From Wah Lee to Chew Keen: The Story of a Pioneer Chinese Family in North Cariboo by Liping Wong Yip Victoria: FriesenPress Publishers, 2017 $17.49 / 9781460294307 Reviewed by Tzu-I Chung * In 1917, Wah Lee and his third wife, Mon Ho, boarded the Empress of Russia in Hong Kong, bound for British Columbia. They…
Read more #390 From Xinhuixian to Quesnel
Amber River: A Guide to Unique Pubs of Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea by Glen Cowley Surrey: Hancock House, 2018 $24.95 / 9780888390752 Reviewed by Ian J.M. Kennedy * I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of Amber River: A Guide to Unique Pubs of Vancouver Island and the Salish Sea…
Read more #389 A porous potpourri of 85 pubs
Indian Fishing: Early Methods on the Northwest Coast by Hilary Stewart, foreword by Michael Kew Madeira Park: Douglas & McIntyre, 2018 (first published by J.J. Douglas, 1977) $28.95 / 9781771621854 Reviewed by Dana Lepofsky First published Sept. 30, 2018 * Editor’s Note: Born in Saint Lucia in the West Indies in 1924, Hilary Majendie Stewart…
Read more #388 Indian fishing revived
Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Authorized Biography by Andrea Warner, foreword by Joni Mitchell Vancouver: Greystone Books 2018 $36.00 / 9781771643580 Reviewed by Jo-Anne Fiske First published Sept. 29, 2018 * Envision a young woman, naïve and conservative in 1965. She sat proudly in her undergraduate history class as the professor led discussion on the fifty-year commemoration…
Read more #387 Up where she belongs
Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation by Claire Sicherman Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $22.95 / 9781987915570 Reviewed by Mark Dwor First published Sept. 28, 2018 * Claire Sicherman opens Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation with this dedication: My maternal grandparents were survivors of the Holocaust and I…
Read more #386 All my generations
Those Born at Koona: The Totem Poles of the Haida Village Skedans, Haida Gwaii by Carolyn and John Smyly Surrey: Hancock House, 2018 (first published 1973) $29.95 / 9780888391018 Reviewed by Dan Savard First published Sept. 27, 2018 * In 1957, John Smyly (1924-2002) was hired as carpenter by the Provincial Museum of British Columbia…
Read more #385 The carpenter of Koona
Family Walks and Hikes of Vancouver Island — Volume 1: Victoria to Nanaimo by Theo Dombrowski Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771602792 * Family Walks and Hikes of Vancouver Island — Volume 2: Nanaimo North to Strathcona Park by Theo Dombrowski Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018 $20.00 / 9781771602815 Reviewed by Christian Fink-Jensen…
Read more #384 Island hiking: all in the family
First published Sept. 24, 2018. Changemakers: Embracing Hope, Taking Action, and Transforming the World by Fay Weller and Mary Wilson Gabriola Island: New Society, 2018 $17.99 / 9780865718753 Reviewed by Sandi Ratch * Fay Weller and Mary Wilson of Gabriola Island have teamed up to present Changemakers: Embracing Hope, Taking Action, and Transforming the World, a…
Read more #383 Sea change on Gabriola
First published Sept. 23, 2018. Aboriginal Peoples and the Law: A Critical Introduction by Jim Reynolds Vancouver: UBC Press, 2018 (Purich Books) $29.95 / 9780774880213 Reviewed by Neil Vallance * “Much of Canadian Aboriginal law has evolved from cases originating in the Province of British Columbia,” notes reviewer Neil Vallance. Among the leading B.C. cases…
Read more #382 An Aboriginal body of law
Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada by Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018 $34.95 / 9780773552821 Reviewed by Larry Hannant First published Sept. 22, 2018 * Christabelle Sethna of the University of Ottawa and Steve Hewitt of the University of Birmingham,…
Read more #381 Clandestine Mountie bounty
