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
Worth More Growing: Youth Poets Pay Homage to Trees by Christine Lowther (editor) Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2022 $22.00 / 9781773860978 Reviewed by Heidi Greco * In the spring of 2022 Caitlin Press released their amazing themed anthology, Worth More Standing: Poets and Activists Pay Homage to Trees. Edited by Christine Lowther, that book was…
Read more 1661 Poets for the planet
The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change by Geoff Dembicki Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $34.95 / 9781771648912 Reviewed by Mike Starr * As I was reading The Petroleum Papers, I was thinking of Uncle Steve. My Great Uncle, S.R. Stevens, was an executive with Imperial Oil from the 1940s to…
Read more 1644 A threat to humanity
The Okanagan Wine Tour Guide Updated & Expanded by John Schreiner and Luke Whittall Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2020 (6th edition) $25.00 / 9781771513241 Reviewed by Isabel Nanton * When we last visited Blue Mountain Vineyard and Cellars on a hot June day in 2021, the owners were protecting from Covid their 17 seasonal workers from…
Read more 1640 An Okanagan classic
Mobilize Food! Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today by Eleanor Boyle, with a foreword by Tim Lang Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $19.99 / 9781039123663 Reviewed by Mary Gale Smith * Almost daily, news headlines – heat waves, drought, hurricanes, land slides, floods, fires, and so on – remind us that climate change is real. The pandemic…
Read more 1629 Return to Victory Gardens
A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate: Everyone’s Guide to the Science of Climate Change by Steven Earle Gabriola Island: New Society Publishers, 2021 $19.99 / 9780865719590 Reviewed by Tom Koppel * “Our sun is anything but constant; it is slowly getting hotter,” writes Steven Earle in A Brief History of the Earth’s Climate. But that has…
Read more 1628 Temperature rising
The Tree Farm: The Evolution of Canada’s First Community Forest by Michelle Rhodes Vancouver: Page Two Books, 2021 $35.00 / 9781989025680 Reviewed by David Brownstein * Michelle Rhodes’s The Tree Farm celebrates what was once an anomaly. Whereas local community-directed forest management used to be rare in British Columbia, with each passing day, this model…
Read more 1613 A forest with a mission
When We Are Broken: The Lake Elegy by Luanne Armstrong New Denver: Maa Press, 2020 $30.00 / 9780987838414 Reviewed by Diana Hayes * Luanne Armstrong, a prolific writer who has published twenty-five books of fiction, memoir, and poetry, has crafted a soulful and meditative narrative in her book, When We Are Broken – The Lake…
Read more 1612 Bigger than adolescence
Art, Research, Play: The Midnight Sun Camera Obscura Project by Donald Lawrence, Josephine Mills, and Emily Dundas Oke (editors), foreword by W.F. (Will) Garrett-Petts Lethbridge: University of Lethbridge Art Gallery, 2021 $39.95 / 9781927770115 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “This is a book that arrests attention but won’t stand still.” Thanks to W.F. Garrett-Petts for this assertion…
Read more 1594 The celebrated camera obscura
Falling Hour by Geoffrey D. Morrison Toronto: Coach House Books, forthcoming February 2023 $22.95 / 9781552454466. To pre-order, click here Reviewed by Danial Neil * From the very beginning of this novel, there is a sense of something significant at work, an epic, perhaps, or something quite different, but equally triumphant. The table is set…
Read more 1577 Meet Hugh Delgarno
Reading the Water: Fly Fishing, Fatherhood, and Finding Strength in Nature by Mark Hume Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2022 $34.95 / 9781771645690 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Fishing for “home water.” About a dedicated fisher-father and his metaphor for life Ever hear of a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear? How about a Mickey Finn? A Pumpkin Head…
Read more 1564 Fishing for home water
Animal Traffic: Lively Capital in the Global Exotic Pet Trade by Rosemary-Claire Collard Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2020 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781478010920 Reviewed by Susan Nance * The traffic in wild and captive-bred exotic animals is estimated to be the world’s fourth largest illegal trade—after drugs, human trafficking, and counterfeit products — in…
Read more 1558 Animal farms
Snow Nomad: An Avalanche Memoir by Alan Dennis Victoria: FriesenPress, 2022 $25.99 / 9781039107984 Reviewed by Ron Dart * I have had an ongoing interest, the last few decades, in the life and philosophic vision of Dolores LaChapelle. LaChapelle’s early pioneering work with Arne Naess in deep ecology and her deep powder skiing insights were…
Read more 1556 Tales of the avalanche clan
The Resistance Dilemma: Place-Based Movements and the Climate Crisis by George Hoberg Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (The MIT Press), 2021 $54.00 / 9780262543088 Reviewed by Stephen Bocking * The climate crisis demands that we break our fossil fuel habit. This implies an energy revolution, rewiring society to rely on renewable electricity. New technologies can…
Read more 1549 Clarifying climate policy
Icefields by Thomas Wharton, with a foreword by Suzette Mayr Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2021 (first published 1995) $23.95 / 9781774390368 Reviewed by Geoffrey D. Morrison * A reissued novel poses a special task for the reviewer, not least because many of the things people say about a book the first time around tend to remain…
Read more 1532 Some things that remain true