First published Nov. 5, 2017 A century since Vimy and Passchendaele: Two wars, two families, one message By Howard Macdonald Stewart * For Remembrance Day 2017 we offer a moving reflection by Howard Stewart on war’s impact on his family in the twentieth century. Howard touches on the personal and emotional repercussions on the families…
Read more #195 Remembrance Day, 2017
MEMOIR: Lill’s Story: Reminiscences of a Country Schoolteacher by Lillian Emerson Edited by Mary Novik and Ned Young First published Nov. 4, 2017 * We are delighted to present these memoirs of Lillian Emerson (1913-2003), a Vancouver Island teacher in the 1930s who became the mother of award-winning novelist Mary Novik. Born in Victoria to…
Read more #194 Lill Emerson: Raincoast educator
First published November 3, 2017 Mark Bate: Nanaimo’s First Mayor by Jan Peterson Victoria: Heritage House, 2017. $19.95. / 9781772031829 Reviewed by John R. Hinde While industrialist Robert Dunsmuir has long been recognized as the most important figure in nineteenth century Nanaimo, thanks in part to Terry Reksten’s The Dunsmuir Saga (Douglas & McIntyre, 1991),…
Read more #193 Nanaimo mayor rivals Dunsmuir
First published Nov. 1, 2017 REVIEW: Longshoring on the Fraser: Stories and History of ILWU Local 502 by Chris M.V. Madsen, Liam O’Flaherty, and Michelle La Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2016. $29.95 / 9781926991832 Reviewed by Sean Cadigan * Longshoring on the Fraser tells “the story of ILWU [International Longshore and Warehouse Union] Local 502”…
Read more #192 New Westminster at work
Blaise Cendrars Speaks…by Blaise Cendrars. Edited and with an introduction by Jim Christy, translated by David J. MacKinnon Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2016$24.95 / 9781771711906First published in Paris by Denoël, 1952 and 2016 Reviewed by Serge Alternês Review first published Oct. 16, 2017 * This upcoming Remembrance Day we might recall and commemorate Blaise Cendrars (1887-…
Read more #183 Modernist poet Blaise Cendrars
Commemorating Canada: History, Heritage, and Memory, 1850s-1990sby Cecilia Morgan Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016$26.95 / 9781442610613 Reviewed by Mike Starr First published October 4, 2017 * Cecilia Morgan’s Commemorating Canada is a good place to start when examining the role of historical commemoration in Canada. The book is part of the Themes in Canadian History…
Read more #177 Monumental tasks
Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America by Paul Kane, edited and with an introduction by Kenneth Lister Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum Press, 2016 $39.99 / 9780888545077 Reviewed by Grant Keddie First published October 3, 2017 * Between November 1846 and November 1847, the Irish-Canadian artist Paul Kane (1810-1871) visited the Columbia…
Read more #175 Artist among the Songhees
Tar Wars: Oil, Environment and Alberta’s Imageby Geo Takach Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2017$34.95 / 9781772121407 Reviewed by Nichole Dusyk First published Sept. 29, 2017 * In the first pages of Tar Wars, Geo Takach of Royal Roads University repudiates his own title and coins the term “bit-sands” to refer to the three vast…
Read more #174 Lights, camera, action, debate
Beyond Mile Zero: The Vanishing Alaska Highway Lodge Community by Lily Gontard (text) and Mark Kelly (photographs) Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781550177978 Reviewed by Heather Longworth Sjoblom First published September 6, 2017 * 2017 marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the construction of the Alaska Highway through British Columbia, the Yukon, and Alaska. Throughout…
Read more #165 Alaska Highway before GPS
British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape by Ben Bradley Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774834193 Reviewed by Daniel Francis * In 2013 a septet of Canadian historians calling themselves The Past Collective published a study which contradicted the hoary old cliche that Canadians do not know…
Read more #163 When the rubber hit the road
First published August 30, 2017REVIEW: War Torn Exchanges: The Lives and Letters of Nursing Sisters Laura Holland and Mildred Forbes by Andrea McKenzie (editor). Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016. $32.95 / 9780774832540 * REVIEW: Sister Soldiers of the Great War: The Nurses of the Canadian Army Medical Corps by Cynthia Toman Vancouver: UBC Press 2016. $34.95 / 9780774832144…
Read more #162 The sisters of war
First published August 28, 2017 REVIEW: Turning Parliament Inside Out: Practical Ideas for Reforming Canada’s Democracy by Michael Chong, Scott Simms, and Kennedy Stewart (editors) Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017. $22.95 / 978-1-77162-137-3 Reviewed by Hamish Telford * By comparison, the current political climate in the United States makes Canada look like Nirvana, but…
Read more #160 Keeping parliament current
REVIEW: Surviving Logan by Erik Bjarnason and Cathi Shaw Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, $28 2016 / 9781771601924 Reviewed by PearlAnn Reichwein First published August 16, 2017 * In Surviving Logan, Erik Bjarnason of North Vancouver and his cousin Cathi Shaw of Summerland have joined with Rocky Mountain Books to produce what reviewer PearlAnn Reichwein calls…
Read more #156 Frostbitten on Canada’s Everest
First published July 11, 2017 REVIEW: From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon in World War I. by Michael Gates Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017. $24.95 / 978-1-55017-776-3 Reviewed by Jim Wood The outpouring of centenary books about aspects of Canada’s involvement in the Great War, 1914-1918, continues with From the Klondike to Berlin: The Yukon…
Read more #149 From Yukon to the Western Front
Light Within the Shadows: A Painter’s Memoir by Pnina Granirer Vancouver: Granville Island Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781926997849 Reviewed by Janet Mary Nicol First published June 29, 2017 * Pnina Granirer was creative from an early age, but she didn’t come in to her own artistically until the “third act” of her life journey. This…
Read more #145 Pnina’s three lives
Abenaki Daring: The Life and Writings of Noel Annance, 1792-1869 by Jean Barman Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2016 $45.95 / 9780773547926 Reviewed by Michel Bouchard First published June 21, 2017 * Too often, scholars must do their best to distill the thoughts and narratives of the destitute, downtrodden, or the illiterate through the…
Read more #141 Retrieving Noel from obscurity
The Promise of Paradise: Utopian Communities in British Columbia by Andrew Scott Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $24.95 / 9781550177718 Reviewed by Keith Norbury First published June 15, 2017 * Five centuries ago, when Thomas More conceived of a fictional perfect society, he named it Utopia, from a Greek word meaning “nowhere.” Three-and-half centuries later,…
Read more #139 Perfection is hard work
The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967 by Tom Hawthorn Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2017 $26.95 / 9781771621502 Reviewed by Forrest D. Pass First published May 27, 2017 * Tom Hawthorn collects groovy images of 1967 and recreates Canada’s centennial zeitgeist in The Year Canadians Lost Their…
Read more #131 The last great centennial
Fred Herzog: Modern Color texts by David Campany, Hans-Michael Koetzle, Jeff Wall Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2016 €38.00 / 9783775741811 Reviewed by Bill Jeffries First published May 22, 2017 * Fred Herzog, who is 87 years old in 2017, had to wait until 2011 for a substantial book (Fred Herzog Photographs, Douglas & McIntyre) illustrating…
Read more #128 Fred Herzog’s genius
Postcards from unknown soldierby Sandi Ratch First published May 2, 2017 * Faced with a handful of family postcards signed only by “Dick,” Sandi Ratch gave herself a detective quest: to identify the messenger who had gone to continental Europe to fight in World War I. In this Ormsby exclusive, Sandi Ratch relates the specifics…
Read more #127 Postcards from unknown soldier