Possessing Meares Island: A Historian’s Journey into the Past of Clayoquot Sound by Barry Gough Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $26.95 / 9781550179576 Reviewed by Jason M. Colby * Barry Gough opens his newest book with a phone call that he received in early 1986. On the other end of the line was Jack Woodward,…
Read more 1513 History matters: Meares Island
Learning to Carve Argillite by Sara Florence Davidson & Robert Davidson, illustrated by Janine Gibbons Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2021 (Sk’ada Stories Series, ages 6-8) $21.95 / 9781553799849 * Jigging for Halibut with Tsinii by Sara Florence Davidson & Robert Davidson, illustrated by Janine Gibbons Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2021 (Sk’ada Stories Series, ages 6-8) $21.95 /…
Read more 1511 Halibut & argillite
Plants of Haida Gwaii: Third Edition by Nancy J. Turner Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $29.95 / 9781550179149 Reviewed by Jasḵwaan Bedard * Plants of Haida Gwaii: Third Edition by Nancy Turner is a celebrated study of the Haida people’s relationship with the plants of Haida Gwaii. Dr. Turner, a renowned ethnobotanist, chronicles her extensive…
Read more 1500 Plant journey in Haida Gwaii
A Killing at Easter Hill: A Season of Fragments by Alex Rose Vancouver: Walhachin Press, 2021 $16.00 / 9781777582319 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski A Killing at Easter Hill is available for sale at People’s Co-Op Bookstore on Commercial Drive, Vancouver * One of the advantages of a novel over a book of poems and other…
Read more 1478 Coastal flux and depth
Return to Solitude: More Desolation Sound Adventures with the Cougar Lady, Russell the Hermit, the Spaghetti Bandit and Others by Grant Lawrence Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2022 $26.95 / 9781550179712 Reviewed by Heather Harbord * Grant Lawrence has produced another rollicking good read which is a worthy successor to his earlier Adventures in Solitude (Harbour, 2010)….
Read more 1468 Cabins and characters
The Final Voyage of the Valencia by Michael C. Neitzel Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 (first published 1995) $9.95 / 9781772033151 Reviewed by Ron Verzuh * SS Valencia Remembered: More than 100 women and children died needlessly in this tragic event off Vancouver Island in 1906 It wasn’t as world stopping as the sinking of the…
Read more 1440 SS Valencia remembered
Dutchy’s Diaries: Life as a Canadian Naval Officer in His Own Words, 1916-1929 by John Crispo Inglis “Dutchy” Edwards, edited by Helen Edwards [Victoria]: Helen Edwards, 2020 $29.50 / 9780969728252 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Helen Edwards, a well-known heritage professional researcher in Victoria, has achieved a work of immense importance to naval history in…
Read more 1431 A naval labour of love
Sea Otters: A Survival Story by Isabelle Groc with forewords by Dame Judi Dench & David F. Mills Victoria: Orca Books, 2020 $24.95 / 9781459817371 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Sea Otters: A Survival story by Isabelle Groc is a delightful wildlife book for all ages. Author Isabelle Groc has written an exemplary survival story…
Read more 1395 Return of the sea otter
“Opposition on the Coast”: The Hudson’s Bay Company, American Coasters, the Russian-American Company, and Native Traders on the Northwest Coast, 1825-1846 Edited and introduced by James R. Gibson Toronto: The Champlain Society, 2019 $99.00 / 9780772764416 Reviewed by Peter Grant * A game of monopoly: The Bay, of department store fame, was once the terror…
Read more 1370 A game of monopoly
So Much More Than Art: Indigenous Miniatures of the Pacific Northwest by Jack Davy Vancouver: UBC Press, 2021 $89.95 / 9780774866552 Reviewed by Alan L. Hoover * In this book Jack Davy discusses the making of miniature objects: model canoes, houses, totem poles, masks, by First Nations artists on the Northwest Coast of BC, Alaska,…
Read more 1334 In praise of the miniature
On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Earthquake by Gregor Craigie Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2021 $22.95 / 9781773102061 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * What does it mean to be unsettled? Roget’s Thesaurus offers some synonyms — unstable, displaced, even deranged — and to me the word sits somewhere between “uneasy” and “totally freaked out.”…
Read more 1314 Shear, rattle, and roll
Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition (fourth edition) by Brett McGillivray Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020 $55.00 / 9780774864329 Reviewed by Ken Favrholdt * Brett McGillivray’s Geography of British Columbia: People and Landscapes in Transition has withstood the test of time since its first edition in 2000, which I reviewed for BC Studies…
Read more 1305 McGillivray’s essential geography
Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time by Michael Palin Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Vintage Canada), 2019 $23.00 / 9780735274297 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek * Editor’s note. A vigilant reader of The Ormsby Review might be startled to see Michael Palin’s Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages,…
Read more 1301 Goosebumps & unbroken ice
Graeme Wynn reviews four books: The Imperilled Ocean: Human Stories From a Changing Sea by Laura Trethewey Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773101156 * Passion and Persistence: Fifty Years of the Sierra Club in British Columbia by Diane Pinch Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $12.99 / 9781550178814 * Hope Matters: Why Changing the…
Read more 1202 Hothouse Earth: The future is now
Not on My Watch: How a Renegade Whale Biologist Took on Governments and Industry to Save Wild Salmon by Alexandra Morton Toronto: Penguin Random House Canada (Vintage Canada), 2021 $35.00 / 9780735279667 Reviewed by Stephen Bocking * In the late 1980s Alexandra Morton encountered the first signs that salmon farms, newcomers to the Broughton Archipelago, were…
Read more 1199 Settler viruses & wild salmon
In Action with Destroyers 1939-1945: the Wartime Memoirs of Commander J.A.J. Dennis, DSC, RN by J.A.J. Dennis (author) and Anthony Cumming (editor) Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2017 £19.99 (U.K.) / 9781526718495 Reviewed by Michael L. Hadley * BC books and authors offer a rich palette of local and international perspectives. They…
Read more 1193 From Scapa Flow to Lord Byng
Deep and Sheltered Waters: The History of Tod Inlet by David R. Gray, with a foreword by Nancy J. Turner and Robert D. Turner Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9780772672568 Reviewed by Matthew Downey * With Deep and Sheltered Waters: The History of Tod Inlet, David Gray provides an account, both…
Read more 1192 The histories of Tod Inlet
Ten steps back to the garden: a poetic guide to recovery by Linda Rogers * A blooming branch has emerged from the dark age of lockdown for review, and as we cut the weeds growing around the stone steps into the garden, we are left to consider the moon phases we have endured, the brutal…
Read more 1163 Eleven poets from a plague year
Sisters of the Ice: The True Story of How St. Roch and North Star of Herschel Island Protected Canadian Arctic Sovereignty by R. Bruce Macdonald Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2021 $19.95 / 9781550179286 Reviewed by Hector Williams * Nearly six decades ago I worked in Canada’s North with various government agencies like the CBC Northern…
Read more 1160 Canadian arctic guardians
Heart of the Coast: Biodiversity and Resilience on the Pacific Edge by Tyee Bridge, with a foreword by Nancy Knowlton Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing, 2020 $37.99 / 9781773271156 Reviewed by John Gellard * Tyee Bridge’s Heart of the Coast, Biodiversity and Resilience on the Pacific Edge is a magnificent book — robust hard cover, excellent…
Read more 1145 Great Bear diversity & antiquity