Tower of Jericho built as a defensive watchtower or a mechanism to help farmers calculate the summer solstice? What are the advantages…
Read more 1737 The sky’s the limit
Alone in the Great Unknown: One Woman’s Remarkable Adventures in the Northwestern Wilderness by Caroll Simpson Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781550179941 Reviewed by Catherine Owen * As I load birch logs a local woodsman has chopped into my wood pit bin, groaning slightly at the work in only minus three conditions, I…
Read more 1733 Maintenance and sustenance
An essay by Patrick A. Dunae Naming British Columbia * The British Columbia Review is a year old. Previously known as The Ormsby Review (2016), it was renamed The British Columbia Review on February 10, 2022. The new name was greeted enthusiastically, for the most part.[1] A few readers were unhappy that it had ‘British…
Read more 1721 Naming British Columbia
An essay by Brian Smallshaw: Out of Options with the Freedom Convoy? * Whatever you think about the Freedom Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa and the blocking of border crossings in Windsor and Coutts, the Canadian government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to shut down a protest should be of concern to every Canadian who…
Read more 1700 Freedom Convoy: out of options?
Rescue Me: Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue by Cathalynn Labonté-Smith Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $26.00 / 9781773860947 Reviewed by Mike Starr * “Behind the Scenes of Search and Rescue” is what the subtitle promises and is exactly what you’ll get with Rescue Me. Author Cathalynn Labonté-Smith did over 60 interviews with Search…
Read more 1699 Many a life line
Imminent Domains: Reckoning with the Anthropocene by Alessandra Naccarato Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2022 $23.00 / 9781771667753 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * In the 1870s, John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Fine Art in the University of Oxford, initiated a scheme to improve the rough and muddy path into the village of North Hinksey on the outskirts…
Read more 1698 On Ruskin’s road
Following the Telegraph Trail: A Trek of a Lifetime by Irene J. Huntley Victoria: FriesenPress, 2021 $14.99 / 9781039110441 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Irene J. Huntley has written a worthy little book — Following the Telegraph Trail — which documents the adventurous trek taken by her father, Don Huntley, and his friend, Gunnar Nillson,…
Read more 1695 South to British Columbia
The Sky and the Patio: An Ecology of Home by Don Gayton Vancouver: New Star Books, 2022 $18.00 / 9781554201945 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch * Two hundred years ago, the Earth was one-fifth prairie, including much of the Okanagan Valley. Now most of earth’s temperate grasslands are gone. In the Okanagan, there are only tiny…
Read more 1671 The Grass Man Cometh
The Science and Spirit of Seaweed: Discovering Food, Medicine and Purpose in the Kelp Forests of the Pacific Northwest by Amanda Swinimer Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $28.95 / 9781550179613 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart * I feel guilty for having sat so long on Amanda Swinimer’s book about seaweed. Sure, our island has suffered…
Read more 1664 The seaweed book