Ranch in the Slocan: A Biography of a Kootenay Farm, 1896-2017 by Cole Harris Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $24.95 / 9781550178234 Reviewed by Daniel Clayton * The Bosun Ranch, in reality a farm just south of New Denver on Slocan Lake, has been in the Harris family since 1896. “The ranch has always been…
Read more #400 The useful people’s ranch
Rebel Muse: My Life With Peter Paul Ochs by Monika Ullmann Victoria: ProWord Publishing, 2018 $25.00 / 9780992144937 Reviewed by Grahame Ware First published October 12, 2018 * Editor’s note: In an email to the Ormsby Review, freelance writer and journalist Monika Ullmann recalled that when the new Provincial Museum of British Columbia (now the Royal…
Read more #397 B.C. sculptor lost and found
First published Oct. 10, 2018. Dead Reckoning: How I Came to Meet the Man Who Murdered my father. by Carys Cragg Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2017. $19.95 / 9781551526973 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve * It has been a good year for Carys Cragg of Port Coquitlam. Her Dead Reckoning, published by Arsenal Pulp Press, was announced…
Read more #396 Letters to Drumheller
Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography by Andrea Warner, foreword by Joni Mitchell Vancouver: Greystone Books 2018 $36.00 / 9781771643580 Reviewed by Jo-Anne Fiske First published Sept. 29, 2018 * Envision a young woman, naïve and conservative in 1965. She sat proudly in her undergraduate history class as the professor led discussion on the fifty-year commemoration…
Read more #387 Up where she belongs
Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation by Claire Sicherman Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $22.95 / 9781987915570 Reviewed by Mark Dwor First published Sept. 28, 2018 * Claire Sicherman opens Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation with this dedication: My maternal grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust and I…
Read more #386 All my generations
The Suitcase and the Jar: Travels with a Daughter’s Ashes by Becky Livingston Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2018 $22.95 / 9781987915747 Reviewed by Carys Cragg First published September 12th, 2018 * After Becky Livingston lost her 23-year old daughter Rachel to a brain tumour, she set off on a global walkabout for 798 days, scattering…
Read more #372 Scattering Rachel’s ashes
Growing Home: the Legacy of Kootenay Elders by Lee Reid Nelson: Growing Home Elders Press, 2017 $26.95 / 9780995816404 Reviewed by Duff Sutherland First published September 08th, 2018 * In Growing Home: the Legacy of Kootenay Elders, Lee Reid profiles seventeen men and women, born between the 1920s and 1950s, who made their lives in the…
Read more #369 West Kootenay lives and land
Kuei, My Friend: A Conversation on Race and Reconciliation by Deni Ellis Béchard and Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, translated by Deni Ellis Béchard and Howard Scott Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2018 $19.95 / 9781772011951 Reviewed by Dylan Burrows First published September 07th, 2018 * Following the controversial death of 11-year old Ojibwe girl Makayla Sault from leukaemia in…
Read more #368 “Walk like an Indian”
Grizzlies, Gales, and Giant Salmon: Life at a Rivers Inlet Fishing Lodge by Pat Ardley Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $24.95 / 9781550178319 Reviewed by Jeanette Taylor First published September 06th, 2018 * Pat Ardley’s Grizzlies, Gales, and Giant Salmon “tracks an urban couple’s hair-raising adaptation to the coastal wilderness,” notes reviewer Jeanette Taylor. “When something went…
Read more #367 Float camp at Rivers Inlet
First published Aug. 14, 2018. My West Coast Surveying Adventure by Richard G. Lipsey, OC, FRSC * We are delighted to present a memoir by Richard (Dick) Lipsey, arguably one of Canada’s foremost economists—and it’s not about economics. Here Lipsey recalls his work as a surveyor’s assistant and axeman on the west coast of Vancouver…
Read more #342 The woodsman & the economist
First published Jul. 8, 2018. Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley by Judith Plant Vancouver: New Star Books, 2017. $19 / 9781554201334 Reviewed by Nancy Janovicek * What had happened to us? Where did it go wrong? What could we have done? What should we have done? What we built together…
Read more #337 True tales of Camelsfoot
Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir by Chelene Knight Toronto: Book*hug, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771663908 Reviewed by Jennifer Chutter First published June 13, 2018 * Amidst the swirl of media reports of rising housing prices, empty houses, and increased property taxes, Chelene Knight’s Dear Current Occupant: A Memoir offers a rare and nuanced view of what…
Read more #320 An East Vancouver childhood
The World’s Most Travelled Man: A Twenty-Three Year Odyssey to and through Every Country on the Planet by Mike Spencer Bown Madeira Park: Douglas and McIntyre, 2017 $29.95 / 9781771621427 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published June 9, 2018 * During 1,000 weeks, Mike Spencer Bown backpacked around the world between 1990 and 2013,…
Read more #319 King of the back packers
First published June 6, 2018. The Unceasing Storm: Memories of the Chinese Cultural Revolution by Katherine Luo, foreword by Madeleine Thien Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018. $22.95 / 9781771621861 Reviewed by Vivienne Poy * Many personal accounts have been written about tumultuous modern China, but there is a difference in Katherine Luo’s book. We…
Read more #318 A witness to persecution in China
Life and Bronze: A Sculptor’s Journal by Ruth Abernethy Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2016 $60 / 9781926991733 Reviewed by Maria Tippett First published June 2, 2018 * Born in Lindsay, Ontario, in 1960, Ruth Abernethy started building theatre props at the age of 17. After studying at Malaspina College (now Vancouver Island University) in Nanaimo,…
Read more #315 From props to hot properties
The Language of Family: Stories of Bonds and Belonging by Michelle van der Merwe (editor) Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2017 $27.95 / 9780772670526 Reviewed by Claire Sicherman First published May 30, 2018 * When I first held The Language of Family in my hands, I could feel the faint stirring of emotion, the…
Read more #312 A sesquicentennial smorgasbord
Alan Caswell Collier, Relief Stiff: An Artist’s Letters from Depression-era British Columbia by Peter Neary (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 $45.00 / 9780774834988 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published May 8, 2018 * Most British Columbians live within an easy drive of one of the unemployment relief camps established by the federal government during the…
Read more #302 Middle class artist on relief
The Green Horse: My Early Years in the Canadian Rockies — A Park Warden’s Story by Dale Portman Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2017 $25.00 / 9781771602266 Reviewed by Michelle Murphy First published May 7, 2018 * Like many, I am captivated by the beauty and vastness of the Canadian Rockies – and curious about the…
Read more #301 Glory days of Park Wardens
Summer of the Horse: A Memoir by Donna Kane Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $19.95. 9781550178197 Reviewed by Heather Longworth Sjoblom First published May 7, 2018 * “Wilderness… is a place that retains its beauty because it escapes us.” — Donna Kane In her literary memoir, Summer of the Horse, Donna Kane explores the wilderness…
Read more #300 By horse to the Muskwa-Kechika
First published May 4, 2018. An obituary on this site has already recorded the life and times — and books — of Al Neil. But there’s nothing like a personal reminiscence–or three–to reveal how extraordinary and perplexing and difficult and odd he could be. 1. In…
Read more #298 Three tributes to Al Neil