WHO’S WHO 38 • YOUR FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS BC BOOKWORLD

VOL. 32 • NO. 1 • SPRING 2018

GEORGEGEORGE ORWELLORWELL predicted Big Brother, alternative facts, and Donald Trump.

SEE PAGE 8

MUD GIRLS

TWENTY EIGHTEEN

GEORGE ORWELL

A DIY solution to housing.

PAGE 20

Twitter-free

Travis Lupick Rachel Rose Geoff Meggs The story of the 151 local and The Fraser River firstfirst supervisedsupervised global tidbits salmon strikes injectioninjection site.site. and recipes. of 1900.

PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT PAGE 15 PAGE 28 PAGE 21 #40010086 VITUS BERING’S DOOMED VOYAGE 24 • PATRICK LANE’S RURAL NOIR 32 JOIN US 15th May 11th - 13th, 2018 Anniversary Prestige Harbourfront Resort Salmon Arm, BC Presenters: Michael Slade Whatever level of Jack Whyte writer you may be, Jacqueline Guest you’ll want to be part of Grant Lawrence this inspiring weekend C. C. Humphreys on the shores of Sheri-D Wilson spectacular Ian Weir Shuswap Lake Howard White (Harbour Publishing) James Murray Expect to be Patricia Donahue encouraged, Victor Anthony informed and Check website for updates thoroughly entertained.

on the Lake Writers’ Festival

Find out what these published authors and industry professionals can do for you. Register at: www.wordonthelakewritersfestival.com

2 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 PEOPLE * Sladen Peltier (far left) TOPSELLERS as young Saul, upon arriving at a residential school in Indian Horse.

Andrew Struthers BCThe Sacred Herb / The Devil’s Weed (New Star $19) Tomson Highway From Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980-2010 (Talonbooks $29.95)

Rachel Rose, editor Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food (Anvil Press $25) A VERY DIFFERENT HOCKEY STORY Indian Horse Jillian Richard Wagamese’s becomes a film Roberts CCORDING TO STATISTICS COMPILED BY BOOKMANAGER Kapashesit who, along with Forrest Goodluck (The Rev- from weekly stats obtained from 230 Ca- enant), portray Saul Indian Horse, during three stages of his nadian independent stores, the bestselling life—including his budding potential as a gifted hockey play- Dr. Jillian Roberts Canadian non-fiction title of 2017 was the er. Also featuring Michiel Huisman and Michael Murphy, On Our Street: late Richard Wagamese’s Embers: One the production highlights newcomer Edna Manitouwabe, Our First Talk about Poverty A Ojibway’s Meditations (D&M $18.95), the herself a residential school survivor, as Saul’s indomitable (Orca Books $19.95) most personal book from a self-described “spiritual bad-ass.” grandmother. Lisa Anne Smith In it the B.C.-based author describes finding lessons in In late 1950s Ontario, Saul is denied the freedom to speak Emily Patterson: both the mundane and sublime, drawing his language or embrace his heritage. The Heroic Life of a Milltown Nurse (Ronsdale Press $21.95) inspiration from working in the bush — While witnessing abuse, he finds tem- sawing and cutting and stacking wood porary salvation in playing hockey. He Angela Crocker for winter as well as the smudge cer- makes it from a Northern Ontario native The Content Planner: emony to bring him closer to the Creator. league to the pros, but he succumbs to A Complete Guide to Organize and Share Your Ideas Online “Life sometimes is hard,” he wrote. painful memories that haunt him. The (Self-Counsel Press $22.95) “There are challenges. There are difficul- script is by Vancouver playwright and Emily Wight ties. There is pain. As a younger man author Dennis Foon. One of the execu- Dutch Feast I sought to avoid them and only ever tive producers is Clint Eastwood. (Arsenal Pulp Press $32.95) caused myself more of the same. These Indian Horse, the novel, won the days I choose to face life head on—and Canada Reads People’s Choice award Shelley Adams I have become a comet. I arc across the and was shortlisted for the International Whitewater Cooks: More Beautiful Food sky of my life and the harder times are IMPAC DUBLIN Literary Award. (Sandhill Book Marketing $34.95) the friction that lets the worn and tired ✫ bits drop away. It’s a good way to travel; RICHARD WAGAMESE WAS BORN IN MINAKI, Lindsey Schiller eventually I will wear away all resistance Ontario, on October 14, 1955 and grew with Marc Plinke until all there is left of me is light. I can up in fifteen foster homes. He and three The Year-Round Solar Greenhouse: live towards that end.” siblings were once abandoned by adults How to Design and Build a Knight’s streets Net-Zero Energy Greenhouse Meanwhile the feature film version on a binge drinking trip in Kenora and (New Society $29.99) of Indian Horse (D&M $21.95), based ffordability has always been later ran out of food. He was re-united Robert Falls on Wagamese’s award-winning novel, is a housing issue in Vancou- with birth family members in his early slated to open in theatres across Canada twenties. As a self-described “second- Carbon Play: Aver. Having guided the 40th on April 13, according to Elevation Pic- The Candid Observations anniversary anthology for Room generation survivor of the residential of a Carbon Pioneer tures. Directed by Stephen Campanelli, school system” that had adversely af- magazine into print, editor Chelene (Rocky Mountain Books $22) it has already received favourable at- fected the lives of his parents and other Knight is releasing her second book, tention at film festivals in Vancouver, family members, Wagamese partially Dear Current Occupant (BookThug Calgary, Edmonton and Sudbury. The overcame alcoholism and PTSD to attain $20), recalling the twenty houses in producers are Christine Haebler, Trish national acclaim. East Vancouver in which she lived Dolman and Paula Devonshire. Also known as Richard Gilkinson, with her mother and brother while Recounting the journey to manhood Wagamese had “a criminal history with of Saul Indian Horse who, as a northern growing up as mixed East Indian/ more than 50 convictions dating back Ojibway child was removed from his par- Black child and teen. Now by peering to the 1970s,” including numerous ents and placed in Catholic residential through windows into remembered alcohol-related driving convictions, ac- schools, Indian Horse, the movie, has spaces, she has produced a series cording to the Kamloops News. But he Claire of letters addressed to current oc- Sicherman resulted in a tie-in edition of the 2012 persevered and gained widespread ac- novel to be released simultaneously. cupants to deconstruct her past. ceptance, forming a 25-year friendship Claire Sicherman “Making Indian Horse changed my life,” Literary star on the rise Carleigh with Shelagh Rogers, host of CBC’s The Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma says Campanelli, “and hopefully it will Baker calls it a love song to East Next Chapter, and earning several presti- in the Third Generation change many others.” Vancouver and a map of scars, “and, gious awards. With thirteen books under (Caitlin Press $22.95) Shot on location in Sudbury and as everyone knows, scars make for his belt, he was nominated for the Ethel Mike Spencer Bown Peterborough, Ontario, the movie stars good storytelling.” 781771663908 Wilson Fiction Prize one week prior to his The World’s Most Travelled Man: A newcomers Sladen Peltier and Ajuawak death in Kamloops on March 10, 2017. Twenty-Three-Year Odyssey to and through Every Country on the Planet (D&M $29.95) Publication Mail Agreement Contributors: John Moore, Joan Givner, #40010086 Mark Forsythe, Alex Van Tol, David Conn, Return undeliverable Cherie Thiessen, Jeremy Twigg, Roy Henry Vickers BC Canadian addresses to: Caroline Woodward. We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since & Robert Budd BOOKWORLD Vancouver, BC, Canada V6R 2S3 Hello Humpback! Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. (Harbour $9.95) Spring 2018 Produced with the sponsorship of Consultants: Pacific BookWorld News Society. Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson Volume 32 • Number 1 Publications Mail Photographers: Tony Penikett Registration No. 7800. Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk Hunting the Northern Character Publisher/Writer: BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 In-Kind Supporters: Simon Fraser University Library; Proofreaders: (UBC Press $34.95) Alan Twigg Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library. Advertising & editorial: Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Editor/Production: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6R 2S3 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix * The current topselling titles from major David Lester Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Associate Editor: Email: [email protected] All BC BookWorld reviews are posted at We acknowledge the financial support of the Government Beverly Cramp Annual subscription: $25 www.abcbookworld.com of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage

3 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 “Nourish the sense of wonder.” —Kirkus Reviews

my Great Bear rainforest books by Ian mcallister & nicholas read

“The story is really told by “Visually spectacular.” the big, bright pictures — Canadian Children’s which glow with the Book News rhythms and beauties of this remote habitat... “A captivating and Enthralling fare for intimately photographed budding naturalists.” look at the lives of —Kirkus Reviews wild bears.” —Publishers Weekly

“McAllister’s handsome Coming in August Follow a pod of photos, particularly those spy-hopping orcas taken underwater, offer as they explore the some unusual and almost ecosystems of the Great otherworldly effects of light Bear Sea while hunting and color. An intriguing for their next meal. addition to the My Great Bear Rainforest series.” —Booklist

www.greatbearbooks.com

4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 AWARDS

AFTER APPEARING (Amazon $16.58), which realistically on the cover of depicts the struggles of eleven-year- BC BookWorld‘s old Juma on the mean streets of an autumn 2017 is- unnamed African coastal capital from sue, Giller-nomi- 1977 to 1992. nated Eden Rob- Not overly-embellished with drama, inson won the it’s a memorable $50,000 Writers’ story suitable for Trust of Canada young adults or Fellowship for adults—not un- a body of work. like Oliver Twist. David Stouck’s As judged by Gail influential review of her nominated Anderson-Dar- novel, Son of a Trickster, was published gatz, it was ac- in the The Ormsby Review. corded the 2017 ✫ Fiction Award at Farida Somjee AFTER BEING FEATURED IN THE WINTER ISSUE the 16th Annual of BC BookWorld, David Chariandy Whistler Writers Festival. The Whistler proceeded to win the $50,000 Rogers Independent Book Awards are touted Writers Trust Fiction Prize for Brother as the only juried awards for self- (M&S $25); one of the runners-up was publishing in Canada. Carleigh Baker for her collection of ✫ short stories, Bad Endings (Anvil $18), MOTHER TONGUE PUBLISHING OF SALT SPRING which had previously received the Island announced that Bill Stenson City of Vancou- has won the 4th Great BC Novel Con- ver Book Award. test, as judged this year by Audrey ✫ Thomas, for For the Love of Strangers, HIRO KANAGAWA’S his novel about a lost ‘n’ found child play Indian Arm Author of thirty books, the indefatigable Daniel Francis of who wonders why there are no baby (Playwrights North Vancouver received the Governor General’s History Award pictures of her in the family album. Canada $17.95) This contest originated in 2008. has been accord- for Popular Media: The Pierre Berton Award in Rideau Hall, Ot- Everything Was Good-bye, a debut ed the Governor tawa from Her Excellency the Right Honourable Julie Payette, novel by Gurjinder Basran, won the General’s Award Governor General of Canada. Francis also worked for years as first Great BC Novel Contest in 2008 Hiro Kanagawa for Drama. An and went on to win the Ethel Wilson adaptation of the chief editor for The Encyclopedia of British Columbia. Fiction Prize. The second winner, Lucky, Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, the action a debut novel by Kathryn Para, was proceeds to unravel connections be- for Literary Arts in Vancouver. Among a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction tween a white family and indigenous her eight books and two chapbooks, Prize. The winner of the third contest families at the end of Burrard Inlet, arguably her major collection is Mother was disqualified because of a dispute past Deep Cove, at the remote end of Time: Poems New and Selected (Rons- over appropriate authorship attribution. the inlet known as Indian Arm. dale Press $15.95). ✫ ✫ BERNADETTE MCDONALD HAS COMPLETED BORN IN JAMAICA, LORNA GOODISON OF a “Triple Crown” for mountain litera- Halfmoon Bay is currently within her ture with three major literary awards three-year term as the poet laureate over a period of three weeks for her of Jamaica. She is the author of eight sixth book, Art of Freedom: The Life and books of poetry, two collections of Climbs of Voytek Kurtyka (Rocky Moun- short stories and an award-winning tain Books $32), a biography of the memoir, From Harvey River: A Memoir Polish climber known for his “bold and of My Mother and Her People (Emblem lightning-fast” ascents of unclimbed PHOTO Editions $22). walls in the Himalayas. ✫ VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY WRITING ARMSTRONG teacher Sonnet L’Abbé was shortlisted Victoria-based for the bpNichol Chapbook Award for

JENNIFER Bill Stenson Rebecca Wellman: a brunch of stories Anima Canadensis (Junction Books $12) in 2017. Also nominated from B.C. was Renee Sarojini Saklikar for VICTORIA WAS NAMED BRUNCH CAPITAL Cree/Métis illustrator Julie Flett of Canada by the Food Network, so After the Battle of Kingsway, the bees maybe it’s not surprising that First, (above/ground $4). has won at least one book prize We Brunch: Recipes and Stories from ✫ for nearly every book she has WHEN FARIDA SOMJEE WAS TEN YEARS OLD, Victoria’s Best-Loved Breakfast Joints published. This time she’s a co- (Touchwood $30) by food and lifestyle in Dar es Salaam, she watched as a recipient of a Governor General’s Voytek Kurtyka: alpine style pioneer photographer Rebecca Wellman won young boy, about eight three times—for Entertaining, Photog- years old, was beg- Award for Children’s Literature ✫ raphy and Breakfast—in the Canada ging on a streetcor- for When We Were Alone SONJA LARSEN HAS WON THE $10,000 portion of the Gourmand World Cook- ner with his mother. Edna Staebler Award for Creative book Awards. She couldn’t un- (HighWater/Portage & Non-Fiction for her memoir, Red Star ✫ derstand why Main $18.95) with text Tattoo: My Life as a Girl Revolution- AT THE VINE AWARDS FOR CANADIAN she was in the by David Alexander ary (Random House $21), the story of Jewish Literature, Irene N. Watts comfort of a Larsen’s unconventional youth and her and illustrator Kathryn Shoemaker car, enjoying an Robertson. For further experiences in counterculture organi- won the Children’s/YA category for ice-cream treat, info on Flett’s unparal- zations, including a clandestine wing of their graphic novel Seeking Refuge while the boy leled record of winning the Communist Party USA. (Tradewind $15.95). Ad- was reduced to ✫ ministered by the Koffler begging. She literary awards—and ex- THIS YEAR’S WINNER OF CBC’S $6,000 Centre of the Arts, four went back to tensive info on more than Poetry Prize is Alessandra prizes of $10,000 each the streetcor- 11,700 B.C. authors—visit Naccarato of Saltspring Is- are presented annually for ner to find him, but land for her poem Postcard four categories—fiction, she didn’t see him. That our free reference site: for my Sister selected from nonfiction, history, and childhood encounter was abcbookworld.com 2,400 entries. Previously children’s/young adult. the seed for her first novel, she won the RBC Bronwen ✫ The Beggar’s Dance Wallace Award for Emerg- BORN ON THE BANKS OF THE ing Writers. She graduated Assiniboine River, Métis/ with an MFA in Creative mixed-blood poet and arts Julie Flett Writing from UBC. activist Joanne Arnott has ✫ Alessandra Naccarato received the Mayor’s Award

