“Through her honest and open diary entries the reader learns details of her mental health struggles, early career moves, the court trial of her abuser and, how she ran away from the painful memories and shame to Ottawa, and her ever-present state of loneliness.” Cathalynn Labonté-Smith interviews co-authors Susan Aglukark and Andrew Warner and reviews Kihiani: A Memoir of Healing (Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2025) $36.99 / 9781443472944
“Author George Abbott meticulously researched this disturbing political past to shed light on that legacy as governments and First Nations continue the quest for truth and reconciliation partly through land claims negotiations.” Ron Verzuh reviews Unceded: Understanding British Columbia’s Colonial Past and Why It Matters Now, by George M. Abbott (Vancouver: UBC Press [Purich Books], 2025) $29.95 / 9780774881159
“Without the karst environment, Haida Gwaii would lose much of its appeal for cave-based investigations. The name karst stems from Kras, a region in Croatia. Besides the Balkans, karst landscapes are found in southern Asia, Indonesia, Tasmania, New Zealand, the southern United States, and of course, British Columbia.” Katy Dycus writes about archeological discovery on Haida Gwaii in the ‘lost world’ of the karst caves.
In a non-linear and associative collection of poetic assemblages, a writer ponders an impressive assortment of ideas: from the afterlife and everyday life to queer masculine desire, settler culture, and the natural world. —Brooke Lee reviews The Idea of an Entire Life: Poems, by Billy-Ray Belcourt (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2025) $25.00 / 9780771014017
“Chapter by chapter Dr. Bonnell highlights the slow progression of wildlife use, exploitation, and conservation from the original inhabitants to the fur trade and then the influx of miners and settlers.” Dennis A. Demarchi reviews Stewards of Splendour: A History of Wildlife and People in British Columbia, by Jennifer Bonnell (Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum, 2023) $34.95 / 9781039900004
“The 36 chapters in My Soul Lives in these Mountains combine a series of linked stories, poems and paintings that makes this book a finely threaded together collection of geology, history, amusing treks taken, research done as part of the larger project for Chilliwack Search and Rescue-RCMP and a valuable telling of the three fatal airplane crashes in the area.” Ron Dart reviews My Soul Lives in these Mountains: A Collection of Stories, Poems and Paintings of the Chilliwack Cascades —Land of the Ts’elxwéyeqw, by Peter D. Scott (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397881
“Now You Know Me should serve as guide for everyone on how to learn from each other about what truth and reconciliation really means. The book is uniquely composed, giving voice to both men through alternating passages. It is a perfect composition, touching on many topics in 54 short chapters of roughly 300 pages, that is quick to read.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Now You Know Me: Seeing the Unhidden Truth in Settler Colonialism, by k’ʷunəmɛn Joe Gallagher and John Matterson (Surrey: Hancock House, 2024) $24.95 / 9780888397829
“Mayer is keenly aware of the wider challenges that face all the islands of the Pacific and the contribution that museums can make to understanding, and perhaps even addressing them.” Robin Fisher reviews Sea of Islands: Exploring Objects, Stories and Memories from Oceania, by Carol E. Mayer (Vancouver: Museum of Anthropology and Figure 1 Publishing, 2025) $55 / 9781773271552
“Her garments are not mere adornments; they are declarations of cultural pride, visual manifestations of a living tradition.” Amy Tucker reviews Dorothy Grant: An Endless Thread, by Dorothy Grant (in collaboration with the Haida Gwaii Museum) (Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2024) $50 / 9781773272412
“[They] have compiled a remarkable collection of archived photographs, denoting and describing the settler culture of an earlier immigration boom, centering around a growing population of Vancouver Island: the Comox Valley.” Trevor Marc Hughes reviews Step Into Wilderness: A Pictorial History of Outdoor Exploration in and around the Comox Valley, by Deborah Griffiths, Christine Dickinson, Judy Hagen, Catherine Siba, and photography editor Ernst Vegt (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2020) $39.95 / 978550178937
