Northern Star: J.S. Plaskett by R. Peter Broughton, with a foreword by James E. Hesser Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2018. $67.50 / 9781442630178 Reviewed by John Hutchings First published Mar. 17, 2018 * John Stanley Plaskett (1865-1941) was the founder and first director of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria. This biography is well-timed, published…
Read more #266 Pioneering stargazer J.S. Plaskett
Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi: Teachings from Long Ago Person Found by Richard J. Hebda, Sheila Greer, and Alexander Mackie (editors) Victoria: Royal British Columbia Museum, 2017 $49.95 / 9780772666994 Reviewed by Tom Koppel First published March 7, 2018 * It was back in August of 1999, in the northwest corner of British Columbia, in the traditional territory of…
Read more #261 Tatshenshini Man
The Reconciliation Manifesto: Recovering the Land, Rebuilding the Economy by Arthur Manuel and Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson, with a preface by Naomi Klein Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 2017 $22.95 / 9781459409613 Reviewed by J.R. (Jim) Miller First published March 4, 2018 * In the conversation about reconciliation that Canadians are having at the…
Read more #258 We stole it fair and square
Prime Ministerial Power in Canada: Its Origins under Macdonald, Laurier, and Borden by Patrice Dutil Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774834742 Reviewed by Barbara J. Messamore First published March 2, 2018 * Patrice Dutil seeks to lay to rest the pervasive notion that the prime minister’s office has become increasingly “presidential” in recent decades,…
Read more #257 Macdonald, Laurier, Borden
ESSAY: I’m not your man: Norman Bethune & women by Larry Hannant First published Feb. 28, 2018 * Doctor, medical innovator, propagandist, artist, political activist — Norman Bethune is nothing if not multitalented. The same complexity marks his character. The accounts of friends and acquaintances portray a man whose personality was multifaceted and contradictory, at once…
Read more #256 Bethune: I’m not your man
Surveying the Great Divide: The Alberta/BC Boundary Survey, 1913-1917 by Jay Sherwood Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $29.95 / 9781987915525 Reviewed by Robert Allen First published Feb. 25, 2018 * Retired teacher-librarian at Vanderhoof and past president of the Nechako Valley Historical Society, Jay Sherwood has provided nine indispensable – and overdue — histories and…
Read more #253 The divide of mountains and wine
First published Feb. 24, 2018. Lace Up: A History of Skates in Canada by Jean-Marie Leduc, with Sean Graham & Julie Leger Victoria: Heritage House Publishing Company, 2017. $19.95 / 9781772032277 Reviewed by David Mills * A photo near the start of Lace-Up: A History of Skates in Canada will be familiar to many Canadians….
Read more #252 We came, we saw, we skated
Fernie At War: 1914-1919 by Wayne Norton Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915495 Reviewed by W. Keith Regular First published January 21, 2018 * Works of history are matters of scale, a broad perspective over extended time (macro), or narrowly focused investigation (micro). In this age of globalism and its repudiation, as the…
Read more #236 Fernie at War
Finding John Rae by Alice Jane Hamilton Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2017 $21.95 / 9781553804819 Reviewed by Dylan Burrows First published Jan. 11, 2018 * In Finding John Rae, Alice Jane Hamilton upends the standard narrative of mid-nineteenth century Arctic exploration, focussing not on the vainglorious search for the doomed Franklin Expedition but those left in…
Read more #231 The bane of the British Admiralty
Residential Schools and Reconciliation: Canada Confronts its History by J.R. (Jim) Miller Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017. $39.95 / 9781487502188 Reviewed by Andrew Woolford First published Dec. 23, 2017 * Projects of justice and reconciliation in a national context are never straightforward affairs. Governments do not wake up one day and decide to deal…
Read more #228 Reconciliation dances & divides
First published Dec. 20, 2017. Louis Riel: Let Justice Be Done by David Doyle Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2017. $24.95 / 978-1-55380-496-3 Reviewed by Max Hamon * Few Canadians have been more misunderstood and controversial than Louis Riel. Now that Canadians are even re-assessing the reputation of our first prime minister, David Doyle’s Louis Riel: Let…
Read more #226 Rescuing Riel, revising history
Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger, with a foreword by Wade Davis and an introduction by Margaret Atwood Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2017 (first published by Western Producer Prairie Books, 1988; subsequent editions by Douglas & McIntyre, 1998, and Greystone, 2004 and 2014) $24.95 / 9781771641739 Reviewed…
Read more #223 Starvation Cove & Terror Bay
First published Dec. 7, 2017. Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska by Stephen R. Bown (D&M $34.95) tells the story of The Great Northern Expedition which resulted in the mapping of the Arctic Coast of Siberia and large parts of the North American coastline, and the…
Read more #215 Island of Blue Foxes
Essay: The Mysterious and Difficult Hermann Otto Tiedemann by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor First published November 26, 2017 * In this essay written specially for The Ormsby Review, Robert (Rob) Ratcliffe Taylor provides biography of Hermann Otto Tiedemann (1821-1891), the German-born surveyor, engineer, architect, and artist. He was one of thousands attracted to Victoria by the…
Read more #211 From Prussia to Victoria
Hallowed Ground: Stories of the Yale Pioneer Cemetery by Ian Brown Victoria: FriesenPress, 2017 $23.95 / 9781525508646 [Available at the Hope Visitor Centre and at Barry’s Trading Post in Yale.] Reviewed by Yvonne Van Ruskenveld First published Nov. 24, 2017 * If time machines ever become a reality, I’ll be first in line to travel…
Read more #210 Of strawberries & cemeteries
Edges of Empire: A Documentaryby Rhodri Jones (Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe) Vancouver: Rarebit Press, 2017$20.00 / 9780994941237 Reviewed by Julian Wake First published Nov. 23, 2017 * Born in 1946, Rhodri Windsor-Liscombe studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London and came to Canada to teach art history at McGill in 1974. He…
Read more #208 An intellectual journey
First published Nov. 24 REVIEW: Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War by Patrick M. Dennis Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. $39.95 9780774835978 Reviewed by Jim Kempling The ongoing centennial review of Canada’s involvement in the First World War continues with Reluctant Warriors: Canadian Conscripts and the Great War, by Patrick Dennis. After three years…
Read more #205 125,000 reluctant patriots
Heckman’s Canadian Pacific: A Photographic Journeyby Ralph Beaumont, foreword by John Geiger Mississauga, ON: The Credit Valley Railway Company, 2015$60.00 / 9780978440619 Reviewed by Walter Volovsek First published November 9, 2017 * The Canadian Pacific Railway’s in-house photographer Joseph William Heckman (1854-1937) worked between Nova Scotia and Vancouver Island for three decades, photographing every aspect…
Read more #199 What the Heckman
Powering Up Canada A History of Power, Fuel, and Energy from 1600 by Ruth Sandwell (editor) Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016. $37.95 / 9780773547865 Reviewed by Dan Gallacher First published Nov. 7, 2017 Years ago I likened history to a diamond. Each time it is turned in the light, another facet is revealed….
Read more #197 Power to the people
Spindrift: A Canadian Book of the Sea by Michael L. Hadley and Anita Hadley (editors), with illustrations by Matthew Wolferstan Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $36.95 / 9781771621731 Reviewed by Theo Dombrowski First published Nov. 6, 2017 * This is an anthology with something like a mission. In “Waypoints,” his foreword to this anthology, historian…
Read more #196 Batten down the anthology