First published Dec. 7, 2017. Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska by Stephen R. Bown (D&M $34.95) tells the story of The Great Northern Expedition which resulted in the mapping of the Arctic Coast of Siberia and large parts of the North American coastline, and the discovery…
Read more #215 Island of Blue Foxes
First published Dec. 4, 2017. Chasing Smoke. A Wildfire Memoir by Aaron Williams Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $22.95 / 9781550178050 Reviewed by Dan Gallacher The threat of terrorism is over-rated. ‘First responders’ were everywhere in 2017 dealing with hurricanes, earthquakes and forest fires. Aaron Williams’ Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire Memoir (Harbour $22.95)…
Read more #213 The forest smokeaters
First published Nov. 29, 2017. Our Vanishing Glaciers: The Snows of Yesteryear and the Future Climate of the Mountain West by Robert William Sandford Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books 2017. $40 / 9781771602020 Reviewed by Clayton Whitt Melting glaciers and climate change may initially seem like odd topics for a coffee table book. But…
Read more #212 Our vanishing glaciers
At Home in Nature: A Life of Unknown Mountains and Deep Wilderness by Rob Wood Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2017 $22.00 / 9781771602518 Reviewed by John Gellard First published November 20, 2017 * Rob Wood might have saved my life … or at least my left foot. Some years ago I fell off a log…
Read more #204 Climbing bard of Maurelle Island
The Transcontinentalist: Or, The Joys of the Road Manuscript in the Laing Papers at the B.C. Archives, written in 1915 by Hamilton Mack Laing Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes First published Nov. 17, 2017 * Editor’s note: We are delighted that Trevor Marc Hughes has ventured into the voluminous Laing Papers at the British Columbia…
Read more #203 Mack, the life
First published Sept. 29, 2017 REVIEW: Wolf Island by Ian McAllister (photographs) and Nicholas Read (text) Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2017. $19.95 9781459812642 Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw * Wolf Island is a picture book co-created by photographer, author, and Pacific Wild founder Ian McAllister and author and former journalist Nicholas Read. It is…
Read more #173 Always cry wolf
Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine from Nature by Dan Jason Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $16.95 / 9781550177916 Reviewed by Natasha Lyons First published Sept. 13, 2017 * Reviewing a book published before you were born is an interesting historical exercise. Dan Jason’s Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging…
Read more #169 A hero in the garden
The Summer Book: A Treasury of Warm Tales, Timeless Memories and Meditations on Nature by 24 BC writers by Mona Fertig (editor) Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2017. $24.95 / 9781896949611 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published July 1, 2017 * Mona Fertig of Mother Tongue Publishing has gathered 24 warm and poignant…
Read more #146 Poignant ruminations of summer
At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoast by Caroline Fox Victoria: Rocky Mountain books, 2016 $25.00 / 9781771601627 Reviewed by Sean MacPherson First published April 28, 2017 * In At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoast, conservation biologist Caroline Fox crosses thousands of kilometres of open ocean to chart the distribution…
Read more #126 Marine birds
Ecology of Salmonids in Estuaries Around the World: Adaptations, Habitats, and Conservation by Colin D. Levings Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016 $75.00 / 9780774831734 Reviewed by Bert Ionson First Published April 4, 2017 * Colin Levings’ encyclopedic treatment of how sea going salmon, trout and char make their transition from fresh to salt water (and the…
Read more #113 Why we need estuaries
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
If we are not collectively mindful, Joni Mitchell will have no more rivers to skate away on. It’ll mostly be Canoes Only on the Rideau Canal. Ice hockey could be declared an Endangered Sport. The only ski resorts will be atop of the Alps; Whistler will be for golf. With a catastrophically narcissistic president in…
Read more #102 Hockey is an endangered sport
British Columbia’s Cariboo Chilcotin Coast: A Photographer’s Journey by Chris Harris 108 Mile Ranch: Chris Harris and Country Light Publishing, 2016 $39.95 / 9780986581847 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes First published Feb. 24, 2017 * First photographer Ian McAllister helped identify and preserve The Great Bear Rainforest. Now photographer Chris Harris sees the Chilcotin Ark…
Read more #94 Empire of the Cariboo Chilcotin
J. Fenwick Lansdowne by Tristram Lansdowne (editor) Portland, OR: Pomegranate Communications, 2014 US $65.00 / 9780764966705 Reviewed by Briony Penn First published Feb. 7, 2017 * A fixture of Victoria’s artistic, cultural, and natural communities for five decades, James Fenwick Lansdowne (1937-2008) is now the subject of a book edited by his son Tristram, featuring…
Read more #81 Portraits of Fenwick Lansdowne
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
The Killer Whale Who Changed the World by Mark Leiren-Young Vancouver: Greystone Books with the David Suzuki Institute, 2016 $29.95 / 9781771641937 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published Oct. 17, 2016 * My most memorable encounter with a killer whale occurred in 1987. Newly returned home after sixteen years living in eastern Canada, I thought…
Read more #26 A whale named Moby Doll
“Should any of you boys visit the Sandwich Islands, look up the burial place of my college mate.” Botanist John Goldie (1793-1886) reflecting on David Douglas’s grave First Published: April 04th, 2014 One of the most prominent of the roving fraternity of nineteenth-century plant hunters who scoured North America for plant species new to Europe,…
Read more #7 How the Douglas fir was named