5 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 6 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 AWARDS N JUNE, LORNA CROZIER WILL Basil Stuart- become the 25th recipient Stubbs Prize Iof the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award to Ignaces for an outstanding literary HE BASIL STUART-STUBBS career in British Columbia. Prize for Outstand- Lorna Crozier has already received most Ting Scholarly Book of the major literary prizes for which she on British Columbia was has been eligible. These include a Hubert established in memory of Evans Non-Fiction Prize (in 2010) for Small Beneath the Sky: A Prairie Memoir Basil Stuart-Stubbs, a (Greystone) as well as the Dorothy Livesay bibliophile, scholar and Poetry Prize (in 2000) for What the Living librarian who passed away Won’t Let Go (M&S). She later received the in 2012. Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary The sixth “Bazzie” will Excellence (2013) to go along with two Pat presented to the husband- Lowther Awards, a Governor General’s Award and a Canadian Authors Associa- and-wife team of Marianne tion Award. Ignace and Ronald E. Born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan Ignace for their compre-

in 1948, Lorna Crozier overcome fam- PHOTO hensive, 588-page study, ily poverty and family alcoholism—as Secwépemc People, Land, ABDOU described in her collection of narratives and Laws: Yerí7 re Stsqeys- and prose poems, Small Beneath the Sky: ANGIE Lorna Crozier A Prairie Memoir—to be inducted into the kucw (McGill-Queen’s Uni- Royal Society of Canada (an organization versity Press). that promotes learning and research in Runners-up this year the arts, the humanities and the sciences) 25th Woodcock Lifetime are Ben Bradley for Brit- in 2009. ish Columbia by the Road: For more than four decades Crozier has Car Culture and the Mak- made herself known across the country Achievement Award winner ing of a Modern Landscape and played a significant role in the men- toring of younger writers, co-editing the (UBC Press) and the edi- anthology Breathing Fire (Harbour, 1995, heighten environmental awareness, The with Addiction (Arsenal Pulp). [See page 15] torial team of Richard J. 2004) with her partner Patrick Lane. Wild in You: Voices from the Forest and the The 2018 shortlist also included: Gary Hebda, Sheila Greer, (Greystone), with photography by Ian Geddes for After meeting Lane in the 1970s, they co- Sea Medicine Unbundled: A Jour- and Alexander Mackie published No Longer McAllister. ney through the Minefields of Indigenous for Kwädąy Dän Ts’ìnchį: Two People (Turnstone, The public is invited to attend Health Care (Heritage House) and David Teachings from Long Ago 1979) and Humans and the presentation ceremony for 2018 Ryga winner Suzuki and Ian Hanington for Just Cool Other Beasts (Turn- Lorna Crozier and hear her LAST YEAR’S WINNER OF THE It! The Climate Crisis and What We Can Person Found (Royal BC stone, 1980) speak on June 28, 7 pm., at George Ryga Award for Do (Greystone). Museum Press). A former high school Vancouver Public Library, Social Awareness was The Ryga Award presentation ceremony The presentation cer- English teacher, Cro- 350 West Georgia. Wade Davis for Wade will be held at the main branch of the Van- emony for the winning title zier attended the Uni- Davis, Photographs. couver Public Library on Thursday, June will be held on Thursday, versity of Saskatchewan (BA, 1969) and This year’s winner is Travis Lupick for 28th, in conjunction with the pre- May 31st at 4:00 University of Alberta (MA, 1980). In 1991, Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug sentation of the George Woodcock she and Patrick Lane moved to Victoria Users Transformed One City’s Struggle Lifetime Achievement Award. pm in the Dod- so she could accept a teaching post at the son Room of the University of Victoria’s creative writing Barber Learning department, where they now both teach. Centre at UBC Crozier has credited Sinclair Ross’ nov- Gary Geddes wins in Vancouver. el As For Me And My House (1941) as the major stimulant for her courage to pursue her own writing, later acknowledging that Poet, anthologist, translator and non-fiction author of Medicine influence with the publication of A Saving Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Grace: The Collected Poems of Mrs. Bentley Care (Heritage House, 2017), Gary Geddes (at right) has won the (M&S, 1996), set in Sinclair Ross’ fictional town of Horizon in the 1930s. 2018 Freedom to Read Award presented annually by The Writ- After venturing into children’s books ers Union of Canada in recognition of work that is passionately with Lots of Kisses (Orca, 2014), Crozier supportive of free expression. Past recipients from B.C. include recently produced an unlikely bestseller that mixed poetry and photography to Deborah Campbell, Mohamed Fahmy and Janine Fuller.

ADMIRE ORWELL; RAGE AGAINST PIGGISHNESS. In 2017, this Orwellian tour de force explores

bayeux.com the reality behind Trump’s assault on democratic institutions.

Animal Farm 2017 An Adaptation of George Orwell’s Classic Dystopian Novel by Ashis Gupta, Illustrations by Alexiev Gandman

ISBN 978-1-988440170; hardcover, pp. 48; $14.95 Also available as an ebook (English) | 978-1-988440187; $9.95 And in Spanish as Rebelión en la granja 2017 | 978-1-988440255; hardcover; $14.95 OUT NOW FROM

7 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 ALTERNATIVE FACTS

George Orwell’s 1984—or Nineteen Time Magazine, Wadhams’ 50 hours of interviews November 28, gathered in 1983 resulted in two CBC Eighty-Four (original title)—rocketed 1983 Radio documentaries, George Orwell, A Radio Biography (1984) and The to the top of the Amazon bestseller rented a car and Orwell Tapes (2016). drove for 5,000 kilo- These, in turn, have generated the list in the U.S. last year immediately metres in England, first release from a new B.C. imprint after Republican spin doctor Kel- Scotland and Spain that is spearheaded by Scott Steed- to interview 70 peo- man, a respected editor, and Dimiter lyanne Conway was asked on Meet ple who had known Savoff, who, as publisher of Simply George Orwell from Read Books, has garnered a contro- the Press to explain why President his birth in 1903 to versial reputation for his treatment Trump’s beleaguered press secretary, his death in 1950. of authors. The highlight No mention is made of the fact Sean Spicer, deliberately lied by say- was visiting the that The Orwell Tapes is actually a drafty room on the reprint of Remembering Orwell (Pen- ing Trump had attracted the “largest Scottish island of guin, 1984), conceived and compiled Jura where Orwell had written his by Stephen Wadhams, and published audience ever to witness an inauguration.” The classic work, 1984, while in failing 34 years before. White House press secretary, explained Ms. health. Wadhams’ new edition of Remem- “This was where I felt sure I’d come bering Orwell contains the original in- Conway, “gave alternative facts.” as close to Orwell as it was possible troduction by Orwell’s friend, George to be,” recalls Wadhams, now retired Woodcock, the Vancouver anarchist Now a B.C. book, The Orwell Stephen Wadhams’ The Orwell in Victoria. who wrote an award-winning Orwell Tapes (Locarno Press $18.50), af- Tapes is a collection of memories from “I wanted to hear his clacking study, The Crystal Spirit (Little Brown, fords fascinating glimpses into the those who crossed paths with the typewriter, smell his cigarette smoke 1966) and Orwell’s Message: 1984 character of the 20th century’s most complex character who first described which must have wafted all through and the Present (Harbour, 1984). prophetic novelist, George Orwell, the Big Brother, thoughtcrime, Newspeak the house. And above all, I wanted to There is also an updated preface by man who predicted such dangerous and doublethink. be a fly on the wall observing him writ- Wadhams and a new foreword by nonsense. In 1983, CBC’s Stephen Wadhams ing and re-writing his masterpiece.” scholar Peter Davison. 978-0995994614

BY BEVERLY CRAMP THE MALLEABLE IRST THERE WAS NEWSPEAK, now there’s fake news. Big Brother has morphed into social media as data mining F companies like Cam- bridge Analytica and Palantir Tech- nologies brag about the thousands of data points they have on every adult in the United States. Such previously unimaginable con- cepts were first brought to the world’s TRUTHfrom open revolt; the young Blair was attention seventy years ago in the last not a radical.” book George Orwell wrote, Nineteen That may explain why Orwell Eighty-Four (Secker & Warburg, 1949). would study hard to eventually finish In Nineteen Eighty-Four, protagonist his education at Eton, one of the top Winston Smith lives amid omnipres- boarding schools in Britain, and upon ent government propaganda and graduation spend five years in the surveillance in Airstrip One (formerly colonial police force in Burma. It was Great Britain), part of perpetually expected of him. But the five years he war-mongering Oceania. Torturers try spent in Burma deeply changed the to make him believe two and two does young man. not equal four. “The inequities and oppression he “Orwell knew very well where the saw there had a lasting effect on him,” manipulation of truth and the ma- says Wadhams. “In his writing he de- lignant distortion of language can scribes these years as traumatic. The lead,” writes Stephen Wadhams, ‘dirty end of Empire’ left him with an gatherer of The Orwell Tapes. “He’d ‘enormous weight of guilt,’ which he felt seen it for himself in the Spanish he could expunge only by understand- Civil War and even done it himself ing and identifying with the oppressed as a BBC producer in wartime Lon- classes of his own country.” don, matching German propaganda Even though Orwell took up the with lies of his own, discovering the underclasses as his adult cause, he seductive power of being freed from retained many of the very English ways normal constraints of truth telling.” George Woodcock (far left), novelist Mulk-Raj Anand, George Orwell, poet that he learned at British boarding Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propa- William Empson, philosopher Herbert Read, poet Edmund Blunden, 1942. schools. ganda minister, had said “The secret of On holidays back at home, Orwell propaganda is repetition,” and Hitler, Eric Arthur Blair (pen name George formist society conspired to shape him developed a lifelong love of the English in his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, had Orwell) was born in 1903 in Motihari, in a particular way. countryside and fishing, rather conser- already identified the propaganda tech- then part of Bengal, but now called “His parents certainly wanted him vative passions one doesn’t associate nique of the Big Lie—a lie so extreme Bihar, which is part of India. At the to conform,” writes Wadhams. “They with a radical thinker. He also became that no one would believe that someone time, opium was legal and a big mon- made considerable financial sacrifices attracted to Jacintha Buddicom, a girl “could have the impudence to distort ey-producer for the British Empire. to send him to ‘good’ schools where he two years’ older than him. the truth so infamously.” Orwell’s father, Richard Blair, was an would meet the right people. But from Buddicom revealed that books were It was George Orwell who revealed opium agent in the Indian Civil Service. the beginning he appears to have tried a common denominator between the to a global audience how easy it is to Orwell’s mother was the much-younger to break out of the mould. The con- two and that Blair dreamed of being a manipulate people, how fragile our in- Ida Blair, the half-French daughter of sensus among his childhood friends famous writer. dividuality can be, and how complete a tea merchant from Burma. and schoolmates is that the young “I was never without a book in my control of media and other technology With parents from the lower rungs Eric Blair was always strangely on the hand and nor was he,” Buddicom said. can give rise to totalitarianism. of the British Raj elite, Orwell joked outside, observing but rarely joining “He was always going to write, and Now Stephen Wadhams’ interviews he was, “born into what you might in—and then usually to challenge and he was always going to be a Famous for The Orwell Tapes provide a unique describe as the lower-upper-middle find fault. The picture given is that of Writer. prism for understanding the 20th cen- class.” an abrasive, free-thinking individual, “That was his trademark, Eric the tury’s most prophetic voice of caution. Eric Blair’s family and a rigidly con- but intelligent fault-finding is a far cry Famous Writer.”

8 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 LEFT TO RIGHT: First British edition, 1949 (Secker & War- burg); US edition, 1954 (Signet); Indonesian edition, 2003; Arabic edition, 2006; radical design for the British edition, 2013 (Penguin).