“Defiant 511 is not a book for everyone. For those who have survived childhood abuse, it could be a trigger. For younger readers, it could be a traumatising glimpse into the pit of human degradation. But for those who should know what happened to generations of Native children and their subsequent tragedies and triumphs, it is essential reading.” Linda Rogers reviews The Defiant 511 of the Alberni Indian Residential School, by Evelyn Thompson-George and Art Thompson (Victoria: FriesenPress, 2025) $21.99 / 9781038315359
“In these pages we meet smugglers, rumrunners, and largely forgotten explorers, and learn of disastrous voyages, horrendous outbreaks of disease, and early maritime maps that reflected political motives more than geographic precision.” Tom Koppel reviews Who Shot Estevan Light? and other tales from the Salish Sea and beyond, by Douglas Hamilton (Qualicum Beach: Caitlin Press, 2025) $26 / 9781773861531
“Fisher and Dickinson worked together for decades to preserve the history of Atlin. Tales, Trials and Triumphs makes a valuable contribution to this preservation. Though the book is largely a collection of photographs, its text is substantial and substantive, complementing and explaining the hundreds of black & white and colour photos and maps.” Howard MacDonald Stewart reviews Tales, Trials and Triumphs: Echoes of Atlin, by Kate Fisher and Christine Dickinson (Atlin: Atlin Historical Society, 2025) $50 / 9781069075604
“Readers of Ted Binnema’s The Vancouver Island Treaties will gain a greater insight into a formative piece of British Columbia history. For this book is history as it should be. Here is how it is done.” Robin Fisher reviews The Vancouver Island Treaties and the Evolving Principles of Indigenous Title, by Ted Binnema (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025) $44.95 / 9781487554095
“Mather, who has worked at Fort Edmonton and Barkerville and in 1984 became manager and curator of the Historic O’Keefe Ranch, is well placed to write on his subject. He is able to draw on the O’Keefe archives and his O’Keefe family contacts, including the Indigenous descendants, to assemble a highly detailed account.” Ian Pooley reviews The O’Keefes of O’kanagan: The Families of O’Keefe Ranch, by Ken Mather (Victoria: Heritage House, 2025) $34.95 / 9781772035377
Set on and near the Okanagan Indian Reserve during the summer of ’68, a graceful novel captures the wonders and joys as well as the pains and missteps of sixteen-year-old Lewis Toma. —Trish Bowering reviews Bones of a Giant, by Brian Thomas Isaac (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2025) $35.00 / 9781039011779
“But make no mistake—the incorporation into federal and British Columbia laws of the principles of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the recent recognition of Haida title and the Heiltsuk establishment of a constitution are not merely rumblings. They and other recent events represent a tectonic shift that will have profound legal and social implications. The results need not be catastrophic, as some might fear, but they will certainly be disruptive.” Richard Butler reviews Indigenous Intellectual Property: An Interrupted Intergenerational Conversation by Val Napoleon, Rebecca Johnson, Richard Overstall and Debra McKenzie (eds.) (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2024) $32.95 / 9781487558222 & Creating Indigenous Property: Power, Rights and Relationships by Angela Cameron, Sari Graben and Val Napoleon (eds.)(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020) $45.95 / 9781487523824
The wonderstruck child narrator of a striking picture book for youngsters recalls four seasons worth of meals, adventures, and sights—and feels grateful for each and every one. —Brett Josef Grubisic reviews Wôpanâak / Seasons, by Carrie Anne Vanderhoop / illustrated by Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley (Vancouver: Tradewinds Books, 2025) $24.95 / 9781926890418
“With the budget and size of the current gallery, it had become difficult to adequately show the collection and avoid being just a storehouse. Hence, the wise decision to have a rotating exhibition for the next five years, so that the public can appreciate the depth and breadth of the collection.” Christina Johnson-Dean reviews the exhibition A View from Here: Re-Imagining the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Collections curated by Steven McNeil and Heng Wu.
“This book is a tool kit, neither poetry, nor the story inversions that alleviate the pain of living in post-colonial society, but a logical overview from a sympathetic perspective.” Linda Rogers reviews Indigenous Rights in One Minute: What You Need to Know to Talk Reconciliation by Bruce McIvor (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Nightwood Editions, 2025) $22.95 / 9780889714885