“The title of the book, Reconciling, demonstrates the ongoing process of reconciliation and meaning of Larry’s journey through life. The book opens with a description by co-author Scott Steedman of Larry Grant, ‘…a short, weathered man of eighty-five years… an Elder of both the Vancouver Chinese community and the Musqueam Indian Band.’ Steedman asked Larry if he was interested in writing his life story one day. It took eight years, starting in 2017.” Kenneth Favrholdt reviews Reconciling: A Lifelong Struggle to Belong, by Larry Grant, in conversation with Scott Steedman (Toronto: ECW Press, 2025) $26.95 / 9781770417984
“Nancy J. Turner has spent a career working with Indigenous teachers who have shared their traditional knowledge with her, but as she tells The British Columbia Review, not all is shared, some is private, but one thing is clear: that she is grateful for the teachings.” Trevor Marc Hughes presents an interview segment with ethnobotanist and author Nancy J. Turner.
Poems with ‘immediacy, tactility, and general imaginative freshness’…
Christopher Levenson reviews Crushed Wild Mint, by Jess Housty (Gibsons: Nightwood Editions, 2023) $19.95 / 9780889714502
Ice Ghosts: The Epic Hunt for the Lost Franklin Expedition by Paul Watson Toronto: Penguin Random House (McClelland & Stewart), 2017 $34.95 / 9780771096525 Reviewed by Walter O. Volovsek First published May 17, 2018 * Based in Coquitlam, B.C., the remarkable Paul Watson–not to confused with that Sea Shepherd captain also named Paul Watson who… Read more #305 Finding the Erebus and Terror
Seaweed under Fire by Stanley Evans Victoria: Ekstasis Editions, 2017. $25.95 / 9781771711920 Reviewed by Phyllis Reeve First published May 6, 2018 * A hiker and his dog find a corpse in Beacon Hill Park. Two cops find another corpse in an Italian restaurant. Before long our provincial capital is littered with more dead bodies… Read more #299 The tough love of Seaweed
Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro by Sarah Cox, foreword by Alex Neve Vancouver: UBC Press (On Point Press), 2018 $24.95 / 9780774890267 Review by John Gellard First published April 21, 2018 * From UBC Press’s new On Point Press, which aims to “introduce a broad audience… Read more #291 Disturbing: the Peace
Explorers of the Maritime Pacific Northwest: Mapping the World through Primary Documents by William L. Lang and James V. Walker Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016 $108.00 (U.S.) / 9781610699259 Reviewed by David Brownstein First published April 12, 2018 * Unless you are an aspiring armchair sea captain, Explorers of the Maritime Pacific Northwest is a… Read more #285 Mapping first contacts
From Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980-2010 by Tomson Highway Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2017 $29.95 / 9781772011166 Reviewed by Deanna Reder First published March 30, 2018 * Eminent Cree author Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written, released by Talonbooks in 2017, is beautifully flawed, inspiring the reader with tremendous lists of… Read more #277 The new turf of Indigenous Lit
Alan Fry (1931-2018) An obituary by Alan Twigg First published March 30, 2018 * Whistleblowers are seldom cited as heroes—especially those who can be dismissed as crackpot racists. The importance of Federal Indian Agent Alan Fry’s first novel and second book, How a People Die (Doubleday 1970; Harbour 1994), has therefore gradually been glossed over,… Read more #276 Alan Fry (1931-2018)
Settler Anxiety at the Outposts of Empire: Colonial Relations, Humanitarian Discourses, and the Imperial Press by Kenton Storey Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016 $34.95 / 9780774829489 Reviewed by Cole Harris * Kenton Storey’s book is a bold, dense analysis of the interplay in New Zealand and Vancouver Island in the 1850s and early 1860s of settler… Read more #273 A tale of two colonies
Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History by Neil J. Sterritt Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2016 $29.95 / 9781928195023 Reviewed by Dorothy Kennedy First published March 24, 2018 * Mapping My Way Home tells the story of Gitxsan elder, geologist, and politician Neil Sterritt, who served as president of the Gitxsan-Wet’suwet’en Tribal Council in the 1980s…. Read more #272 Beyond McEachern’s folly
The Last House at Bridge River: The Archaeology of an Aboriginal Household in British Columbia During the Fur Trade Period by Anna Marie Prentiss (editor) Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2017 $59.00 (U.S) / 9781607815433 Reviewed by Bob Muckle First published March 9, 2018 * Editor’s note: While the coastal Indigenous people of… Read more #262 Lillooet pithouses revisited
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
Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 Stsq̓ey̓s-kucw by Marianne Ignace and Ronald Ignace Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2017 $39.95 / 9780773551305 Reviewed by Sarah A. Nickel First published March 5, 2018 * Secwépemc People, Land, and Laws: Yerí7 Stsq̓ey̓s-kucw (McGill-Queen’s University Press), by Marianne Ignace and Ronald Ignace, is a long-awaited study of… Read more #259 Celebrate Secwépemc Shuswap
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
Journey to Kaho’olaweby Hans Winkler and Cease Wyss (T’uy’t’tanat) Vancouver: Grunt Gallery, 2017$20.00 / 9781988708027 Reviewed by Chris Arnett First published Feb. 13, 2018 * Stories of BC-Hawaiian connections have a certain allure to those of us in the temperate rainforest in that by some past association we may have something in common – and… Read more #248 Kaho’olawe; 8th Hawaiian island
First published Jan. 29, 2018. Whale in the Door: A Community Unites To Protect BC’s Howe Sound by Pauline Le Bel Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017. $24.95 / 9781987915488 Reviewed by Cherie Thiessen Mink and his sister, Skunk, gave a big potlatch on Gambier Island in Howe Sound. All the animals from around the area… Read more #241 Howe Sound advice
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