Buddicom inspired the young Orwell that Orwell had any financial security. setting of independent-minded but in- Four was published on June 8, 1949 to write a poem about her independent This masterpiece of satire had been terdependent farmers and fishermen, and in July was the American Book of spirit. By then, he had already pub- refused by fourteen publishers. Orwell wrote of a world in which the the Month Club selection. lished a poem in a local newspaper at “… although it was the USSR that old and sturdy values he cherished had Orwell moved to his final “home,” the the age of 11, a patriotic ditty called people had in mind,” said his fellow given way to cold, modern tyranny.” University College Hospital in London “Awake! Young Men of England.” writer and friend Malcom Muggeridge, Orwell’s working title for the book on September 3. The next month, he From 1917–1922, Orwell was a “at the same time I think that George was “The Last Man in Europe.” Wad- convinced Sonia Brownell, an editorial King’s Scholar at Eton. A fellow Etonion was really making a case against every hams believes Orwell saw himself as “a assistant for Horizon, a London-based recalls that Eric Blair loved arguing: form of authoritarian government, and solitary man fighting against the pow- literary magazine, to marry him. Author “Endless arguments about all sorts it just happened that the model avail- erful forces of an advancing machine Stephen Spender, a longtime friend of of things, in which he was one of the able at that time was the USSR. society, a mass society that would Orwell’s believes Brownell married the great leaders. He was one of those boys “What obsessed George in writing drain from the individual dying man for good reasons who thought for himself, and at an age Animal Farm was that human beings the taste for freedom.” although it was to affect her when a good many schoolboys haven’t were going to lose their taste for free- Orwell was driven to for the rest of her life. graduated out of thinking the way dom. And I think that was a just fear. warn the English, and “I think [Orwell] was very they’d been taught to think.” This is what he dreaded.” the wider Western world, much in love with Sonia and Upon graduation from Eton, Blair Although Orwell was now financially of what he claimed in a had been for some time. chose not to continue onto Oxford or free to devote his time to writing, he letter as, “perversions to She was fond of him, and Cambridge. He hadn’t studied hard she was in a position to enough to win another scholarship and make him happy. She also his parents couldn’t afford to send him. knew that he was going to In those days, the usual career path die. Therefore it seemed a was chosen based on who your father rational proposition. But knew. In Blair’s case, it was the Indian decisions arrived at on that Civil Service in Burma. And that was sort of rational basis never how Blair came to leave England for a turn out how you think they will, and job with the Burmese Police in 1922. when he died Sonia felt intensely un- After Orwell’s first trip back home happy. She blamed herself and thought to England in 1927, he chose not to she had done the wrong thing, and so return to Burma, telling his family that took over the cause of George Orwell for he wanted to be a writer instead. the rest of her life, and she never really ✫ recovered from this. STEPHEN WADHAMS INTERVIEWED ONE OF “You see, I think Sonia always the residents of Southwold, the seaside wanted to have a genius in her life. town where Orwell’s parents eventually She had a romantic conception of ge- retired: “He had socialist ideas I sup- nius. Orwell, to some extent, fitted her pose, hadn’t he? And Mr. Blair Senior The Jura farmhouse George Orwell rented to write Nineteen Eighty-Four; idea of the solitary genius who needed wouldn’t really agree with that. Also, ABOVE RIGHT: First edition of Remembering Orwell (Penguin, 1984). backing. She was always in search of I think there was a bit of a row when her genius.” he gave up his job. I mean, young men was also a very sick man, “From the which a centralized economy is liable Orwell died in the evening of Janu- didn’t give up jobs in those days. They moment Orwell began writing Nineteen and which have already been partly ary 21, 1950, alone in his hospital did what their fathers wanted them to, Eighty-Four in the summer of 1946,” realized in Communism and Fascism.” room. Five days later he was buried in more or less.” writes Wadhams, “he knew there was Orwell added that he believed, “to- the churchyard of All Saints, Sutton The local tailor agreed that Orwell a danger that the ill health that had talitarian ideas have taken root in the Courtenay—a wish that Orwell had was unusual, saying “He was looked shadowed him all his life might pre- minds of intellectuals everywhere and requested in his will. A funeral service upon here as a little bit eccentric,” vent him from committing to paper I have tried to draw these ideas out to was held despite Orwell being a lapsed later adding that Orwell’s father was a the ideas he had been formulating for their logical consequences.” Anglican. snob, an old autocrat who would walk several years.” When Orwell published Nineteen Orwell had specifically requested a straight past him with no gesture of Orwell spent time living in a stone Eighty-Four, he found himself having wild rose be left untended on his grave. recognition. “Avril [Orwell’s younger farmhouse that summer in the north- to explain what he meant. “The book Among those interviewed by Wadhams sister] was a bit the same. It was a bit ern part of Jura, an under-populated was, to his dismay,” writes Wadhams, was the Reverend Gordon Dunstan of an honour to be served cakes by island in the Inner Hebrides on the “instantly adopted by the right wing in who had led the burial service. “His her! They’d all got a bit of that. I didn’t Scottish west coast. The beauty Jura the United States, to be used as am- grave here has just an old English rose notice it with Eric so much, though.” held for Orwell was in stark contrast to munition against the Soviet Union and on it,” Dunstan tells Wadhams, “which Wadhams contends it was Orwell’s the dark, pessimistic and ugly world of as anti-socialist propaganda generally. he asked for. He asked in fact that it hatred of injustice that led him to write Nineteen Eighty-Four’s main character, But Orwell was against totalitarianism might be left untrimmed, untended, about poverty. “And with a straightfor- Winston Smith. of the left or the right. For him, Big but you know how roses grow, and ward and powerful subject came his “There in his stuffy upstairs bed- Brother might be in the Pentagon or they become straggly and a nuisance.” equally straightforward and powerful room, with his hand-rolled cigarette the Kremlin, thought control remained So, the English rose was trimmed and writing style,” writes Wadhams. So, it dangling from his lips, he worked on thought control whether the technique Orwell’s last request was not granted. was that Orwell started “tramping” in the manuscript of Nineteen Eighty- was torture or the television set, and He did get the epitaph he wanted. East London in the autumn of 1927 Four, looking up occasionally to watch during the Cold War his fears about the Here lies Eric Arthur Blair, followed by a similar stint in Paris the the ocean waves crashing on the shore degradation and distortion of language born June 25th, 1903, following spring. These experiences led a few yards away,” writes Wadhams. would be borne out on both sides of the died January 21st, 1950. to his first professional article being To take a break, Orwell “would go Iron Curtain, whether the subject was ✫ published in Le Monde in 1928 and downstairs and perhaps take his young the ‘pacification’ of Vietnam villages or A 5,000-WORD VERSION OF THIS REVIEW IS eventually his first book, Down and Out son Richard lobster fishing or, if he felt the ‘liquidation’ of Soviet dissidents.” accessible via our affiliate, The Ormsby in Paris and London, in 1933. strong enough, walk over the moorland In 1948, when Orwell finished the Review. Also, for an alternate summary ✫ to visit his nearest neighbours, a mile second draft of Nineteen Eighty-Four of the contents of The Orwell Tapes, IT WASN’T UNTIL THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH and a half away,” writes Wadhams. “A and sent it to his publisher on De- visit the OrwellSocietyBlog Club in the United States selected fisherman on Jura described him as ‘a cember 4, he was seriously ill. The Orwell’s Animal Farm in 1946, with an true communist—by which I mean a next month he moved to a sanitorium Beverly Cramp is associate initial printing of half a million copies, true communalist.’ In an old-fashioned in southern England. Nineteen Eighty- editor of BC BookWorld.

9 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review HISTORY

Frozen in Time: The Fate of ply, on which the expedition the Franklin Expedition was so dependent. by Owen Beattie & John Geiger, foreword by I find the circumstances Wade Davis, introduction by of Hartnell’s burial especially Margaret Atwood heart wrenching; he died on (Greystone Books $22.95) 4 January 1846, three days after John Torrington. His brother Thomas must have BY WALTER O. been fighting back his tears VOLOVSEK as the coffin was lowered in a snowstorm. He had given HE REVISED EDI- his shirt for his brother to be tion of Frozen buried in, and presumably in Time is a kept John’s as a lingering considerable im- bond between them. Captain provement and Edward Inglefield, R.N., who Tan expansion of the original, was only able to break into the published twenty years ago. coffin sufficiently to comment It is given a creative polish Diver Marc-André on his face and the cotton by a fascinating and witty Bernier (left) on shirt he was wearing, would introduction from Margaret the hull of H.M.S. Erebus, 2014. subject Hartnell to a second Atwood, in which she pres- John Hartnell attempt at an autopsy in Sep- ents the different incarnations (below) most tember 1852. of Sir John Franklin with the likely died of As the authors point out, passage of time. lead poisoning. the underlying cause of the A new colour insert focuses disaster was a total on the recent discovery of both reliance on ships. The party that aban- new, untest- doned HMS Terror in 1848 did ed technology not strip the ships of all forms and a comple- of recorded evidence, much of We now know the fate of the mentary inabil- which ended up as abandoned ity to look at litter alongside more durable Franklin Expedition of 1845-48, the time-test- goods and skeletal remains. ed methods of In his foreword to this recorded in an updated arctic survival new edition, Wade Davis Frozen in Time. by what were recapitulates the history of deemed to be in- Arctic exploration and inserts ferior people. Franklin’s contribution into The unravel- it, of which the disaster that Franklin mystery ling of the Franklin befell the expedition seems mystery brings up to be its greatest component. the relevant ques-

Much was gained in Arctic CANADA tion of what we have knowledge in the subsequent

PARKS learned about toxin exposure searches, launched at the , through our food supply in

instigation of Lady Franklin. PHOTO the intervening 170 years. The From the perspective of her

BOYER answer seems to be, very little. endeavours to immortalize Various formulations of plas- her husband, Davis unjustly THIERRY tics are the current chemical devalues the contributions of cocktail that has invaded the Leopold M’Clintock as just bloodstreams of many Cana- “more disturbing news.” dians, and most likely affected But it was M’Clintock’s SOLVED sperm production by males team, after all, that discov- contributor to the mysterious plorer Dr. John Rae, at the served bodies 140 years later in technologically advanced ered and mapped the first fatal illnesses. cost of a knighthood. indicated that lung infections societies. remnants of the sad trek The closing chapters of In the second section of overwhelmed the unfortu- T.S. Eliot was right. The southward, and located the the first section bring us to Frozen in Time, attention shifts nate crewmembers once they world may end, not with a expedition records left by Cap- the surveys in the 1980s by to the scientific investigations became debilitated by lead bang, but a whimper after all. tain James Fitzjames. forensic anthropologist Beattie of the Beechey Island camp, intoxication. Isotope studies In all its dimensions, this The first section presents along the route of the expedi- including exhumation of the matched the lead found in new edition of Frozen in Time a comprehensive account of tion’s 1848 death march and three unfortunate seamen. All hair samples and organs to the is a mesmerizing and thought- earlier explorations, what the collection of such skel- died young, with the first two type of lead that was the major provoking book, especially as little we know of Franklin’s etal remains and artefacts as only three days apart. A post- constituent of solder used in we are on the cusp of new activities during his attempted could still be found. Analysis mortem autopsy on the body the construction and sealing revelations from the ship- conquest of the Northwest of bone fragments confirmed of John Hartnell suggests of the tin cans, a very novel wrecks—located with modern Passage, and the subsequent cannibalism in the desperate that worry about such un- technology at the time. A fur- technology where the collec- searches and discoveries that trekkers, first reported to a usual morbidity was already ther problem was indicated by tive memory of the Inuit had filled in the picture of an epic shocked Victorian audience pervading the camp. improper sealing that resulted placed them. It also seems a tragedy. Owen Beattie and by the indomitable Arctic ex- Autopsies on the well-pre- in spoilage of part of the sup- good fit in our current brave John Geiger probe the jour- new world, when we are start- nals of these participants for ing to come to terms with the documentation of a consistent e now know the fate of the doomed There are some B.C. connections: limits of our current techno- problem, described as “debil- Franklin Expedition of 1845-48. Men from John Franklin’s previous expedi- W logical dependency and its ity,” brought on by scurvy, The HMS Erebus was found in 2014 just off tions to the arctic, and also from expeditions hidden costs. 9781771641739 as well as something else, O’Reilly Island, a hundred kilometres due west sent in search of him, visited the Royal Navy’s which is only hinted at in the of Starvation Cove, where the last survivors Pacific base at Esquimalt, first used in 1848. journals. stretched out their misery. Some of these men went on Walter O. Volovsek has writ- That tinned food was not Two years later the HMS The B.C. connection to settle in British Columbia. ten a biography of Castlegar effective in preventing scurvy, Terror was located in the Lead author Beattie, born founder Edward Mahon, The and citrus juice only helped aptly-named, shallow waters of Terror Bay, in Victoria in 1949, received his Ph.D. from Green Necklace: The Vision to a degree, eventually be- where Inuit had noted its protruding mast Simon Fraser University and taught at the Quest of Edward Mahon (Ot- came apparent. Fresh meat top. Department of Anthropology at the University mar, 2012) and a book on and plants were essential for Owen Beattie and John Geiger’s classic of Alberta from 1980 until 2011. his own trail-building efforts, avoiding scurvy. Beattie and account of archaeology and forensic anthro- Franklin’s widow, Lady Jane Franklin, Trails in Time: Reflections (Ot- Geiger’s key finding, however, pology in Frozen in Time: The Fate of the who visited B.C. in 1861 and 1870, is com- mar, 2012). A longer version was that the lead content of Franklin Expedition has consequently been memorated in Lady Franklin Rock, located in of his response to Frozen in the preserved meats, soups, updated for a fourth edition. the Fraser River just above Yale. Time was first published by and vegetables was a major The Ormsby Review.

10 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 THE ORMSBY REVIEW A rebirth for serious book reviews

THE ORMSBY REVIEW wishes to thank these contributors for their 250 in-depth reviews and essays, as well as one book, published during the venture’s pilot project phase, Sept. 2016 – Feb. 2018.

