Sailing with Vancouver: A Modern Sea Dog, Antique Charts and a Voyage Through Time by Sam McKinney Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2018 (first published 2010) $20.00 / 9781771512640 Reviewed by Brian Harvey * I once got the urge to see all the apartments and houses where the British writer Malcolm Lowry had lived during his years…
Read more #912 Now that the coast is clear
Disappearing Minglewood Blues by M.C. Warrior Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue Publishing, 2020 $19.95 / 9781896949796 Reviewed by Colin Sanders * In Disappearing Minglewood Blues, a collection of poems written over several decades, M.C. Warrior gives voice to the mostly voiceless, often nameless, persons who toiled and laboured, navigating and negotiating, or falling victim to,…
Read more #908 Hooktenders & wildcat strikes
The Runaway Bride by Jody Hedlund Grand Rapids, Michigan: Bethany House Publishers, 2020 $15.99 (U.S.) / 9780764232961 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Jody Hedlund’s book The Runaway Bride tells the story of Arabella Lawrence who arrives in Victoria in September 1862 aboard the S.S. Tynemouth. Over the years, I have conducted a great deal of…
Read more #898 Back to the brideships
Down the Road: Journeys Through Small-town British Columbia by Rosemary Neering Vancouver: Whitecap Books, 2019 (first published 1992, reprinted 2003) $22.95 / 9781770503243 Reviewed by Diana E. French * Rosemary Neering is an accomplished author who began her writing career as a travel magazine contributor. Her visits to many rural areas of British Columbia were…
Read more #897 On the road with Rosemary
Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest by Collin Varner Victoria: Heritage House, 2020 $22.95 / 9781772033236 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * A book authored by British Columbia horticulturist Collin Varner is always worthwhile. Varner’s latest publication, Edible and Medicinal Flora of the West Coast: British Columbia and…
Read more #894 Varner’s wild foods & cures
Close to the Bone by Dorothy Kirk Victoria: Vargas Publishing, 2020 $14.00 / 9781777011802 Reviewed by Rose Morrison * “I have only felt regret and longing,” writes Dorothy Kirk, “for things I never tried, or words I never spoke.” Kirk’s Close to the Bone is an account of her first year of wilderness living on…
Read more #888 Roughing it on Vargas Island
Spirits of the Coast: Orcas in Science, Art and History by Martha Black, Lorne Hammond, and Gavin Hanke (editors), with Nikki Sanchez Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum Press, 2020 $29.95 / 9780772677686 Reviewed by Daniel Francis * During the summer of 2018 an orca named Tahlequah, a member of J pod of the southern resident…
Read more #880 Celebrate the orca
Vanishing Fish: Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries by Daniel Pauly, with a foreword by Jennifer Jacquet Vancouver: Greystone, 2019 $34.95 / 9781771643986 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * …fish are in dire peril, and, if they are, then so are we. — Daniel Pauly (p. 24) In a remarkable collection of essays drawn…
Read more #857 Oceans as sustainable commons
Becoming Coastal: 25 Years of Exploration and Discovery of the British Columbia Coast by Paddle, Oar and Sail by Alex Zimmerman Cocoa Beach, Florida: Seaworthy Publications, 2020 $34.95 / 9781948494274 Distributed by Red Toque Books and available at independent bookstores Reviewed by Brian Harvey * Coastlines are elemental. They offer both access and exit, entry…
Read more #849 The BC coast by wooden boat
Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds by Yvonne Blomer (editor) Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $22.95 / 9781773860220 Reviewed by John Swanson * Sweet Water is an important and timely book, about fresh water in all its many forms — lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks and streams, wetlands, marshes, and ground water, the water under the…
Read more #833 A fresh water poetry anthology
The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers: A History of Yukon River Steam Navigation by Robert D. Turner Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 (first published by Sono Nis Press, 2015) $49.95 / 9781550178876 Reviewed by Ken Coates * The last 50 years have not been good for the preservation of the river boat heritage of the Upper…
Read more #794 Sternwheelers of the Yukon
In Nature’s Realm: Early Naturalists Explore Vancouver Island by Michael Layland Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019 $40.00 / 9781771513067 * On March 2, 2020, it was announced that Michael Layland’s book, In Nature’s Realm: Early Naturalists Explore Vancouver Island (Victoria: Touchwood Editions, 2019) had won the 2020 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for outstanding scholarly book on British…
Read more #790 Enter Douglas, Garry & Menzies
Kings of the Yukon: A River Journey in Search of the Chinook by Adam Weymouth, with a foreword by Harold R. Johnson Toronto: Penguin Random House (Knopf Canada), 2019 $21.00 / 9780345811806 Reviewed by Ken Madsen * Why would a young Brit set off on a 3,100 kilometre river trip through the Yukon Territory and…
Read more #786 From Wiltshire to Teslin Lake
Waterlogged: Examples and Procedures for Northwest Coast Archaeologists by Kathryn Bernick (editor) Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 2019 $32.95 (U.S.) / 9780874223668 Publisher’s note: Canadian residents can obtain WSU titles online via Indigo and other bookstores. Canadian bookstores can purchase WSU books through Ingram. Reviewed by Bob Muckle * Any archaeologist working in British…
Read more #777 Beyond the bias of stone
The Hot Springs Cove Story: The Beginnings of Maquinna Marine Provincial Park by Michael Kaehn Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2019 $24.95 / 9781550178609 Reviewed by Mike Starr * Ivan Clarke and his wife Mabel donated the land beside Hot Springs Cove to the Province of British Columbia to create Maquinna Provincial Park. This book, which…
Read more #764 Refuge at Hot Springs Cove
San Josef by Harold Macy New Westminster: Tidewater Press, 2019 $20.00 / 9781775165989 Reviewed by Valerie Green * Although I have lived on Vancouver Island for over forty years, I have never travelled farther north than Port Hardy. All I knew of San Josef and Cape Scott at the northern tip of the island was…
Read more #734 Destination Danish colony
Basketry from the Ozette Village Archaeological Site: A Technological, Functional, and Comparative Study. Ozette Archaeological Research Reports Volume IV. Washington State University Department of Anthropology, Reports of Investigations Number 69 by Dale R. Croes (author), Alexandra L.C. Martin (design), and Darby C. Stapp (editor) Richland, WA: Journal of Northwest Anthropology (JONA), Memoir Number 17, August…
Read more #733 Pompeii of the Northwest Coast
Return to Spinners Inlet by Don Hunter Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2019 $22.00 / 9781771513081 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Although this collection of linked short stories is set in 2019, it evoked nostalgia in this reader. I was not surprised that its prequel, Spinner’s Inlet, was published in 1989 — which at once seems like…
Read more #729 When an inlet is an island
The Flora and Fauna of Coastal British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest by Collin Varner Victoria: Heritage House Publishing, 2018 $39.95 / 9781772030914 Reviewed by Loys Maingon * As many professional biologists involved in communicating the urgency of our environmental crisis are in the habit of pointing out, possibly the best thing that one can…
Read more #728 West coast natural history tally
Three books reviewed by Graeme Wynn: The Anthropocene Disruption by Robert William Sandford Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $20.00 / 9781771603195 Anthropocene by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal, and Nicholas de Pencier; and co-edited by Sophie Hackett, Andrea Kunard, and Urs Stahel Fredericton and Toronto: Goose Lane Editions and Art Gallery of Ontario, 2018 $35.00 / 9781773100975…
Read more #723 Appraising the Anthropocene