The Birdcages: British Columbia’s First Legislative Buildings, 1859-1957 by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor Victoria: FriesenPress, 2020 $16.99 / 9781525547041 Reviewed by Martin Segger * This handsome, generously illustrated volume is essentially the biography of a building. Building biographies, multi-disciplinary by nature and ranging across the architectural, social , and cultural historical genres, are all too rare…
Read more #807 North Pacific Imperial Gothic
Perseverance: The Life of William Fernie, the Man Who Caught Billy Miner by Ron Hatch Kamloops: Thompson Rivers History and Historical Society, 2019 $24.95 / 9780991689910 Available by email from trhhs2012@gmail.com, from Kamloops Chapters, and from Amazon.ca Reviewed by Wayne Norton * Bill Miner attracts a remarkable amount of interest from students of Kamloops history….
Read more #806 The Empire strikes back
Popular Day Hikes: Northern Okanagan, Vernon Shuswap Lumby by Gerry Shea Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 (revised and updated; first published 2013) $20.00 / 9781771602457 * Popular Day Hikes: South-Central Okanagan, Kelowna Penticton Oliver by Gerry Shea Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 (revised and updated; first published 2015) $20.00 / 9781771602778 Both books reviewed by…
Read more #805 Hiking the Okanagan Valley
How She Read by Chantal Gibson Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2019 $20.00 / 9781987915969 Reviewed by Renée Sarojini Saklikar * On March 12, 2020, Chantal Gibson’s How She Read was shortlisted for both the 2020 Dorothy Livesay and Jim Deva prizes of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes. Winners will be announced on September 19th. As…
Read more #804 Gibson’s poetic pyrotechnics
Re-Origin of Species by Alessandra Naccarato Toronto: Book*hug Press, 2019 $18.00 / 9781771665421 Reviewed by John Swanson * What does poetry do to work its magic? It relates knowledge of the world as we acquire it from science and by other means, with ancient knowing of a more mysterious kind: the forces at work in…
Read more #803 Species survival and adaptation
Lowering Simon Fraser by Maddie Leach (concept and editing) and Michael Kluckner (drawings and interpretation) Vancouver: Contemporary Art Gallery, 2019 [catalogue; no price] / 9781989503027 Lowering Simon Fraser (the catalogue) is available from the shop at the Contemporary Art Gallery Reviewed by Forrest Pass * 1908 should have been a bumper year for commemorations in…
Read more #802 Cutting Simon Fraser down to size
Welcome to Ormsby Street by Richard Somerset Mackie * In September 2016, in his Welcome to the Ormsby Review, Richard Mackie provided his memories of Margaret Ormsby (1909-1996), the B.C. historian after whom The Ormsby Review is named. He referenced their conversations in two fine old living rooms in the Coldstream Valley, near Vernon, where…
Read more #801 Welcome to Ormsby Street
Dual Citizens by Alix Ohlin Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2019 $22.95 / 9781487004866 Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy * Sororal bonds are complex: a pair of sisters may know each other better than anyone else does; they may see themselves reflected in the other to the extent that they expect the sister to think and…
Read more #800 Prisms of sisterhood
The Trials of Albert Stroebel: Love, Murder and Justice at the End of the Frontier by Chad Reimer Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2020 $24.95 / 9781773860206 Reviewed by Kathryn Neilson * The Trials of Albert Stroebel chronicles the 1893 murder of John Marshall, a farmer on the Sumas prairie, and its consequences for his one-time…
Read more #799 Murder at the Sumas settlement
Epistle to the Pope: Memoir and Survivor-Impact Statement from a Shipwrecked Orphan by Dharel Verville Victoria: FriesenPress Publishing, 2020 [price unknown] / 9781525554292 Reviewed by Constance Brissenden * Epistle to the Pope is the memoir of a seeker, a classical pianist, and a sometimes drug dealer and addict. Author Daryl Verville, known by his pen…
Read more #798 Shipwrecks, orphans, pianos
Clinging to Bone by Garry Gottfriedson Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2019 $17.95 / 9781553805625 Reviewed by Heather Simeney MacLeod * Garry Gottfriedson is from the Secwépemc (previously Shuswap) Nation. He was born, raised and continues to reside in Kamloops. He studied under Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, and Marianne Faithful at the distinguished Naropa Institute in Boulder,…
Read more #797 Secwépemc land and language
Rainy Lake House: Twilight of Empire on the Northern Frontier by Theodore Catton Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017 $32.95 (U.S.) / 9781421422923 Reviewed by Sarah Carter * The pandemic crisis descends as I write this review and my first thought is that this book will be a welcome diversion from the anxieties and upheavals…
Read more #796 John McLoughlin of Rainy Lake
Outside, America by Sarah de Leeuw Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2019 $18.95 / 9780889713543 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * Good poetry derives from the confluence of at least two abilities: a mastery of the full resources of the medium, language, and an unusual angle or perspective on the poem’s subject matter. All good poets achieve their…
Read more #795 Choosing a seat on a plane
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
Forty Fathers: Men Talk About Parenting by Tessa Lloyd, with a foreword by Peter Mansbridge Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019 $34.95 / 9781771622431 Reviewed by Trevor Marc Hughes * From Peter Mansbridge’s foreword to Tessa Lloyd’s Forty Fathers: Men Talk About Parenting, it’s clear that this iconic CBC figure regretted not having spent more…
Read more #793 Sons, fathers, and fatherhood
Indigenous Relations: Insights, Tips & Suggestions to Make Reconciliation a Reality by Bob Joseph with Cynthia F. Joseph Vancouver: Page Two Books, 2019, distributed by Raincoast Books $19.95 / 9781989025642 Reviewed by David Milward * What does Indigenous reconciliation in Canada mean? Almost five years have elapsed since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada…
Read more #792 Fine words butter no parsnips
In Search of Al Howie by Jared Beasley Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2019 $25.00 / 9781771603386 Reviewed by Timothy Lewis * The old adage tells us not to judge a book by its cover, but in the case of Jared Beasley’s In Search of Al Howie, one learns much from that practice. The reader’s eye…
Read more #791 The incomparable Al Howie
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
INTERVIEW: Tom Wayman with Nathaniel G. Moore * In a future issue of The Ormsby Review, Emma Rhodes will review Tom Wayman’s new book of poems, Watching a Man Break a Dog’s Back: Poems for a Dark Time (Harbour: 2020), and as an appetizer we present an interview with Wayman by Nathaniel G. Moore –…
Read more #789 Protest, empathy, mourning
MEMOIR: The year of the bicycle, 1973: North American backroads at the end of the Indochina War by Howard Macdonald Stewart * Here, for the vicarious pleasure of the many COVID-19 shut-in readers of The Ormsby Review who are unable to travel, is a memoir of an ambitious bicycle journey taken in 1973 by Howard…
Read more #788 The year of the bicycle: 1973