Provoked by Gilgamesh: The Search for a Way Around Death by Gilmour Walker Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2018 $18.95 / 9781553805205 Reviewed by Peter Babiak First published Sept. 21, 2018 * Inspired by the Epic of Gilgamesh, Victoria’s Gilmour Walker (a pseudonym) tells how, in his forties, he left his seaside home in Nova Scotia on…
Read more #380 Road trip with Gilgamesh
The Bridge from Day to Night by David Zieroth Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2018 $18.95 / 9781550178357 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson First published Sept. 20, 2018 * Born in 1946, North Vancouver’s David Dale Zieroth grew up on his parents’ farm at Neepawa, Manitoba, an upbringing that has provided ample fodder for his career as…
Read more #379 Zieroth’s Prairie childhood
The Age of Walter Gage: How One Canadian Shaped the Lives of Thousands by Shelley Fralic [Vancouver]: The Friends of Walter Gage, 2018 $24.99 / 9780994932938 Reviewed by Sheldon Goldfarb First published Sept. 17, 2018 * People familiar with UBC will know the Walter Gage Towers near the heart of the campus, three 17-storey student…
Read more #378 Love affair with UBC
Obstruction of Justice: The Search for Truth on Canada’s Highway of Tears by Ray Michalko Markham, ON: Red Deer Press, 2016 $19.95 / 9780889955455 Reviewed by Bonnie Reilly Schmidt First published Sept. 17, 2017 * For ten years, ex-Mountie Ray Michalko investigated the fate of the missing or murdered women and girls on B.C.’s infamous…
Read more #377 Truth for the Highway of Tears
Fat Cats by George Mercer North Saanich: George Mercer, 2018 $19.99 / 9780987975461 Reviewed by Ron Dart First published Sept. 17, 2018 * Born in Gander, Newfoundland, George Mercer worked for 35 years as a park warden, starting in 1979 at Newfoundland’s Terra Nova National Park and ending in 2012 as monitoring ecologist at the…
Read more #376 Gulf Islands parks and predators
Dear Evelyn by Kathy Page Windsor, ON: Biblioasis, 2018 $19.95 / 9781771962094 Reviewed by Paul Headrick * Editor’s note: Dear Evelyn was awarded the 2019 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize, fiction category and won the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust fiction prize. It was also a 2018 Kirkus best book of the year; a Globe and…
Read more #366 Evelyn, Harry, and the sick rose
First published Sept. 4, 2018. Narrow Bridge by Barbara Pelman Vancouver: Ronsdale Press 2017 $15.95 / 9781553805083 Reviewed by Christopher Levenson * New from Victoria poet is Narrow Bridge, a collection that Christopher Levenson finds “humane, honest, well-crafted, and keenly aware of the outside world.” Pelman takes the reader on a walkabout to Italy, Portugal, Sweden, and…
Read more #365 The texture of daily living
First published Sept. 3, 2018. Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada by Lloyd L. Wong (editor) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017 $34.95 / 9780774833806 Reviewed by Jennifer Lau * Jennifer Lau considers Lloyd Wong’s Trans-Pacific Mobilities: The Chinese and Canada, a collection of scholarly essays tracing the migration of people, ideas, and goods across the Pacific. Lau…
Read more #364 Chinese migration and mobility
Smith House II by Michael Prokopow, with photography by Michael Perlmutter and a foreword by Douglas Coupland Novato, California: ORO Editions, 2018 $24.95 (U.S.) / 9781940743387 Reviewed by Harold Kalman First published Sept. 2, 2018 * Historian of architecture Hal Kalman appreciates Michael Prokopow’s Smith House II, the biography of a house in West Vancouver designed…
Read more #363 An Erickson-Massey masterpiece
First published Sept. 1, 2018. The Night the Forest Came to Town by Charles Ghigna, illustrated by Annie Wilkinson Victoria: Orca Books, 2018 $19.95 / 9781459816503 Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw * Nature reclaims and transforms a city in Charles Gigna’s The Night the Forest Came to Town, illustrated by Annie Wilkinson. Carol Anne Shaw notes…
Read more #362 City night magic