Watershed Moments: A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District by Christine Dickinson, Deborah Griffiths, Judy Hagen, and Catherine Siba Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2015 $34.95 / 9781550177220 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published October 30, 2016 * Comox Valley writers and Courtenay Museum curators Christine Dickinson, Deborah Griffiths, Judy Hagen, and Catherine Siba have…
Read more #33 Comox Valley vignettes
The Woods: A Year on Protection Island by Amber McMillan Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2016 $19.95 / 9780889713291 Reviewed by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published October 26, 2016 * Amber McMillan is a poet from Toronto now living, happily I hope, on the Sunshine Coast. She has written a highly personal account of her disappointing year…
Read more #31 Amber McMillan learns the ropes
Bob Bouchette’s last story, 1938 by Janet Nicol First published October 21, 2016 * Long before Allan Fotheringham or Eric Nicol, Vancouver’s most popular columnist was Bob Bouchette. The prolific non-conformist Bob Bouchette wrote literally thousands of columns, usually around 700 words each, mostly for The Vancouver Sun. His six-part series on the abysmal conditions…
Read more #30 Bob Bouchette, everyman scribe
ESSAY: Across the Bright Continent: Althea Moody, Missionary and Artist in Western Canada by Jennifer Iredale First published October 21, 2016 * Missionary, linguist, educator, and artist Althea Moody (1865-1930) spent twenty years (1891-1911) teaching at the Anglican Church’s All Hallows School in Yale. This school admitted both “Indian” and “White” girls, making it exceptional…
Read more #29 Althea Moody and All Hallows
First published Oct. 19, 2016 REVIEW: I Remember Horsebuns (North Saanich: Promontory Press, 2015) $14.95 978-1-987857-25-2 by Rafe Mair Reviewed by Ron Dart More fox than hedgehog Isaiah Berlin, in his oft quoted, “The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History” (1953), took as his guiding theme a passage from Archilochus:…
Read more #28 Rafe Mair’s fox-like rambles
First published October 17, 2016 REVIEW Let Them Eat Dirt: Saving Our Children from an Oversanitized World by B. Brett Finlay and Marie-Claire Arrieta (Greystone) $19.95 reviewed by Mark Forsythe Our kids need dirt and face licks from the family dog. We live in an obsessively clean world with antibiotic soaps, cleansers, antibiotic drugs and…
Read more #27 Let them eat dirt
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
Jim Douglas called himself “just a book pedlar.” At age 15, he started in the book biz in Edinburgh delivering books to bookstores by peddling his bicycle. He became the most influential publishing presence in B.C. during the 1970s and early 1980s. Here [below], The Ormsby Review is pleased to provide an appreciation of Jim…
Read more #25 Remembering Jim Douglas
Mike Agostini: The Usain Bolt of 1954 by Glinda Sutherland * The Bannister-Landy Miracle Mile at the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver in 1954 is the subject of perhaps the most famous photo ever taken in BC, capturing that poignant moment when Landy looked over his shoulder as he was being passed by Bannister. The world’s…
Read more #24 Mike Agostini: The Usain Bolt of 1954
“I want to catch some kind of Haig-Brown essence with the halo slightly askew.” — Al Purdy, 1974 by Ron Dart Al Purdy was one of Canada’s most prolific poets and writers, but when his many published books are listed, one volume, Cougar Hunter: A Memoir of Roderick Haig-Brown, is often omitted. Cougar Hunter has…
Read more #22 Haig-Brown & Al Purdy
1973: Bumbling down the Blue Danube, and the Red Danube, with Cornelius Burke by Howard Macdonald Stewart First published in instalments, October-November 2016 * The Ormsby Review is pleased to present a memoir by Howard Stewart, born in Powell River in 1952 and a long-term resident of Denman Island. When Stewart was twenty, in 1973,…
Read more #21 Bumbling down the Danube
Arts of the Dreamer: Dane-zaa Communities Remember Charlie Yahey by Robin Ridington First published September 24, 2016 * First Nations literature, as indeed all literature, begins with oral narrative. Writing has never entirely replaced orality as a narrative genre, even in cultures that have produced written documents for millenia. For many First Nations, oral literature…
Read more #20 Master orator Charlie Yahey
ESSAY: The Reddest Rose: Trade Unionist Harvey Murphy by Ron Vurzuh First Published: September 22nd, 2016 * Harvey Murphy is not a name that echoes loudly throughout the annals of 20th-century British Columbia labour history. In fact, the tireless trade union organizer, negotiator, and active Communist Party of Canada (CPC) bureaucrat has almost disappeared from…
Read more #19 The Reddest Rose
First Published: September 19th, 2016 Ann Eriksson’s fifth novel The Performance (D&M $22.95) contrasts the worlds of elite classical piano with urban homelessness. Hana Knight, a privileged and talented young pianist, develops a tenuous friendship with Jacqueline, a homeless woman who collects empty bottles and cans to buy tickets to Hana’s concerts. Hana is blessed…
Read more #18 The pianist and the knitter
Significant B.C. literature to 1997 A list by Alan Twigg First Published: September 16th, 2016 * There is no critical study of B.C. writing to date, no critical overview; no statistics. Here then, to mark the tenth anniversary at B.C. BookWorld in 1997, here is a checklist for 200 of the most significant B.C. books…
Read more #16 Significant B.C. literature to 1997
First Published: April 27th, 2015 In 1944, Sylvia Thrupp expressed her belief that knowledge of local history is “essential for any one who professes to have a realistic approach to the political problems of the day.” Consequently UBC historian Sylvia L. Thrupp penned an article [below] in which she follows local history back to its…
Read more #15 Thruppence for your thoughts
First Published: April 08th, 2015 This story is from the book, Dead Ends: BC Crime Stories (University of Regina Press $19.95), by journalist Paul Willcocks [in photo above]. It’s part of the University of Regina Press’s Canadian True Crime Series. Each book in this series contains 40 bizarre and sensational transgressions. 978-0-88977-348-6 * The…
Read more #14 BC Crimes Stories: Train Bomb
First Published: April 08th, 2015 * Everything about Ian Thow was big. The investment adviser’s house was a $5.5-million waterfront mansion outside Victoria, with four bedrooms and seven bathrooms. There was a dock on the Saanich Inlet for his yacht, a seventeen-metre Sea Ray that would sleep six, and two smaller boats. The seven-acre property…
Read more #13 BC Crime Stories: The Big Con
First Published: February 17th, 2015 * They called him Crazy Eddie in the Okanagan Valley. Eddie Haymour complained constantly that powerful forces were conspiring against him, plotting to steal his land and his dreams, ruining his life. The provincial government, police, and bureaucrats were part of the conspiracy, he’d tell anyone who would listen. By…
Read more #12 BC Crime Stories: Rattlesnake Isl.
First Published: October 14th, 2014 Born in 1880 on a farm in Indiana, Alys McKey began flying in 1912 in Los Angeles after answering an ad: “Wanted: young lady to learn to fly for exhibition purposes.” The ad was created by Fred Bennett and John Bryant of the Bennett Aero Company. McKey became the first…
Read more #11 Pioneers: Alys McKey Bryant