1. Cole Harris 2. Graeme Wynn 3. Jean Barman 4. Wade Davis 5. Tzu-I Chung 6. Dan Francis 7. Maria Tippett 8. Sage Birchwater 9. Hugh Johnston 10. Colin M Coates 11. John Belshaw 12. Chris Arnett 13. Patricia Roy 14. Hal Kalman 15. Robin Inglis 16. Vanessa Colantonio 17. Philip Van Huizen 18. Ian Kennedy 19. Larry McCann 20. Bonnie Reilly Schmidt 21. Peter Grant 22. Robin Ridington 23. Robert McCandless 24. Loys Maingon 25. Harold Rhenisch 26. Dorothy Kennedy 27. Margaret Horsfield 28. Howard Stewart 29. Jennifer Iredale 30. Glinda Sutherland 31. Joe Simpson 32. Megan Smetzer 33. Trevor Carolan 34. Cate Sandilands 35. Martin Segger 36. Max Ritts 37. Jim Miller 38. Larry Hannant 39. Alan Hoover 40. Ken Mather 41. Bob Muckle 42. Chelsea Horton 43. Susan Safyan 44. Gregory Evans 45. Ginny Ratsoy 46. Takaia Larsen 47. Undine Celeste 48. Eldon Yellowhorn 49. Jan Drent 50. Bruce McDougall 51. Joy Parr 52. Bill Engleson 53. Briony Penn 54. Dennis Bolen 55. Michael Kennedy 56. Michel Bouchard 57. Jacqueline Holler 58. David N. Wright 59. LiLynn Wan 60. Rod Szasz 61. Lara Campbell 62. Jamie Morton 63. John McLaren 64. Émilie Pigeon 65. Ben Bradley 66. Jacqueline Gresko 67. Victoria Wyatt 68. Kenneth Campbell 69. Bob Coutts 70. Nichole Dusyk 71. Emma Battell-Lowman 72. Lisa Pasolli 73. John-Henry Harter 74. Joe Wiebe 75. Jawad Qureshy 76. Sean Cadigan 77. Alice Fleerackers 78. Adam Barker 79. Ron Dart 80. Kathryn Bridge 81. Mark Forsythe 82. Fred Braches 83. Marina Sonkina 84. Lynne Bowen 85. Elisabeth Otto 86. David Mattison 87. Bill Engleson 88. Christian Fink-Jensen 89. Jody Decker 90. Warren M. Elofson 91. Gillian Crowther 92. Helen Hok-Sze Leung 93. Lorraine Weir 94. Molly Clarkson 95. Norman Girardot 96. Nancy Janovicek 97. Courtney Kirk 98. Mary Leah de Zwart. 99. Richard Mackie 100. Hamish Telford 101. Howard Stewart 102. Sabina Trimble 103. Mary-Ellen Kelm 104. Steven Ferguson 105. Mark Stanton 106. Serge Alternes 107. Janet Mary Nicol 108. K. Jane Watt 109. Scott Stephen 110. Deidre Roberts 111. Lisa Murphy 112. Patricia Demers 113. Heather Sjoblom 114. James Wood 115. Solen Roth 116. Roger Robinson 117. John Hinde 118. Dan Gallacher 119. Jeremy Twigg 120. Ron Verzuh 121. David Brownstein 122. Joan Givner 123. Jim Kem- pling 124. Pam Erikson 125. Forrest Pass 126. Trevor Mark Hughes 127. Charlene Porsild 128. Graham Brazier 129. Kerry Mason 130. Clayton Whitt 131. Michael Kluckner 132. Sandi Ratch 133. Keith Regular 134. Mike Starr 135. John Gellard 136. Bert Ionson 137. Paul Crawford 138. Lara Campbell 139. Inge Bolin 140. Sean McPherson 141. Catherine Nutting 142. Carol Shaw 143. Mark Dunn 144. John Hutch- ings 145. James Goldie 146. Megan Davies 147. Maansi Pandya 148. Les Kozma 149. Andrew Cienski 150. Rheanna Robinson 151. Robert Turner 152. Keith Norbury 153. Colin Levings 154. Brian Conway 155. Bill Jeffries 156. Veronica Strong-Boag 157. Mary Sanseverino 158. Sharn Sandhra 159. Susan Roy 160. Nikki Tate 161. Grant Keddie 162. David Stouck 163. Catherine Annau 164. Molly Clarkson 165. Nancy Marguerite Anderson 166. Michelle Murphy 167. Stan Markotich 168. Howard Hisdal 169. Lauren Harding 170. Carol Volkart. 171. Lani Russwurm 172. Cathy Carolsfeld 173. Andrew Woolford 174. Juliane Collard 175. David Mills 176. PearlAnn Reichwein 177. Ian Gibbs 178. Steve Pocock 179. Caroline Fox 180. Norman Fennema 181. Hillel Wright 182. Michael Layland 183. Barbara Messamore 184. Walter Volovsek 185. Mike Sasges 186. Gillian Der 187. Sarah Nickel 188. Myles Armstead 189. Graham Zilm 190. Yvonne Van Ruskenveld 191. K. Wayne Wilson 192. Henry Yu 193. Robert Allen 194. Rhodri Windsor 195. James Hull 196. Jonathan Henshaw 197. Tom Koppel 198. Max Hamon 199. Na- tasha Lyons 200. Michel Vallee 201. Duff Sutherland 202. Beverly Cramp 203. Jeff Kier 204. Dustin Cole 205. Julian Wake 206. Daniel Lachapelle Lemire 207. Daniel Sims 208. John Moore 209. John A. Bosher 210. Cherie Thiessen 211. Theo Dombrowski 212. Dan Clayton 213. Kate Braid 214. Rob Taylor 215. Clayton Whitt 216. Anna Hall 217. Bryan Palmer 218. Ted Davis 219. Mary Lou Soutar-Hynes 220. Rachel Rose 221 Danya Fast 222. Deanna Reder 223. Robin Fisher

Thanks, also, to Yosef Wosk and SFU’s Graduate Liberal Studies Program directors Stephen Duguid and Sasha Colby who have supported the creation of this service. Thus far The Ormsby Review has had zero public funding. Richard Mackie (reviews editor) Alan Twigg (website manager) GOOGLE ORMSBY REVIEW “Only connect.”— E . M . FORSTER

11 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review MEDICAL

EMILY PATTERSON: Looking at the thickly forested healer of choice. Chatelaine maga- inserting imagined conversa- The Heroic Life of a Milltown mountainside John said, “You One person she was zine as well as the tions and dramatic scenes. Nurse by Lisa Anne Smith (Ronsdale $21.95) see that! That’s what we’re not able to help was Vancouver General The historical backdrop en- here for. Nothing in the entire Gassy Jack who be- Nurses Annual. compasses the notable events state of Maine ever compared.” lieved a shot of whis- ✫ of Emily’s time. These include ✫ key would do the job BEFORE SHE DIED, Em- a description of San Francisco BY JOAN GIVNER wHEN THE ACCESSIBLE STANDS OF as well as any dose ily asked her daugh- in the aftermath of the gold HE SUBJECT OF timber had been logged off, the of medicine. ter to record her rush, where the family arrived Lisa Anne family had to move. They went A feat for which JOAN life for future gen- after a three-week journey on Smith’s Emily south to Willamette Valley in she became famous GIVNER erations. Alice hon- the Panama railway. Since Patterson: The Oregon, then to a small opera- was her legendary oured that request, two of her married daughters THeroic Life of a tion in Butteville and finally journey by canoe through working with Vancouver’s later settled in San Francisco, Milltown Nurse was born in north again to British Colum- stormy seas to answer a plea city archivist, Major James the 1906 earthquake and fire 1836 in Bath, Lincoln County, bia. On arrival at the Burrard from the keeper of the Port Skitt Matthews to amass an affected her personally and Maine. At the age of ten she Inlet, they lived briefly at Hast- Atkinson lighthouse to help impressive collection of ma- she raised funds for those less refused to leave the room as a ings Mill before moving across his sick wife. On the hun- terial from local papers and fortunate than her daughters. midwife delivered her mother’s the inlet to make a permanent dredth anniversary of her interviews. That archive is the At the end of their lives, when baby; instead she assisted at home in Moodyville. death, a ballad, “The Heroine basis for the present book. the Pattersons moved from the birth, cutting the umbili- Emily was often the only of Moodyville” was published. Because there were few direct Moodyville to downtown Van- cal cord. The experience left person available in the area Inspired by such ballads as words from Emily—none of couver, the anti-Asian riots of her with a life-long interest to provide the services of mid- “The Inchcape Rock” and “The the letters and diaries that 1907, fomented by the Asiatic in medicine and a sure sense wife, nurse, and doctor. The Wreck of the Hesperus” (but generally animate a biographi- Exclusion League, happened of her vocation. She absorbed dining room table in the Pat- with a happier outcome) it cal subject—Lisa Anne Smith literally on their doorstep, all the medical knowledge terson home was made to cer- ran to twenty-seven rhyming decided to use “a smattering with rioters breaking neigh- she could find and planned tain specifications in order to tercets and was published in of creative licence.” She com- bourhood windows. to attend the Geneva Medical serve—protected by oil-treated bines the historical accuracy Smith’s passionate admira- College in New York to train canvas—as an impromptu of a “life and times” bi- tion for her subject gives the as a nurse. operating table. Her reputa- ography with the book a somewhat eulogistic While marriage curtailed tion grew and even when narrative tech- tone with Emily depicted as her plans for professional a medical practice nique of the heroine of one incident training, as it has done for opened with a a novel, after another. Fortunately, the many women, it did not end professionally author’s inclusion of robust her career as a nurse. Wher- trained phy- dialogue rescues the book ever she lived, she adapted sician, she from hagiography, as when her skills and expanded her was the Emily tells an unruly patient expertise. When she accom- hurt in a tavern brawl, “You panied her seafaring husband, dare move and I’ll hit you over Captain John Patterson, on the head with a club.” his ship to China, she cured Some readers might find scurvy, staunched injuries, the inclusion of text from ar- and even used chloroform chival sources to be jarring or when pulling teeth. When clumsy by current standards. her husband abandoned his People “reside” rather than career at sea for employment live, babies are “welcomed into in the lumber industry, the the world.” change only expanded the John Patterson before his scope of Emily’s work. Nor did marriage transported “Negro a growing family stop her from slaves” to New Orleans, and providing nursing services later “seemed to bear no dis- wherever needed. She eventu- gruntlement to working under ally had seven children, five of the command of a younger whom survived to adulthood. sibling.” Having heard there was Nevertheless, Smith has good harvestable timber in shaped a vast amount of the Pacific Northwest, the material, contextualized it Patterson family moved west, with diligent research and and for the rest of their lives produced an important addi- the couple lived in small, of- tion to the annals of nursing. ten isolated mill towns. The 978-1553805052 first of these was Alberni on Vancouver Island. Joan Givner is a biographer and novelist based in Victoria. Emily Patterson, circa 1880 ARCHIVES

VANCOUVER

OF

CITY

OF GO GET EMILY! COURTESY The dining room table in Emily Patterson’s home was made , WHITE . M to certain specifications in order to serve—protected by JOHN

BY oil-treated canvas—as an impromptu operating table. PHOTO

12 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 OUT WITH Sonny Assu A Selective History Sonny Assu, with Candice Hopkins, Marianne Nicolson, THE COLD, Richard Van Camp, and Ellyn Walker “Framed by contributions from some of our brightest Indigenous intellectuals, Sonny Assu’s canvas is more than an examination of how Indigenous Peoples IN WITH respond to the Canadian experience. His witty and gentle hand offers Canada a mirror to consider its own scarred identity.” — Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas THE NEW Heritage House | $34.95 pb

A Matter of Confidence Birds of British Columbia Children of the Kootenays Explore the Wild Coast The Inside Story of the Political Battle for BC and the Pacific Northwest Memories of Mining Towns with Sam and Crystal Rob Shaw and Richard Zussman A Complete Guide, Revised Edition Shirley Stainton Gloria Snively; illustrated by Karen Gillmore The 2017 provincial election was one for Richard Cannings, Tom Aversa, Hal Opperman Scenes of West Kootenay communities in the Curious siblings Sam and Crystal learn about the history books, and reporters Shaw and Expand your horizons with this critically 1930s and ’40s come to life in this charming the marine environment in this imaginative Zussman capture it all in this revealing recap acclaimed guide for serious birders. Newly memoir that features over a hundred story of travel and discovery. Available with the of an amazing period in BC politics. revised, with 900 full-colour images. stunning photographs. companion volume Explore the Rocky Shore. Heritage House | $22.95 pb | $15.99 ebook Heritage House | $22.95 pb | $15.99 ebook Heritage House | $29.95 pb Heritage House | $22.95 hc

Backcountry Avalanche Safety Snowshoe Trails in A Beginner’s Guide to Snowshoeing Snowshoeing in the Canadian A Guide to Managing Avalanche Risk — Southwestern British Columbia in the Canadian Rockies — 2nd Edition Rockies — 2nd edition 4th Edition Aileen Stalker, Tony Keen Andrew Nugara Andrew Nugara Tony Daffern With this new guidebook, outdoor enthusiasts Whether you are looking for an easy The Canadian Rockies in winter are still nothing Essential reading for all outdoor enthusiasts interested in stepping out of their skis and into introductory day on flat terrain amid beautiful short of spectacular, and snowshoes provide an who venture into mountainous terrain where a pair of snowshoes will be able to find some of surroundings or getting to the summit of one of easy, fun and exciting way to see some of the avalanches are common. British Columbia’s most enjoyable trails. the Rockies innumerable stunning mountains, best winter scenery Canada has to offer. RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $25 pb | $11.99 ebook RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $30 pb | $14.99 ebook you will find it in this bestselling guidebook. RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $35 pb RMB | Rocky Mountain Books | $35 pb

