How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lakeby Shelley O’Callaghan Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915396 Reviewed by Sabina Trimble First published June 26, 2017 * In How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lake, Shelley O’Callaghan reflects on her family’s 100 years at this mountain lake 45 km….
Read more #144 One family, one lake, one century
Abenaki Daring: The Life and Writings of Noel Annance, 1792-1869 by Jean Barman Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016 $45.95 / 9780773547926 Reviewed by Michel Bouchard First published June 21, 2017 * Too often, scholars must do their best to distill the thoughts and narratives of the destitute, downtrodden, or the illiterate through the…
Read more #141 Retrieving Noel from obscurity
Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada, 2017 $32.00 / 9780345810786 Reviewed by David Stouck First published June 11, 2017 * In 1997 a book of remarkable short stories by a young Haisla/ Heiltsuk woman came across my desk. It had been selected as Editor’s Choice and Notable Book of…
Read more #138 The incredible deftness of being
The W̱SÁNEĆ and Their Neighbours: Diamond Jenness on the Coast Salish of Vancouver Island, 1935 by Diamond Jenness. Edited and with an introduction by Barnett Richling Oakville, Ontario: Rock’s Mills Press, 2017 $24.95. / 9781772440362 Reviewed by Chris Arnett Revised June 2020 * The overlooked ethnographic work of New Zealand-born Diamond Jenness (1886-1969) has been…
Read more #135 The W̱SÁNEĆ revisited
ESSAY: Chief Tetlenitsa’s Apples: Commercializing Indigenous Horticulture in British Columbia, 1907-1916 by Michael Sasges First published April 25, 2017 * In 1916, orchardist Chief John Tetlenitsa of Spences Bridge took a wagon of 40 boxes of apples into Merritt, the new town in the Nicola Valley, only to have the Chief Constable seize the apples…
Read more #124 Banning Indigenous apples, 1916
A Great Old Tramp: Letters from a Canadian Sojourner in British Columbia, 1873-1875 by Greg Stott First published April 22, 2017 * Editor’s note, December 9, 2022: The SS Pacific, on which George Skippon met his death in November 1875, may have been found! See this CTV news story and a CTV video here. Editor’s…
Read more #123 Out of this world: George Skippon in BC, 1873-1875
Ellen Neel: The First Woman Totem Pole CarverAn exhibit at Legacy Gallery, Victoria, BC Reviewed by Megan A. Smetzer First published April 11, 2017 * Between January 14 and 1 April 2017, the University of Victoria’s Legacy Art Gallery hosted an exhibit, Ellen Neel: The First Woman Totem Pole Carver, curated by Carolyn Butler-Palmer of…
Read more #117 The belated legacy of Ka’kasolas
Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care by Gary Geddes Victoria: Heritage House, 2017 $22.95 / 9781772031645 Reviewed by Mary-Ellen Kelm First published April 4, 2017 * Harold Cardinal’s assessment of Canada’s Indigenous policy in 1969 as “a thinly disguised programme of extermination” in The Unjust Society is born out almost…
Read more #114 From apartheid to resurgence
Exhibiting Nation: Multicultural Nationalism (And Its Limits) in Canada’s Museumsby Caitlin Gordon-Walker Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016$32.95 / 9780774831642 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published April 2, 2017 * In Exhibiting Nation, Caitlin Gordon-Walker explores the ways in which Canadian multicultural nationalism has influenced exhibits at three of the country’s major museums. Gordon-Walker suggests that multicultural…
Read more #112 When good isn’t good enough
Bill Reid Collected by Martine J. Reid Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2016, in collaboration with the Bill Reid Centre $19.95 / 9781771621151 Reviewed by Victoria Wyatt First Published March 28, 2017 * Much has been written about Bill Reid (1920-1998), the internationally known Haida artist whose monumental works appear in contexts such as the Canadian…
Read more #110 Bill Reid’s legacy enhanced
