Welcome Trevor and Brett by Richard Mackie * On behalf of the Board of the Ormsby Literary Society and our Advisory Board I’d like to welcome Trevor Marc Hughes and Brett Josef Grubisic as interim editors of The British Columbia Review for the year May 1, 2023 to May 1, 2024. The position was made possible…
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Announcing the BC Review interview series by Richard Mackie * In November 2022, at the most recent board meeting of the Ormsby Literary Society, the chair, Byron Sheardown, suggested that we open a YouTube channel and start an interview series. Board member Trevor Marc Hughes jumped at the suggestion. “I’ve got filmmaking experience,” he said,…
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ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Three: Letters, 1887 by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 3 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the Introduction, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2….
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ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter Two: Push and Pull: Tommy Norbury and Emigration by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 2 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada. Earlier in 2021 we published the…
Read more 1104 The call of the East Kootenay
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Frederick Paget Norbury, Chapter One: The Historical Background: The East Kootenay in the late Nineteenth Century by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: we are pleased to present Chapter 1 of Brenda Callaghan’s hitherto unpublished biography, Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada, the introduction…
Read more 1040 An East Kootenay setting
ORMSBY REVIEW PRESS: Introduction to Frederick Paget Norbury, Remittance Man or Gentleman Immigrant? The Story of an Englishman in Canada by Brenda Callaghan * Editor’s note: We are pleased to present the first instalment of the late Brenda Callaghan’s biography and selected correspondence of East Kootenay settler Frederick Paget Norbury (1867-1940). In 1887, Norbury became…
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Alice Ravenhill: Never Say Die by Mary Leah de Zwart * Foreword: (below) CHAPTER ONE: A Visit from Francis CHAPTER TWO: Offering Service to Canada (1910-1926) CHAPTER THREE: Sixty-seven Years Old and What Next? CHAPTER FOUR: The Tale Behind the Tale CHAPTER FIVE: Meeting Mr. Coyote CHAPTER SIX: Getting it all Done CHAPTER SEVEN: The…
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A Visit from Francis [1] Alice Ravenhill collected her going-out items from the room she shared with her sister Edith at the Windermere Hotel on McLure Street in Victoria. It was 9 a.m. on August 7, 1940, and downstairs waited a twenty-year old art prodigy, Francis Jim Baptiste, just in from the Inkameep Reserve near…
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Offering Service to Canada (1910-1926) The Shawnigan Lake community that Alice and Edith Ravenhill saw in November of 1910 combined British gentility and rough-and-ready logging. It had sprung from Sir John A. Macdonald’s promise to Vancouver Islanders to create a rail line from sea to sea.[1] The coal baron Robert Dunsmuir was hired to build…
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Sixty-Seven Years Old and What Next? As some of Alice Ravenhill’s critics have noticed, she had little previous knowledge in Indigenous arts and crafts or ethnology prior to 1926. After returning ill and defeated to Canada in 1919, Ravenhill had gradually disengaged herself from home economics education, except for the occasional foray into writing letters…
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The Tale Behind the Tale The lounge of the Windermere Hotel was busy on the evening of December 27, 1939. Few people seemed to notice that there was a three-month old war on in Europe. Alice Ravenhill smoothed down her best black taffeta dress and adjusted the lacey white jabot around her neck. At the…
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Meeting Mr. Coyote “Oh good, it’s Friday” Clarence Walkem[1] said to his best friend, Oliver Stewart. It had been a long week at St. George’s Indian Residential School. “What’re you going to draw today? “I liked those bucking horses we did last week,” Oliver said. Then he stopped a minute. “How come we only get…
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Getting It All Done The summons came just after lunchtime on August 23, 1941. “Miss Ravenhill” the anxious voice of Betty Newton sounded through the door of her room at the Windermere Hotel, “Dr. McGill, Major McKay and Mr. Moore are downstairs waiting for you.” Alice Ravenhill’s mind raced. Even though she had asked for…
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The Last Ten Years The view out the corner window of the Aged and Infirm Old Women’s Home at 857 McClure Street in downtown Victoria let Alice Ravenhill keep track of everyone coming and going. Compared to most of the residents she and her sister Edith were quite lively, she thought, momentarily forgetting that she…
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What’s It All About? What have we learned about Alice Ravenhill? How was she shaped by her family background and life circumstances? How did she change her outlook over her lifetime? What is her legacy? To begin with, Alice Ravenhill needs to be viewed as a product of her times, born into the rising middle…
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