E. J. Hughes Paints Vancouver Island Off the Hook As a Dog Thinketh Against the Current Robert Amos Essential West Coast Seafood Recipes Daily Words of Wisdom for Dog People The Remarkable Life of Agnes Deans Cameron This collection—part biography, part portfolio— DL Acken and Aurelia Louvet Monique Anstee Cathy Converse unveils, for the first time, photographs, Fresh, fast, and delicious, these are Featured on CBC’s North by Northwest The first book to celebrate the remarkable life sketches, methodology, and ephemera from quintessential recipes for West Coast fish Confused by your canine? Monique Anstee, of one of BC’s 150 most significant individuals, the estate of E. J. Hughes, one of BC’s most and seafood lovers. More than 60 easy and top dog trainer and owner of the Naughty Agnes Deans Cameron (b. 1863). She was beloved artists. approachable recipes for home cooks of any Dogge, provides daily reflections, guidance, and BC’s first female principal, the first European TouchWood Editions | $35 hc | $17.99 epub skill level. sound advice to improve your relationship with woman to travel the Mackenzie River to the TouchWood Editions | $22 pb | $12.99 epub your pooch. Beaufort Sea in one season, and the first “Lady Centurion” in the west. TouchWood Editions | $22 pb | $8.99 epub TouchWood Editions | $30 hc | $17.99 epub

HERITAGE GROUP heritagehouse.ca rmbooks.com touchwoodeditions.com DISTRIBUTION

1.800.665.3302 • [email protected] • hgdistribution.com

13 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 TALONBOOKS SPRING 2018

Kuei, My Friend The Green Chamber MARTINE DESJARDINS A Conversation on Race and Reconciliation translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD & NATASHA KANAPÉ FONATINE translated by Deni Ellis Béchard & Howard Scott Set between 1913 and 1963 in one of Montreal’s well-known, upper-middle-class, suburban neighbourhoods, Martine Kuei, My Friend is an engaging book of letters: a literary and Desjardins’s The Green Chamber is a riveting, fast-paced, highly political encounter between Innu poet Natasha Kanapé atmospheric novel that chronicles the decline of a wealthy Fontaine and Québécois-American novelist Deni Ellis Béchard. French-Canadian family over the course of three generations. Choosing the epistolary form, they decided to engage in a frank conversation about racism and reconciliation. 978-1-77201-196-8 • $18.95 • 208 pages • Fiction April 2018 978-1-77201-195-1 • $17.95 • 176 pages • Non-fiction March 2018

The Eyelash and the Monochrome Safety Sand TIZIANA LA MELIA GARRY THOMAS MORSE The Eyelash and the Monochrome meshes conflicting modes In this companion to Governor General’s Award finalists of thinking to produce a collage of thought through the body, Discovery Passages and Prairie Harbour, Garry Thomas Morse through the material, and through slippages of language. resumes his expansionist mapping of lyrical consciousness onto geographical concerns, acknowledging the unsettled 978-1-77201-197-5 • $17.95 • 112 pages • Poetry edges of an imaginary territory. April 2018 978-1-77201-198-2 • $18.95 • 160 pages • Poetry

Duets Checking In Sonnets : Louise Labé : Guido Cavalcanti ADEENA KARASICK EDWARD BYRNE Checking In comprises a long poem and a series of other Edward Byrne’s Duets consists of interpretative translations post-conceptual pieces – concrete poems, homolinguistic of sonnets by Louise Labé, who lived and wrote in translations, Yiddish aphorisms – that offer exuberant sixteenth-century Lyon, and those by thirteenth-century commentary on the timelessness of digital information and Florentine Guido Cavalcanti. our ravenous appetite for data and connection. 978-1-77201-199-9 • $16.95 • 96 pages • Poetry 978-0-88922-200-2 • $16.95 • 96 pages • Poetry May 2018 April 2018

Talker’s Town and The Girl Who Swam Forever Gracie Two Plays JOAN MACLEOD MARIE CLEMENTS & NELSON GRAY introduction by Marita Dachsel The two one-act plays in Talker’s Town and The Girl Who Gracie is a dramatic monologue telling the story of a girl raised Swam Forever are set in a small B.C. mill town in the 1960s. in a fundamentalist community that transports child brides They portray identical characters and actions from entirely between polygamist communities in both Canada and the different gender and cultural perspectives. In many ways, the United States. two separate works are inter-related coming-of-age stories, with transformation as a key theme. 978-1-77201-181-4 • $16.95 • 80 pages • Drama April 2018 978-1-77201-201-9 • $16.95 • 96 pages • Drama May 2018

King Arthur’s Night and Peter Panties The Cure for Death by Lightning A Collaboration Across Perceptions of A play adapted by Daryl Cloran from the novel by Cognitive Difference Gail Anderson-Dargatz MARCUS YOUSSEF & NIALL MCNEIL DARYL CLORAN introduction by Al Etmanski Set in Turtle Valley (near Kamloops, British Columbia) in the shadow of the Second World War, The Cure for Death by Among the first by a writer with Down syndrome, these two Lightning tells a dark, challenging story that includes sexual plays demonstrate an ability to riff and shift perspective abuse, grief, and the day-to-day struggle for survival. with disarming, hilarious, and occasionally heart-stopping results. Based on the iconic stories of King Arthur and Peter 978-1-77201-205-7 • $16.95 • 96 pages • Drama Pan, they are modern-day mash-ups that meld the fictional, AAprilpril 20182018 the meta-fictional, and the real in ways that are countercounter-- intintuitiveuitive aandnd ababsurd.surd. 978-1-77201-203-3 • $16.95$16.95 • 96 pages • Drama MMayay 2018

14 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 ACTIVISM

BY DAVID R . CONN good news is that, overall, harm re- journalist Johann Hari’s Chasing the InSite’s detox program. “His idea that duction measures, medical care and Scream: The First and Last Days of the prohibition is victimization,” says Lu- N ALLEY NEAR HAST- detox services kept many drug users War on Drugs, a wide-ranging read that pick, “that most drug users, at least ings and Main is alive and as healthy as possible, giving includes chapters about the Downtown down here, are just self-medicating for them the option to quit hard drugs on Eastside. “I read that book in almost past abuse or past trauma, that was an a shadowy brick their own. literally a single sitting,” he says. “His idea that I tried to weave into the book.” canyon. Used Lupick includes chapters about central thesis is that prohibition and Lupick, at 32, is a Georgia Straight A the opioid epidemic in various U.S. criminalization of drugs actually do veteran. After he loaded bales of needles lie on the pavement. cities, and various attempts to intro- more harm than the drugs themselves. newspapers and toiled in the office to duce harm reduction in the face of the And he fleshed that idea out with char- finance his political science studies at Its puddles hold an am- intensive war on drugs. Meanwhile, acters and anecdotes.” McGill University, he started reporting, monia reek of urine. Along in Vancouver, Portland Hotel Society For a different take, he read Literary mentored by editor Charlie Smith. He staff members literally saved lives by Outlaw by Ted Morgan, a frequently also gained an international perspective one wall, a man and woman resuscitating overdose victims in the unflattering biography of the Beat satiri- by freelancing in Africa for two years. run-down hotels they managed. cal writer and self-described junkie Wil- “I put a lot of pressure on myself scavenge in a dumpster. The roll call of activists and al- liam S. Burroughs. “I wanted that kind to do justice to the people who were lies includes Larry Campbell, Coco of honesty in this book,” Lupick says. giving me their time and sharing their That’s the cliché. Culbertson, Ann Livingston, Gabor A third key resource was Gabor life with me,” Lupick says. “I saw that Most people across Canada know Mate, Philip Owen, Christian Owen, Mate’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: people are being pushed to the shad- by now that Vancouver’s so-called John Richardson, Nettie Wild and Close Encounters with Addiction. Mate, ows, pushed out of housing, pushed Skid Road was a neighbourhood east of Dean Wilson. a physician, spent years treating in- out of the health care system. We don’t Gastown where hard-drinking loggers, Lupick was inspired by British jection drug users while on staff with treat drug users like human beings…” miners and mariners rented rooms Fighting for Space covers the 1990s and partied. overdose crisis and its aftermath, when Some survivors became pensioners, powerful heroin killed thousands. The living in its modest hotels. Amenities WRITE WHO YOU KNOW current overdose crisis is worse be- included pubs, diners, theatres, and cause cheap synthetic opioids, fentanyl Woodward’s flagship department store. and carfentanyl, are more deadly. Some There was a community spirit in spite 1500 overdose deaths are predicted in of petty crime. NEEDLES B.C. this year. Most supervised injec- Later known as the Downtown tion site users must still get drugs from Eastside, the area became notorious as street dealers. 978-1-55152-712-3 Canada’s locus for opioid addiction and overdose deaths. But these days there’s David Conn is a retired librarian, an upbeat story that deserves telling. poet, journalist and Raincoast This downtrodden neighbourhood & PENS Chronicles editor. has led the way for introducing harm reduction measures for drug users and many of the mentally ill, the addicted, the sick, the disabled, the homeless Having lived for years in the and the poor have found comfortable lives in the Downtown Eastside despite Downtown Eastside, journalist the drawbacks. ✫ Travis Lupick has won this year’s JUST A FEW DOORS FROM INSITE, NORTH George Ryga Award for Social America’s first supervised injection site, is the Lost + Found Café, large Awareness for documenting and dim, furnished with mismatched tables and chairs. Travel images deco- how a coterie of courageous rate the walls. Vancouverites created North Travis Lupick, a coordinating edi- tor for the Georgia Straight, is a quiet America’s fi rst supervised presence at the cafe. He lives nearby and reports on events in the Downtown injection site. Eastside. While working this beat, he got to know many of the grassroots activists who prodded three levels of government into authorizing and fund- ing harm reduction measures. Then, in 2014, the poet, community organizer and former Vancouver Coast- al Health board member Bud Osborn died and Libby Davies, longtime MP for Vancouver East, announced her retirement. As well, executive directors Liz Evans and Mark Townsend of the Portland Hotel Society, a nonprofit they founded and led for many years, unexpectedly resigned. Lupick decided it was time to tell the stories of the drug users and allies who agitated to change Canadian attitudes and laws over two decades—including Osborn and Davies. He spent six months producing a manuscript, mostly composed on his laptop at the Lost + Found. “I can’t work at home,” he says. “This kept me rooted in the community that it’s about.” Now his Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction (Arsenal $24.95) highlights a cast of Vancouver residents who helped destitute drug users get basic hous- Travis Lupick with needle drop box in ing, clean needles and a supervised Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He wrote injection site. his book at a cafe called the Lost + Found. Their ideal was the progressive Swiss version of harm reduction. The

15 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 PRE-ORDER NOW . COMING MAY 1

978-0-7748-9026-7 | paperback | 232 pages

From award-winning journalist Sarah Cox comes the inspiring and astonishing story of the farmers and First Nations who fought the most expensive megaproject in BC history and the government-sanctioned bullying that propelled it forward.

FREE SHIPPING on Canadian orders over $40 at ubcpress.ca ubcpress.ca thought that counts

New in Health from Greystone Books

105 Hikes in and Wellmania Better Sex through The Diabetes Code Fit at Mid-Life around Southwestern Extreme Misadventures in the Mindfulness Prevent and Reverse Type 2 A Feminist Fitness Journey British Columbia Search for Wellness How Women Can Diabetes Naturally       Cultivate Desire .   &     Foreword by ’’’- 978-1-77164-370-2 • $24.95 •   . ,  Foreword by 978-1-77164-167-8 • $22.95 •    Foreword by  ,  978-1-77164-265-1 • $22.95 •  978-1-77164-286-6 • $24.95 •  978-1-77164-235-4 • $22.95 • 

Naturally Great Books greystonebooks.com

16 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review SOCIETY

Stories like NikNaz’s dem- Why Canada doesn’t onstrate how empty the idea of diversity is unless we are committed to learning and honouring that diversity. have a travel ban ✫ DIFFERENT LIVED EXPERIENCES Immigrant women offer new perspectives on tack- ling the challenges we face as share their truths for a nation, such as the racism, Wherever I Find Myself sexism, and homophobia ex- . plored by NikNaz. The task of exploring im- Wherever I Find Myself: familiarity in the landscape of migration in its plurality Stories by Canadian Immigrant the Rocky Mountains. led me to ask what defines Miriam Women, edited by Esmeralda Cabral Matejova (Caitlin $24.95) in “The Canadianness—and if it even Pull of the Azores” tries to con- exists. nect her children to the town These authors speak hon- BY GILLIAN DER she grew up in. estly and with powerful voices In “Border Crossing,” about a process that has been HE 24 IMMIGRANT NikNaz K. is caught in an both central to my own being Canadian wom- intermediate state between an as a second-generation Chi- en who have exclusion she feels from rac- nese immigrant and one that contributed their ism, as a Muslim, and being has too often been obscured T Wher- stories to called out as a bad Muslim for Sarah Munawar from my own learning. ever I Find Myself cross lines her non-heterosexuality. Beyond reflections of fam- of class, race, and sexuality ily members waving in an increasingly isolationist goodbye, or the typical world. temperature shock of Editor Miriam Matejova a Canadian winter, calls on the reader to chal- these stories imagine lenge stereotypes of immi- immigration as a life- grants, ideas of citizenship long process. and belonging, and to think 978-1-987915-34-1 critically of how the Canadian state and society support and Gillian Der is a fail these women. youth climate justice PHOTO Sarah Munawar, in “How activist working on to Emerge from the Belly of the watershed conscious- ARSIRAY

Whale” recalls trying to com- NikNaz K Miriam Matejova ness in the Salish

prehend her father’s search for TEMMUZ Sea Bio-region.

FOR FANS OF Wild AND Eat Pray Love

By the founder of Vancouver’s BEAUCOUP BAKERY The story of one woman’s search for herself— across three continents, into the depths of heartache, and through the healing power of the kitchen.