White Settler Reserve: New Iceland and the Colonization of the Canadian Westby Ryan Eyford Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016$32.95 / 9780774831598 Reviewed by Emma Battell Lowman and Adam J. Barker First published March 24, 2017 * From B.C. pioneer Gilbert Sproat to k.d. lang, in White Settler Reserve historian Ryan Eyford traces the little-known mass migration…
Read more #108 New Iceland in Canada
Where Mountains Meet The Sea: an Illustrated History of the District of North Vancouver by Daniel Francis Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2016 $39.95. 9781550177510 Reviewed by Trevor Carolan First Published March 22, 2017 * Daniel Francis, editor of the Encyclopedia of British Columbia and another twenty-four titles, turns his capable hand to local history in…
Read more #107 Moodyville, mudflats & Maisie
Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America Catherine M. Cameron, Paul Kelton, and Alan C. Swedlund (editors) Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015 U.S. $29.95 / 9780816535545 Reviewed by Jody Decker First published March 18, 2017 * As a follow-up to Courtney Kirk’s review of Tom Swanky’s controversial The Smallpox War in Nuxalk Territory [See…
Read more #106 Devastation beyond germs
Originally published March 13, 2017REVIEW: The Smallpox War in Nuxalk Territory by Tom Swanky Surrey: Dragon Heart Enterprises, 2016. $39.95 / 978-1-365-41053-6 Reviewed by Courtney Kirk * In 1862, colonial officials, supported by merchants, surveyors, and road builders, concocted a get-rich-quick scheme to link the coast of B.C. at Bella Coola to the gold…
Read more #103 Tainted blankets?
Belonging Métisby Catherine Richardson (Kinewesquao) Vernon: J. Charlton Publishing, 2016$30.00 / 9781926476070 Reviewed by Émilie Pigeon First published Feb. 28, 2017 * Despite being recognized as one of the three Aboriginal peoples of Canada in the Constitution Act of 1982, the Métis remain hard to define. From Vancouver Island to Labrador their Métisness can be…
Read more #96 Métis longing and belonging
People of the Saltwater: An Ethnography of Git lax m’oonby Charles R. Menzies Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 2016$45.00 (U.S.) / 9780803288089 Reviewed by Robert Muckle First published Feb. 22, 2017 * A pinch of sea salt goes with the territory… In People of the Saltwater, UBC anthropologist Charles Menzies provides an ethnography of…
Read more #92 Of salmon, herring and abalone
Inge Bolin Thirst in the Andes: Climate Change and Solutions for Survival First published Feb. 14, 2017 * Inge Bolin’s first novel, When Condors Call (Nanaimo: Chaska Publications, 2010) follows a young physician from the Peruvian Andes in search of a cure for Leishmaniasis, a disfiguring disease. Her 2016 stay in Peru enabled her to…
Read more #87 Peruvian sojourn
The Hidden Journals: Captain Vancouver and his Mapmaker by Mary Tasi and Wade Baker Vancouver: Sky Spirit, 2015$20 / 9780993843815 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published Feb. 8, 2017 * This book is not a scholarly study, but Wade Baker and Mary Tasi have accomplished something that many scholars would trade their tenure to do….
Read more #83 Vancouver and his mapmaker
Wade Davis: Photographs by Wade Davis Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2016 $14.99 / 9781771621243 Reviewed by David Mattison First published Feb. 4, 2017 * To say that Wade Davis has had an extraordinary, brilliant, and in the end very lucky career would be a great understatement. Originally from West Vancouver, he returned to his…
Read more #80 The photography of Wade Davis
Crossing Home Ground: A Grassland Odyssey through Southern Interior British Columbia by David Pitt-Brooke Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2016 $32.95 / 9781550177749 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch First published Jan. 25, 2017 * David Pitt-Brooke — naturalist, veterinarian, and writer — walked a thousand kilometres through the grasslands of the southern interior of British Columbia, from…
Read more #79 Emptying the grasslands