A History of My Brief Body: A Memoir by Billy-Ray Belcourt Toronto: Penguin Random House (Hamish Hamilton), 2020 $25.00 / 9780735237780 Reviewed by David Milward * The term Two-Spirit is used in many contemporary Indigenous communities to describe Indigenous persons whose personalities and spirits may have both feminine and masculine aspects. Many Indigenous people suggest…
Read more 1144 Belcourt’s Two-Spirit journey
Stories from the Magic Canoe of Wa’xaid by Cecil Paul as told to Briony Penn Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $30.00 / 9781771602952 * Following the Good River: The Life and Times of Wa’xaid by Briony Penn with Cecil Paul Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 $38.00 / 9781771603218 Both books reviewed by hagwil hayetsk Charles…
Read more 1139 The late Wa’xaid: Cecil Paul
Resilience Through Writing: A Bibliographic Guide to Indigenous-Authored Publications in the Pacific Northwest before 1960 by Robert E. Walls, edited by Darby C. Stapp Richland, WA: Journal of Northwestern Anthropology, Memoir 20, January 2021 $34.95 (U.S.) / 9798566579900 Reviewed by John Lutz * The very quotable English essayist Charles Lamb wrote that bibliographies are “books…
Read more 1137 Resurrecting Indigenous voices
ESSAY: Stanley Park: The Mirror and the Mask by Jordan Johnston * Stanley Park is a mirror that reflects the desires of those who look in it. On a map, this bright green peninsula stands apart from the city centre, as if held at arm’s length. Vancouver, like any other city, has poverty, and crime,…
Read more 1128 Stanley Park reflections
ESSAY: “The Noise of Time”[1] and the Removal of History? by Robin Fisher * In 1957 a group of anthropologists went ashore at SG̱ang Gwaay, which they knew as Ninstints, the site of a long deserted Haida village on Anthony Island. With ropes, pulleys and crosscut saws they lowered a few of the surviving totem…
Read more 1124 “The Noise of Time” and the Removal of History?
Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation by Hannah Turner Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $32.95 / 9780774863933 Reviewed by Forrest Pass * On the desk of my home office, I keep a relic of museum cataloguing in days gone by: a McBee Keysort manual punch, model 5201-630. Resembling a standard hole punch, this tool…
Read more 1116 Politics on a punch card
Unravelling Canada: a Knitting Odyssey by Sylvia Olsen Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2021 $24.95 / 9781771622868 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * When we moved west in 1962 my in-laws gave us Cowichan sweaters. In those beautiful, emblematic, warm AND water-resistant garments, we felt officially citizens of British Columbia. Over the years, as our children…
Read more 1113 Roll up the wool to win
Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett by Michael Nest with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell Regina: University of Regina Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9780889777491 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Editor’s note: I’m delighted to have heard today (January 3, 2022) that the film and tv rights to Cold Case North:…
Read more 1108 The Lower Foster Lake mystery
INTERVIEW: Dallas Hunt with Nathaniel G. Moore Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty Eight territory in northern Alberta. His first children’s book, Awâsis and the World-famous Bannock was nominated for several awards. Hunt is an assistant professor of Indigenous literatures at the University of British Columbia…
Read more 1106 Geographies of Treaty Eight
it was never going to be okay by jaye simpson Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2020 $18.95 / 9780889713826 Reviewed by Harper Campbell * it was never going to be okay is the first book of poetry by jaye simpson, “an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer writer and activist from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation, with Scottish and French settler…
Read more 1100 Trauma, neglect, and erasure
Gwich’in K’yuu Gwiidandài’ Tthak Ejuk Gòonlih: Our Whole Gwich’in Way of Life Has Changed: Stories from the People of the Land by Leslie McCartney and Gwich’in Tribal Council Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2020 $99.99 / 9781772124828 Reviewed by Daniel Sims * “Publish or perish” is an axiom of professional academics, especially those employed by…
Read more 1086 The voice of Gwich’in Elders
Paradise Won: The Struggle to Create Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve by Elizabeth May Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2020 (second edition; first published by McClelland & Stewart, 1990) $25.00 / 9781771604581 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * Anyone who has visited Haida Gwaii will instantly relate to Elizabeth May’s remembrance of one of the most significant…
Read more 1074 Elizabeth May & Gwaii Haanas
On Their Own Terms: True Stories of Trailblazing Women of Vancouver Island by Haley Healey Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $9.95 / 9781772033250 Reviewed by Lynne Bowen * Vancouver Island attracts a certain type of person: a person who has chosen to live separate from convention, or from family, or from boredom, or from the past…
Read more 1069 Island women in the spotlight
How To Lose Everything: A Memoir by Christa Couture Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2020 $26.95 / 9781771622622 Reviewed by David Milward * Not making quite as much on a stock investment as you’d like; a rising interest rate puts a dent into your revenue; a repair becomes necessary with respect to your million-dollar home;…
Read more 1065 Don’t take it all for granted
Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction by Joshua Whitehead (editor) Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2020 $21.95 / 9781551528113 Reviewed by Harper Campbell * Joshua Whitehead’s new edited anthology, Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction, comes on the heels of anthologies like Walking the…
Read more 1045 An Indigenous sci-fi moment
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 East Kootenay off-grid, old-style
People Among the People: The Public Art of Susan Point by Robert D. Watt Vancouver: Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing in collaboration with UBC Museum of Anthropology, 2019 $50.00 / 9781773270425 * Susan Point: Spindle Whorl by Grant Arnold and Ian Thom (editors), with a foreword by Kathleen Bartels Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery and London: Black Dog Press,…
Read more 1039 Outward from Musqueam
Transatlantic Upper Canada: Portraits in Literature, Land, and British-Indigenous Relations by Kevin Hutchings Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020 $37.95 / 9780228001294 Reviewed by Graeme Wynn * Kevin Hutchings, the holder of a University Research Chair in the Department of English at the University of Northern British Columbia, begins this book with a very…
Read more 1023 On the Road to Damascus
Kwanlin Dün: Dǎ Kwǎndur Ghày Ghàkwadîndur – Our Story in Our Words by Kwanlin Dün First Nation Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2020 $50.00 / 9781773270784 Reviewed by Daniel Sims * Editor’s note: The West Coast Book Prize Society announced on April 8, 2021, that Kwanlin Dün: Dǎ Kwǎndur Ghày Ghàkwadîndur – Our Story in Our Words,…
Read more 1009 Reclaiming Indigenous history
Great Expectations: Reflections on Museums and Canada by Jack Lohman Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2019 $14.95 / 9780772673039 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * “Isn’t it amazing that in 2019, Canadians are so passionate about the past?” In this era seen by some as haunted by a toxic past which must be erased as…
Read more #989 Passionate about the past