@appetiterandomhouse @appetite_randomhouse penguinrandomhouse.ca/appetite

17 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 GROW MAKE BUILD CHANGE

Backyard Bounty DIY Kombucha Mudgirls Manifesto Changemakers —Revised & Expanded 2nd Edition Sparkling Homebrews Made Easy Handbuilt Homes, Handcrafted Lives Embracing Hope, Taking Action, The Complete Guide to Year-round ANDREA POTTER THE MUDGIRLS NATURAL and Transforming the World Gardening in the Pacific Northwest US/Can $29.99 BUILDING COLLECTIVE FAY WELLER & MARY WILSON LINDA GILKESON Urban Homestead Hack Series US/Can $29.99 US/Can $17.99 US/Can $29.99 Create refreshing, healthier drinks, Building a Revolution, The guidebook for ordinary people who ... very likely the best book ever written on from kombucha to herbal sodas and more, one handful at a time. want to create a new society now rather growing food in the Pacific Northwest.” in your own kitchen. than wait for a pie-in-the-sky future. —Mark MacDonald, West Coast Seeds

The Ever Curious Gardener From No-knead to Sourdough Essential Natural Plaster An Economy of Well-Being Using a Little Natural Science A Simpler Approach to Handmade Bread A Guide to Materials, Recipes, and Use Common-Sense Tools for Building for a Much Better Garden VICTORIA REDHED MILLER MICHAEL HENRY & TINA THERRIEN Genuine Wealth and Happiness LEE REICH US/Can $29.99 US/Can $39.99 MARK ANIELSKI US/Can $18.99 Create delicious, healthy breads in your Sustainable Building Essentials Series US/Can $19.99 A fresh, fun, and fascinating must-read own kitchen- no experience required A veritable cookbook of natural plaster Help build a world-based on for every curious gardener. recipes and techniques for beautiful, flourishing well-being for both the —Joe Lamp’l, Creator & Host, durable finishes human family and nature. PBS’s Growing a Greener World

Climate-Wise Landscaping Wild Mushrooms Essential Earthbag Construction In the Business of Change Practical Actions for a Sustainable Future From Forest to Table The Complete Step-by-Step Guide How Social Entrepreneurs are SUE REED & GINNY STIBOLT ALAN MUSKAT KELLY HART Disrupting Business as Usual US/Can $29.99 US/Can $24.99 US/Can $39.99 ELISA BIRNBAUM … a comprehensive book that outlines dozens Fun, informative, practical – whether or not you Sustainable Building Essentials Series US/Can $17.99 of actions that people can take to adjust to put your mushroom where your mouth is! Build economical and resilient earthbag Meet the social entrepreneurs who are evolving climate regimes.” structures using simple tools and techniques using business to disrupt the status quo —Dr. Peter Robinson, former CEO, and rebuild their commnunities. David Suzuki Foundation new society PUBLISHERS www.newsociety.com Available at fine bookstores and ebook retailers, online at

www.newsociety.com or call 1 800 567 6772 for a full catalogue.

18 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review INDUSTRY

People, Power, and Progress: of the automation of hydro The Story of John Hart Dam operations is dismissed in and the Campbell River Power Projects by Daniel Stoffman a paragraph. Similarly, the (Figure 1 Publishing / BC Hydro stories of idyllic family life in Power Pioneers $24.95) A bulb in every barn the “Hydro Hollow” residential area for employees give no suggestion of class tensions. BY JAMES HULL The volume gives a nod of Dwarfed by later mega-projects, the John Hart thanks early on to First Na- Before there was tions. That is all to the good Williston Lake, there Dam was a benchmark in dam building for B.C., but it would have been helpful was John Hart Lake. to have had the changing eco- the ‘grandfather’ of the controversial Site C dam. nomic contexts of Indigenous

HE JOHN HART DAM Vancouver Island societies and generat- is an easy if not always absorb- project on recreational fishing, via logging. It has provided explained in some more detail. ing station was ing read, with technical mat- and on the revenues it brought power to the forest products Instead we receive the author’s opened in De- ters mostly dealt with clearly. in, has been a perennial issue. industry and the problems solemn assurance that BC cember of 1947 Historians of technology might Interestingly, one of the have not gone away. In the Hydro’s “relationship with Tas the biggest of three devel- like to know a bit more. For great also-rans of Canadian description of these particular the region’s First Nations has opments impounding water example, we are told on one history, H.H. Stevens, iden- dams vs preservation battles become one of cooperation and from Upper Campbell Lake on page that concrete for the dam tified in this book only as a there is a real sense of “Plus mutual respect.” Vancouver Island on its way to was made on site, but then on former federal Conservative ça change…” ✫ the Strait of Georgia. It created the next page that delays were cabinet minister, shows up While not an environmental COMMISSIONED COMMEMORATIVE John Hart Lake in the logged- occasioned by “the inability as an opponent of the associ- whitewash, the book’s empha- histories as a genre tend to be off timber properties between of the project’s machinery to ated Buttle Lake Project and sis is on ameliorative initia- long on celebration and short the strait and the Vancouver handle the type of cement that an advocate of environmental tives and the benign nature on analysis. But they can be Island Mountains. had been supplied.” preservation. of hydro power as renewable done well and do good his- Named for John Hart, premier of B.C. from 1941 to 1947, the dam formed part of a policy of post-World War Two resource-based development promoted by the provincial government. Future Premier W.A.C. Bennett, architect of what has been called “big dam government,” was enthusiasti- cally involved as a member of John Hart’s post war Rehabili- tation Council. While residents of the town of Campbell River would ben- efit from the development, it was especially intended to supply power for pulp mills on the Island with the Bloedel, Stewart and Welch pulp mill at Port Alberni a major customer. The project was built by Ontario-based H.G. Acres Co., which had been involved in hydroelectric development at Niagara Falls. It was also part of post-war planning to extend electric power to unserviced rural areas with the slogan “a bulb in every barn.” The B.C. Power Commis- sion’s activities would also help to provide jobs for gradu- ates of UBC’s engineering The book is one of several After seventy years, the John Hart power station will tory; Jeremy Mouat’s centen- programmes, many of whom historical and commemorative be replaced by a billion-dollar project undertaken with nial history of West Kootenay had been going off to greener volumes sponsored by ex-BC Quebec-based SNC-Lavelin as the contractor. Power & Light, The Business pastures in Ontario. Hydro employees, the “BC of Power (Sono Nis Press, ✫ Hydro Power Pioneers.” While Stoffman mentions that and emission free. Presumably 1997), was an especially good THE TITLE FOR DANIEL STOFFMAN’S not entirely uncritical, the the federal government was BC Hydro is not responsible example. People, Power, and Progress book’s conclusion in advance involved in the formation of in any way for emissions and The Hydro Pioneers have says it all; the author is per- is that the project is a “classic Fisheries and Oceans Canada; effluents from its pulp mill got their money’s worth with haps best known for his pop- example of how water power it would have been good to customers. Daniel Stoffman’s People, demographic Canadian best- can co-exist with other tradi- learn more about the rela- Meanwhile, while earlier Power, and Progress. This seller Boom, Bust and Echo: tional land uses while provid- tionship of the provincial and diverting more or less all water handsomely produced and How to Profit from the Coming ing emission-free, renewable federal actors. from Elk Falls, since the 1990s lavishly illustrated volume Demographic Shift (Macfar- energy.” If, however, you want to BC Hydro has been required will help keep the historical lane Walter & Ross, 1996), Stoffman acknowledges understand the environmental to send some over the Falls memory of the original John co-authored with David Foot. that conflict between econom- impact of hydro development for aesthetic and tourism Hart project alive. It will also Based on a blend of second- ic growth and environmental on river fish stocks, you would purposes. be a helpful point of departure ary and primary sources in- protection was an issue from do better to read the volume Social and labour histo- for any future academic study. cluding reminiscences of those the start. But, after all, this edited by James Ward and rians will note there is no 9781927958384 involved in the project, the is British Columbia, and we Jack Stanford, The Ecology engagement with issues of organization of People, Power, know those fish aren’t in the of Regulated Streams (Plenum class. At least some of the James Hull is a member of the and Progress is loosely chron- Campbell River to be admired; Press, 1979) or Matthew Ev- work force was unionized and Department of History and ological. Sidebars include the they are there to be caught for enden’s Fish versus Power: a brief allusion is made to Sociology at the Okanagan bizarre story of proposed cloud sport and as trophies. An Environmental History of labour strife. But strikes are campus of UBC. He is currently seeding to increase rainfall for Roderick Haig-Brown was the Fraser River (Cambridge pesky things that interfered working on a study of British hydro purposes and a some- a redoubtable advocate of the University Press, 2004). with construction by restrict- Columbians’ responses to the what irrelevant re-telling of the environmental side—but also The environment impact ing the availability of lumber Canadian Manufacturers As- Ripple Rock story. a redoubtable Nimrod of the fly of the John Hart dam is not and steel. sociation’s “Made-in-Canada” People, Power, and Progress fishing rod. The impact of the just direct, but also indirect The impact on employees campaign.

19 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 LIVING HERE’S MUD IN YOUR EYE A DIY solution to “We seek to do our business the housing crisis in a non-capitalist spirit. We keep the cost of natural build-

ANTING TO BREAK FREE ing affordable by keeping from a rigged economic our wages low, offering our and social system, the workshop for barter, building West Coast based Mud W Girls Natural Building for people with low-income as Collective decided in 2007 to make much as we can.”—Mudgirlscan.”—Mudgirls their own homes using mud—one of the most abundant building materials on earth. Initially most of the women in the Mud Girls Natural Building Collective offers workshops that empower people “We learned to build by building.” perspective of building homes—but had very little building experience. to take back the right to provide shelter —Mud Girls Clare Kenny, Bec providing oneself with shelter is inti- Having families to support and needing for themselves, and has created Mud- McGuire and Anna Himmelman. mately bound up with the structure of roofs over their heads, the group chose girls Manifesto: Handbuilt Homes, everything in our lives. not to lobby governments and banks Handcrafted Lives (New Society it’s an evolving, counter-cultural move- “We are seeking to provide a true for support but to forge ahead, making $29.99). ment that has a definite Gulf Islands alternative to a wasteful, oppressive their own rules as they went along. Mudgirls Manifesto has a detailed vibe. Mudgirls Manifesto will spread the system that creates toxic boxes that Voila! The Mudgirls revolution was section on natural building tips, dis- word about spreading the mud. inherently remove our right to learn, born. cussions on proper materials, plaster- The Mudgirls write: “Our book is grow and challenge ourselves as people. Their common practices include: making recipes, and details to help based on our philosophy—if nobody is “The fact that we are women—tradi- respect the earth and each other, learn build dry stack foundation (using going to change the rules so that they tionally disempowered in the building by actually doing, have fun, share stones), but also “It lays out the insan- make sense in terms of basic needs, trades—and mothers—disempowered whatever is learned with whoever ity of the current system we reside in rights, and respect for the biosphere that everywhere—only underlines the fact wants to join in, and gather skills and and how we strive to stay out of the supports our very existence, then we that this revolution is available to ev- allies along the way. conventional rat race.” should feel free to make our own rules. erybody who wants to step outside the Now the collective builds houses, With about fifteen women involved, “It happens to be cast through the “box.” 978-0-86571-877-7

caitlin press where urban meetsfall rural

2017

Writers exploring the impact of resource development on local communities, Indigenous cultures and our XZMKQW][8IKQÅKWKMIV

EXPLORE YOUROURUR WWOWORLDORLD HOME TO DAGGER EDITIONS

THETHEHE LILY CHOW LIGHLLIIGHGHT A BODY RADIATES

BLOSSOMS IN THE GOLD

A NOVEL MOUNTAINS

CHINESE SETTLEMENTS IN THE ETHEL WHITTY FRASER CANYON-JMZ
$IPX AND THE OKANAGAN

20 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review UNIONS

On the Line: A History of ing from a community-based the British Columbia Labour Three histories catch up on the pivotal oral history project, Long- Movement by Rod Mickleburgh (Harbour $44.95) shoring on the Fraser is not • role of unions in B.C. from 1849 to 2018. heavy on analysis, according Strange New Country: to Cadigan. The Fraser River Salmon “The emergence of the neo- Strikes of 1900 and the Birth province’s industrial history at gains during this post-war era. of Modern British Columbia by the outset of the 20th century. The next hurdle was not liberal state, the rolling back Geoff Meggs (Harbour $22.95) of social welfare, wage and job • ✫ maniacal or malicious employ- losses, and the curtailment of Longshoring on the Fraser: AUGMENTING THESE TWO OVERVIEWS ers—it was mechanization. Lo- Stories & History of ILWU is a study of a venerable and cal 502 fought for compensa- union rights have been major Local 502 by Chris Madsen, reversals for working people specific union, Longshoring tion for workers ousted by the Liam O’Flaherty, Michelle La throughout Canada, including (Granville Island $29.95) on the Fraser: Stories and augmentation on containers. History of ILWU Local 502, Veteran labour historian the members of Local 502,” by a team of authors, Chris Sean Cadigan comments on he writes. “Yet the selling of New EOFF MEGGS AND Madsen, Liam O’Flaherty, mechanization in his exten- ’ Westminster’s port on the in- Rod Mickle- and Michelle La. sive review of Longshoring ternational stage by members burgh’s The Art Basically, this is a success on the Fraser in The Ormsby of Local 502, an example of of the Impossible story of perseverance but Review, “waterfront workers the neoliberalism that has (Harbour, 2012) also adaptation. As working Geoff Meggs: Horgan’s experienced a ‘gradual profes- otherwise been so problematic Gremains the definitive book for conditions worsened during write-hand man sionalization of work’ based for working people, is touted assessing NDP Premier Dave The Depression, most workers on a new work safety culture here by the authors as a major Barrett’s roller-coaster ride in joined the New Westminster recover and secure affiliation that emphasized workers’ success for workers and the office during the 1970s. That Waterfront Workers’ Associa- with the International Long- self-discipline in areas such community.” Meggs/Mickleburgh collabo- tion. In sympathy with water- shore & Warehouse Union as substance abuse on the Cadigan nonetheless en- ration won the 2013 Hubert front workers in Vancouver (ILWU) as Local 502 in 1944. job and the enforcement of dorses Longshoring on the Evans Non-Fiction Prize. who were pummeled by police By taking a less confronta- workplace safety regulations. Fraser as an accessible cel- The pair are re-emerging during the famous altercation tional approach to employers “Local 502 survived by ebration of the history of ILWU separately this spring. at Ballantyne Pier in 1935, a during good times, Local 502 emphasizing workers’ role as Local 502 in New Westminster. Rod Mickleburgh, a vet- less-remembered strike in New was able to obtain higher indispensable and responsible A less charitable response eran Vancouver Sun journalist Westminster was also violently wages, and expanded benefits, partners of employers. Such would be churlish given that and senior writer for The Globe diffused by police. including unemployment in- partnership deepened through there are obviously far more and Mail, has written On the It took years for the New surance and pensions. Most the 1990s as members of the B.C. books devoted to com- Line: A History of the British Westminster unionists to unions in North America made local took part in foreign trade pany histories or memoirs by Columbia Labour Movement missions that succeeded in entrepreneurs, than there are to document the breadth finding new business for the books about specific unions. and length of what has been port of New Westminster.” Line 978-1-55017-826-5 Canada’s most volatile and In other words, measured Strange 978-1-55017-829-6 progressive provincial labour cooperation won the day. Aris- Longshoring 9781926991832 force. Labour The story be- gins back in 1849 when mostly Scottish labour- ers went on strike to protest barbar- ic working condi- INTENSIVE tions at B.C.’s first coal mine at Fort Rupert on Vancouver Island and continues into the second decade of the 21st cen- tury to recount the success- ful campaign led by the B.C. Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) to improve classroom conditions and class sizes. ✫ BACK IN 1978, GEOFF MEGGS became editor of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union’s (UFAWU) The Fisher- man, the oldest and largest circulation west coast fishing publication. Fast forward forty years to 2018 and the former Vancouver city councillor is now chief of staff to newly- elected NDP Premier John Horgan. Meggs’ third book on the fishing industry, Strange New Country: The Fraser River Salmon Strikes of 1900 and the Birth of Modern Brit- ish Columbia, recounts the salmon strikes on the Fraser River in 1900 and 1901 that were pivotal in the growth of British Columbia. Once upon a not-so-distant time, when the Fraser River Canners Association fixed the maximum price per salmon at 15 cents, fishermen united and shut down British Colum- bia’s second-largest export in- Container ship dustry. The government called Northern Magnum at New Westminster. out the militia. That strike was a watershed moment in the

