In an illustrated history of the Pacific Northwest, the venerable Columbia River recalls the ups and downs of its 20-million-year lifespan. —Ron Verzuh reviews The Heart of a River, by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes (illustrated by Nichola Lytle) (Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2024) $25.00 / 9781771606998
First published Sept. 29, 2017 REVIEW: Wolf Island by Ian McAllister (photographs) and Nicholas Read (text) Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2017. $19.95 9781459812642 Reviewed by Carol Anne Shaw * Wolf Island is a picture book co-created by photographer, author, and Pacific Wild founder Ian McAllister and author and former journalist Nicholas Read. It is one…
Read more #173 Always cry wolf
Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine from Nature by Dan Jason Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017 $16.95 / 9781550177916 Reviewed by Natasha Lyons First published Sept. 13, 2017 * Reviewing a book published before you were born is an interesting historical exercise. Dan Jason’s Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging…
Read more #169 A hero in the garden
How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lakeby Shelley O’Callaghan Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2017 $24.95 / 9781987915396 Reviewed by Sabina Trimble First published June 26, 2017 * In How Deep is the Lake: A Century at Chilliwack Lake, Shelley O’Callaghan reflects on her family’s 100 years at this mountain lake 45 km….
Read more #144 One family, one lake, one century
At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoastby Caroline Fox Victoria: Rocky Mountain books, 2016$25.00 / 9781771601627 Reviewed by Sean MacPherson First published April 28, 2017 * In At Sea with the Marine Birds of the Raincoast, conservation biologist Caroline Fox crosses thousands of kilometres of open ocean to chart the distribution and long-distance…
Read more #126 Marine birds
Ecology of Salmonids in Estuaries Around the World: Adaptations, Habitats, and Conservation by Colin D. Levings Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016 $75.00 / 9780774831734 Reviewed by Bert Ionson First Published April 4, 2017 * Colin Levings’ encyclopedic treatment of how sea going salmon, trout and char make their transition from fresh to salt water (and the…
Read more #113 Why we need estuaries
Beyond Germs: Native Depopulation in North America Catherine M. Cameron, Paul Kelton, and Alan C. Swedlund (editors) Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2015 U.S. $29.95 / 9780816535545 Reviewed by Jody Decker First published March 18, 2017 * As a follow-up to Courtney Kirk’s review of Tom Swanky’s controversial The Smallpox War in Nuxalk Territory [See…
Read more #106 Devastation beyond germs
J. Fenwick Lansdowne by Tristram Lansdowne (editor) Portland, OR: Pomegranate Communications, 2014 US $65.00 / 9780764966705 Reviewed by Briony Penn First published Feb. 7, 2017 * A fixture of Victoria’s artistic, cultural, and natural communities for five decades, James Fenwick Lansdowne (1937-2008) is now the subject of a book edited by his son Tristram, featuring…
Read more #81 Portraits of Fenwick Lansdowne
Crossing Home Ground: A Grassland Odyssey through Southern Interior British Columbia by David Pitt-Brooke Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2016 $32.95 / 9781550177749 Reviewed by Harold Rhenisch First published Jan. 25, 2017 * David Pitt-Brooke — naturalist, veterinarian, and writer — walked a thousand kilometres through the grasslands of the southern interior of British Columbia, from…
Read more #79 Emptying the grasslands
The Killer Whale Who Changed the World by Mark Leiren-Young Vancouver: Greystone Books with the David Suzuki Institute, 2016 $29.95 / 9781771641937 Reviewed by Daniel Francis First published Oct. 17, 2016 * My most memorable encounter with a killer whale occurred in 1987. Newly returned home after sixteen years living in eastern Canada, I thought…
Read more #26 A whale named Moby Doll