21 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 MUSIC

Grammas sit in chairs and reminisce. performance techniques and 1960s. It was followed by 2Stoned and finally —as Cher sang—Boys keep chasing girls, to building positive community Stone Free (CreateSpace $25.17), dedicated to get a kiss… Not only did the San Francisco environments. Brian Jones. “Stone Free is the third part of my Beat poet Michael McClure, at age 85, read The exercises in Freestyle triography,” he says. “It is an affectionate look at at SFU Harbour Centre last fall, introduced Focus Group are suitable impresarios I have admired, loved and loathed.” by post-Beat baseball nut George Bowering; AND THE for all levels, beginner to There are profiles of Serge Diaghilev, Mike Todd, he also performed with jazz accompaniment at advanced in exploring vocal Otto Preminger, Larry Parnes, John Kennedy, The Roxy Theatre in Victoria, alongside singer styles and developing mic Brian Epstein, Don Arden, Kit Lambert, Chris Carol Ann Sokoloff. McClure’s new poetry col- techniques. Stamp, Malcolm McLaren, Albert Grossman, lection, Persian Pony (Ekstasis $21.95), is from Sinclair is an academical- Phil Spector, Allen Klein, Mick Jagger and Keith the literary press managed by post-Beat poet ly-trained philosopher (MA Richards. Richard Olafson. from Western University), a In 2008, he produced and arranged an album McClure is immortalized as Pat McClear in children’s zine writer and an for and by Vancouverite Wyckham Porteous. Jack Kerouac’s novels The Dharma Bums and ethno-botanist-forager. 978-0992027513 Big Sur; and he influenced pop stars Janis Jo- BEATS Besides co-curating Mobile plin and Jim Morrison of The Doors. McClure Sauna Truck Happenings in also performed with keyboardist Ray Manzarek. Rapping Vancouverites Vancouver, Sinclair has been staging Guerilla Drums keep pounding rhythms to the brain. Professor Prawn and Freestyle-Rap interventions via Sound Bike with La-de-da-de-dee; la-de-da-de-die. 978-1-77171-249-1 Count Snackula. the Freestyle Focus Group (FFG), and doing activist and communications work for arts and non-profit groups such as PIVOT Legal, Greenpeace, 45 West Studios and Wilderness Committee. GO ON Kalnins builds mobile bike-based sound sys- tems, develops his skills in mycology (a branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi,), and is co-director of the BC Tea Growers Association. of times, but also for the best: Carnegie Hall, In 2001, he co-founded the Locative Media Lab Having lived mainly in Bogota, Colombia, for Folsom Prison, A Boy Named Sue, and Cash’s hit with Marc Tuters to explore the field of user thirty years, Andrew Loog Oldham (above left television series. He handled the bookings and generated cartography. with Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in 1965) the no-shows, the divorce and the record deals, His work has been presented internationally first came to live in Vancouver in 2003 to the drugs, overdoses, and arrests. at conferences and new media festivals including write a book and be closer to his son, a music In 1973, at the zenith of Cash’s career, Saul IMPAKT (Utrecht), Media Architecture (Riga), Col- producer in Los Angeles. quit. Until now, no one knew why. Saul Holiff laborative Cartography (London), and E-Culture committed suicide in Nanaimo in 2005, and left Fair (Amsterdam). 978-1-365-81163-0 Michael McClure behind a vast archive of materials in a storage THE TRUTH IS NOT PHOTO performing with locker. AS YEARS GO BY OUT THERE Victoria jazz singer

LOWRY “I came across the story when Saul’s son, PART-TIME VANCOUVERITE ANDREW LOOG OLDHAM, AFTER RELEASING SIX ALBUMS VANCOUVER INDIE SINGER , Carol Ann Sokoloff. Jonathan, completed a documentary about his at age 19, discovered, managed and produced and accordion whizz Geoff Berner has crafted MILES father in 2012 called My Father and the Man in the early records of the Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll a Searching for Sugarman-like novel about the RAPTURE, NOT RAPTORS Black,” says Chadwick, a former entertainment Band in the World—and he co-wrote As Tears disappearance of a mysterious and charismatic RAISED BY GERMAN AND JAMAICAN PARENTS, editor at the Nanaimo Daily News. She was even- Go By with Mick Jagger and Keith female musician named DD. As the multi-disciplinary artist Derek von Essen photo- tually accorded access to hundreds of personal Richards. narrator in The Fiddler is a Good documented the underground music scene at letters, audiotaped diaries covering forty years, Along the way he discovered Woman (Dundurn $18.99) interviews hundreds of club shows in Toronto during the phone calls, original photos, gold records, clip- Marianne Faithful. The songs he pro- DD’s friends, ex-bandmates, ex-lovers mid-1980s, including performances by Nirvana, pings, booklets and posters. duced for The Rolling Stones include and such, he amasses an increasingly Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, Sound- As one of the first promoters of many rock Johnny Cash, many of their best hits: Satisfaction, diverse and puzzling portrait. The au- garden, Henry Rollins and Mudhoney before n’ roll artists in Canada, Holiff worked with Bill backstage, Under My Thumb, Get Off Of My thenticity of the variable viewpoints is those groups were famous. Haley, Paul Anka, Little Richard, Carl Perkins London, Ontario, Cloud, Lady Jane, Play With Fire, Out brought into doubt. The truth is not Von Essen’s pre-digital era photos are the and Buddy Holly. He also managed Tommy 1958 of Time, Mother’s Little Helper, 19th out there. basis for No Flash, Please! Underground Music Hunter and June Carter. Nervous Breakdown, Paint It Black. Previously Berner published Festi- The Man Who Carried Cash: 978-1-45973-723-5 in Toronto 1987-92 (Anvil $28) with text by Come Fly With Me: 978-1-77162-006-2 Oldham’s first memoir of his glory val Man and a graphic novel, We Are Phil Saunders. His resultant hearing loss was days could only have been called Going To Bremen To Be Musicians. the world’s photographic gain. 978-1-77214-037-8 ROLL OVER, CHOPIN Stoned: A Memoir of London in the Geoff Berner 978-1-45973-708-2 IT’S A LITTLE-KNOWN FACT THAT FRANK ZAPPA WAS A DISC CASH CACHE jockey (that is a person who played records for HAVING DISCOVERED A YOUNG MICHAEL BUBLÉ AT A people who were listening to the radio) at KSPC- talent contest in 1993, Beverly Delich became FM at Pomona College in Claremont, California the first manager of the unknown eighteen- before he became the frontman for The Mothers year-old singer, moving of Invention. with him to Toronto, and Charles Ulrich, author of a 768-page appre- later Los Angeles, finally ciation, The Big Note: A Guide to the Record- helping him reach the top ings of Frank Zappa (New Star $45), was also of the charts. She relates a deejay at KSPC. So, he can verify that, yes, the story of his rise to in 1975, pranksters did indeed prominence, and her role succeed in replacing the name in the success, in Come of Chopin on the frieze atop the Fly With Me: Michael Bridges Auditorium at Pomona Bublé’s Rise to Star- College with the name Zappa to dom, a Memoir (D&M go along with Wagner, Beethoven, Michael Bublé $32.95), co-written with Bach and Schubert. Shelley Fralic. Michael Over fifteen years in the mak- “In Saul’s records I found Bublé will be hosting the 2018 Juno Awards in ing, Ulrich’s detailed appreciation Vancouver. covers 100 albums recorded over newspaper clippings and letters that Now another music manager has spilled the a 35-year period with more than detailed how Saul and Johnny spent beans—inadvertently—about Johnny Cash. eighty musicians on 1,772 tracks, Nanaimo journalist Julie Chadwick helped all described in detail. Frank Zappa two years fighting the Ku Klux Klan, Saul Holiff, The Man In Black’s manager in the 9781554201464 (1940-1993) 1960s and ‘70s, to posthumously present his who threatened to kill Johnny recollections for The Man Who Carried Cash ROLL OVER, CALVIN CORDOZAR (Dundurn $19.95). because they mistakenly thought The long-winded subtitle for this tale of a BROADUS, JR. tempestuous but affectionate relationship is ADRIAN SINCLAIR, AKA his first wife Vivian was black.” Saul Holiff, Johnny Cash, and the Making of “ Professor Prawns,” and an American Icon. “From roadside taverns to Karlis Kalnins, aka “Count Snackula,” have —Julie Chadwick, author of the roaring crowds at Madison Square Garden, translated six years of music making into an from wrecked cars and jail cells all the way to unusual how-to book, Freestyle Focus Group: The Man Who Carried Cash the White House.” Learn how to freestyle rap and build com- Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain at Lee’s Palace, 1990, the band’s fi rst ever show in Toronto. Saul Holiff was there for the absolute worst munity (Praxis Publishing $19.95), a guide to Photo by Derek von Essen from No Flash Please! Underground Music in Toronto 1987-92.

22 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 23 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review HISTORY

Island of the Blue Foxes: words were prophetic. Beset by Disaster and Triumph on The stranded survivors of Vitus Bering’s 1741 scurvy, his crew of 76 was re- Bering’s Great Voyage to duced to just ten healthy men Alaska by Stephen R. Bown expedition were starving as they fended off relentless (D&M $34.95) by October as the ship was attacks from hordes of feral blue arctic foxes. spun uncontrollably about the north Pacific by a storm. TEPHEN R. BOWN’S Men perished miserably and Island of the Blue were pitched overboard while Foxes tells the the rigging and sails were story of The Great destroyed. More like a wreck Northern Expedi- VITUS BERING’S DIRE than a ship, the St. Peter was Stion which resulted in the driven onto the beach as the mapping of the Arctic Coast of men desperately sought es- Siberia and large parts of the cape, ripping a hole in the hull. North American coastline, and The survivors scrambled the discovery of Alaska. ashore and constructed a Almost 300 years ago, it makeshift camp from the sal- was one of the most ambitious vaged stores of the ship. Here and well-financed scientific on this desolate, uncharted, expeditions in history. Now uninhabited island they were it is famous for the horrific destined to spend the next privations suffered by its crew. eight months surviving as best Danish-born Vitus Bering they could, choking down rot- served for 38 years with the ten whale blubber or sinewy Russian fleet and was encour- STRAIT sea lion meat while fending off aged secretly to explore the the relentless attacks of hordes North Pacific by Tsar Peter of feral blue arctic foxes. the Great. Vitus Bering is Vitus Bering died on De- often wrongly credited with cember 8, 1741 on Bering confirming the separation of Island, east of Kamchatka. He the two continents in 1728. was buried in a sandbank on In fact, a little-known Siberian the side of a wind-swept hill. Cossack, Semen Ivanovitch Logbooks have survived, in ad- Dezhnev, sailed around the dition to the accounts made by extreme northeastern tip of Si- Waxell and Steller, that reveal beria in 1648 but the records the daily struggles, personal of the voyage were buried in quarrels and aspirations of the an obscure archive in Siberia adventurers. for many decades. Of the 76 men who had Vitus Bering was also not sailed with Bering from Pet- the first Russian mariner to ropavlovsk six months before, glimpse North America. Mi- only 45 were still alive by the chael Gvozdev was the first to end of 1741. These survivors record his sighting of a ‘large eventually constructed a small country’ (bolshaya zemlya) ship from the wreck of the St. while sailing east of Siberia Peter and sailed the 442 km in 1732. home to Kamchatka. In 1728, beset by fog, Ber- ✫ ing failed in his mission to find STEPHEN BOWN LIKES TO TAKE A out where Asia joins America. biographical and narrative Proceeding only as far as 67 approach to writing about degrees north, he never con- history; less interested in sta- clusively proved that Asia and tistics than in the lives of the North America were separate people involved. continents. “I love a great story,” he Aboard the St. Peter, Ber- says, “and for whatever rea- ing’s second expedition—the son the incredible adventure focus for Bown’s Island of the of Russia’s Great Northern Blue Foxes—sailed in Sep- Expedition and the disastrous tember of 1740 from Okhotsk voyage across the Pacific from accompanied by the St. Paul Kamchatka to Alaska, has under the command of Alek- never been fully told before ex- sei Chirikov. cept in academic publications. After wintering in Kamchat- “I want people to be as ka, both Bering and Chirikov amazed as I was with this COMMONS sailed into the Pacific Ocean story and perhaps have a from Petrovskaia (Petropav- greater appreciation for life in

lovsk) in June of 1741. The WIKIMEDIA those times, the daily danger, dual commanders became Vitus Bering, as depicted in this 1890s Russian illustration, didn’t survive risks, bravery and curiosity it permanently separated by fog his fi nal voyage. Ditto for Ferdinand Magellan and James Cook. took for those voyages, to seek and storms on June 20. out new places. The written record for his Dixon Entrance, in Alaskan later and St. Elias Island in erything, and may go about “At the same time, these final adventure was rendered territory, on July 15, 1741. the Aleutian chain became greatly inflated, but they do men had a powerful urge to for posterity mainly by Ber- ✫ known as Kayak Island. Khi- not consider where we have survive and return home when ing’s second-in-command, THE FIRST LANDFALL IN NORTH trov sketched a map in his reached land, how far we are faced with what can only be Sven Waxell (a Swede) and the America by Vitus Bering’s logbook, the first Russian map from home, and what may yet termed extreme suffering and German-born scientist Georg men occurred at a place now to represent territory in happen. disaster.” Wilhelm Steller. called Kayak Island. Bering’s North America. “Who knows but that Island of the Blue Foxes was It’s often assumed that men first sighted Mount St. When Bering’s ex- perhaps trade winds short-listed for the $30,000 Bering must have accom- Elias on July 17, 1741, then pedition first sighted may arise which may 2018 RBC Taylor Prize. plished the first proven land- a landing party led by Fleet North American land, prevent us from return- Bown’s previous book, fall by Europeans on the Master Sofron Khitrov used a Bering was congratu- ing? We do not know White Eskimo: Knud Rasmus- north Pacific Coast during his longboat to go ashore on July lated by his men but this country, nor are we sen’s Fearless Journey into the follow-up voyage. In fact, Ber- 20, 1741. he was not cheerful. He supplied with provi- Heart of the Arctic (Da Capo ing’s sailing partner, Aleksei Bering named this place told his scientist Georg sions to keep Press, 2015) won the William Chirikov, preceded Bering’s St. Elias Island in honour of Steller, “We think us through the Mills Award for the best non- landing by five days when his the Russian saint’s day. Mt. now we have ac- winter.” fiction book on a polar topic. Stephen Bown crew made landfall north of St. Elias received its name complished ev- Bering’s 978-1-77162-161-8

24 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 New from Ronsdale Press

Beautiful Communions Passageways Des Kennedy Philip Resnick A poignant novel invoking the “beautiful Passageways Poems that reflect on past cultures, AANOVEANOVAN NNOVELNOVENOV NOOVELOOVVEV L communions” among a dysfunctional examine social issues, and offer well- family — observed by border collie Shep aimed political barbs — concluding with bemused detachment. with a confrontation with death. 978-1-55380-532-8 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-523-6 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-533-5 (EBOOK) 280 pp $18.95 978-1-55380-524-3 (EBOOK) 172 pp $18.95

DES KENNEDY PhilipPhh p Resnick

CLAIMING Claiming the Land The King’s Shilling the LAND Daniel Marshall David Starr An examination of the 1858 Fraser River While searching for his sister in 1809 gold rush and its battles between the London, Duncan is press-ganged into California miners and the First Nations the Royal Navy — facing deadly cannon peoples. With 25 photos & maps. fire from Napoleon’s fleet. 978-1-55380-502-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-526-7 (PRINT) British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado 978-1-55380-503-8 (EBOOK) 400 pp $24.95 978-1-55380-527-4 (EBOOK) 226 pp $11.95

Daniel Marshall

ris dans ou m s a a l p , i o

p c

h u

e o

Y

Provoked by Gilgamesh es contes de Livre 1 Les contes de Youpi L Youpi Gilmour Walker Philip Roy & Andrea Torrey Balsara This humorous mashup of the ancient Youpi the pocket mouse wants Jean to tell Epic of Gilgamesh sees a modern man him bedtime fairy tales to help him fall PROVOKED BY Gilgamesh attempting to follow Gilgamesh’s search asleep, but stories from the Brothers Histoire par Illustrations par for eternal life. Philip Roy Andrea Torrey Balsara Grimm keep him awake. 978-1-55380-520-5 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-529-8 (HARDCOVER) 978-1-55380-521-2 (EBOOK) 76 pp $18.95 32 pp $12.95 FRENCH-LANGUAGE

GILMOUR WALKER

Available at your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press www.ronsdalepress.com

Congratulations to Hiro Kanagawa from Playwrights Canada Press

Indian Arm is the winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama

In this modern adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf, two families collide at the uneasy intersection of privilege and birthright.

9781770915725 • $17.95 playwrightscanada.com

25 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ ★ KARIOTAKIS HEAR ME I POLYDOURI OUT The Tragic Poems by Love Story Tzoutzi Mantzourani Poems by Kostas Kariotakis Translated by and Manolis Maria Polydouri Translated by Manolis $20 $20

ISBN: 9781926763453 ISBN: 9781926763408

Listen to the music of the trees in this joyful introduction to nature and life cycles. Ages 4–7 / 978-1-77321-001-8 hc $48 EROTOKRITOS CHTHONIAN BODIES [FOR COLLECTORS OF RARE BOOKS] Poetry by Vitsentzos Kornaros. Transcribed by Manolis Poems by Manolis.Paintings by Ken Kirkby ISBN: 9781926763361 ISBN: 9781926763408

$20

$20

$20 $18 annick press | www.annickpress.com ISBN: 9781926763439 ISBN: 9781926763385 ISBN: 9781926763415 available from your favourite bookstore ISBN: 9781926763378 WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA

Creative Writing Work with a mentor in a supportive community

The Writer’s Studio Online program starts September 2018 Application accepted May-June

Also available in Vancouver

sfu.ca/creative-writing

26 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 HUMOUR Join the Cannabis Revolution! IS IT SALTSPRING OR SALT SPRING? Jack Knox examines one of the great literary conundrums of our time.

LEW BACK FROM A WEEK’S Things fall apart; the centre cannot holiday, landed in a hold. Roving gangs of feral youth burn dystopian nightmare. crops and knock over liquor stores. To be precise: Some- We do occasionally make mistakes F with local names—for example, assum- time in my absence, Saltspring Island be- ing that any school in the Sooke school came Salt Spring Island. district is in Sooke, or that any business To explain why this matters, let’s on Oak Bay Avenue is in Oak Bay. We retreat a bit. In the nineteenth cen- stumble over the idea that Becher Bay tury, what was at various times called is home to the Beecher Bay band, also Klaathem, Chuan, or Admiralty Island known as the Cheanuh, also known became known locally as Salt Spring as the Scia’new First Nation, which we (or Saltspring) Island, somehow turned into the name coming from The best of Jack Knox’s Sci’anew, our applica- Legal Cannabis represents a $50 billion dollar per year Vic- the brine pools (or is humour columns for the tion of apostrophes industry and “big business” competitors have yet to that brinepools?) bur- toria Times-Colonist make for in Aboriginal names bling up on its north delightfully terse reading in sometimes resembling emerge. You can easily find books for marijuana end. Opportunity Knox: Twenty a game of Pin the Tail entrepreneurs opening retail locations, and books about Local usage tilts Years of Award Losing on the Donkey. how to grow cannabis. CannaBiz is the only book on the toward two words, Humour Writing (Heritage In our defence, it market that is for marijuana retailers, growers, produc- though there’s hardly $19.95). should be pointed out unanimity. (When have That subtitle is an oblique that we have also had ers, suppliers, distributors, and everything in between. Islanders agreed on reference to the fact that his trouble spelling our anything but the ap- previous book, Hard Knox, own name: while the $22.95 CAD | Paperback | Download Kit Times-Colonist became palling state of ferry was shortlisted for the Ste- fares?) The newest the hyphenless Times phen Leacock Medal for Hu- phone book has sixty- Colonist in December mour but didn’t win. two listings that be- 1994, the files show “Women adore him,” his gin with Salt Spring, pockets of resistance bio states. “Men want to Survive With Your Sanity Intact! but only thirteen for (hello, sports depart- be him. His hobbies include Saltspring. Several ment!) held out like playing in a rock-and-roll years ago, Canada Post the Russians at Stal- declared the one-word band, being awesome and ingrad for months, if version must be used self-delusion.” not years. on mail, but backed Change comes down after a minor slowly. It took us a revolt. long time to give up Never mind. Here at referring to a clus- the Victoria Times Colo- ter of Greater Victoria Jack nist, we have always Knox municipalities as the stuck with the official Western Communities, version, Saltspring, as in part because no one adopted by the Geo- was quite sure whether graphic Board of Canada in 1910. the mid-1990s replacement, the inven- This is how newspapers settle ques- tion of boosters who wanted to give the tions of usage: blind, unswerving ad- area an image makeover, was West herence to the rules. This applies not Shore or Westshore. only to place names but the language Even today, there’s a confusion of as a whole. Most publications in the proper names: Note that on Friday we Great Write North take as gospel The ran a story about a woman who was Canadian Press Stylebook (not Style sentenced in the Western Communities Book), which lays down the law on Courthouse after being arrested by the such questions as whether to use co- West Shore RCMP for a robbery near lour (yes) or color (no), Afghan (noun) or the Westshore Town Centre mall. We Afghani (adjective), or eatable (can be can assume the WestShore Chamber eaten because not revolting) or edible of Commerce wasn’t amused. (can be safely eaten). Change does come, though. Once Bed Rest Mom Any heretic attempting to break upon a time, any TC reporter who wrote is a support book to help pregnant ranks and indulge personal preference Pat Bay Highway instead of Patricia women navigate the emotions, isolation and uncer- (say, percent instead of per cent) risks Bay Highway was dragged behind the tainty that comes with home or hospital based bed rest evisceration by a foul-tempered copy- presses and beaten, but that is no - written by a mom who survived both types of bed rest editor [Ed. note: redundant,] whose longer the case. terminal dyspepsia can be traced to a And now we have the shift from with two pregnancies. It identifies the emotional steady diet of strong drink [Ed. note: Saltspring to Salt Spring, as dictated realities women experience and offers practical advice whisky when referring to Canadian in a memo from on high. “Every time on how to navigate this stressful journey. or Scottish, whiskey when American we use Saltspring, we are sending a or Irish] and weak reporters. Writers message that we know better than $18.95 CAD | Paperback | 160 pages who use suspect and killer/mugger/ the people who live there,” read the thief interchangeably are subjected to directive. “That is not a good message an ear-twisting lecture [“No! The sus- to send.” pect did not rob the bank. The robber I shuddered. This was anarchy. robbed the bank. The suspect is sus- What’s next—gay marriage, votes for pected of being the robber”]. women? This is Victoria (civic motto: Without consistent application of We Fear Change). the rules, we lose credibility, the ar- “Back on the plane,” I said. “We’re www.self-counsel.com gument goes. Without order, there is flying to Peking.” chaos. Lawlessness seeps into society’s “You mean Beijing,” she replied. 1-800-663-3007 foundations, which crack and crumble. 978-177203-208-6

27 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review COOKING

cal (read Billeh Nickerson’s smart, incisive poem ‘A Bak- er’s Dozen: 13 Vancouver Food All things foody (In)Securities’). The final words, amid the cornucopia of offerings at this 151 local and global banquet for humanity, go to ten-year-old collaborators, tidbits and recipes Bodhi Cutler and Gus Jack- son, who both attend Charles Sustenance: There are 151 tidbits and Dickens Elementary. Their Writers from BC and Beyond recipes to savour from writ- short, sweet and perfectly apt on the Subject of Food edited by Rachel Rose ers who live in Vancouver, essay sums up Sustenance: (Anvil Press $25) and from elsewhere around “Every dish is unique be- the world. There are farmers, cause every Vancouverite beekeepers, fishers and back- makes it a tiny bit different. BY CAROLINE yard gardeners, First Nations, We all have our styles and WOODWARD Metis, refugees and celebrated our ingredients, our suppliers chefs like Meeru Dhalwala, and our equipment. There are S POET LAUREATE Vikram Vij and Frank Pabst, restaurants who will probably for the City of nearly-anonymous librar- make great pasta with the Vancouver from ians who write like angels, best calamari. Your mom can 2014-2017, Ra- thoughtful children and wise make a great homemade meal chel Rose want- elders, some speaking Arabic she invented herself. No two Aed a community project which and Cree, plus poets such as meals taste the same because offered another world view Lorna Crozier, John Pass, they are like humans, unique than the muttering Susan Musgrave and great.” PHOTO and braying about and Fred Wah A good portion of the money walls to keep out the Sustenance dou- raised by sales from Suste- LANGDON Other. bles as an inspired Rachel Rose nance, as well as every single Rose had al- love letter to the city. TOM writer’s honorarium, will be do- ready spent years The selected writ- tomatoes, rice, beloved grand- obesity, starvation, sugar, nated to the BC Farmer’s Mar- volunteering with ings, with an abid- mothers, salmon, maple syrup, animal deaths, and allergies, ket Nutrition Coupon Program Burmese families ing focus on human elk heart and fresh berries. real and possibly imposed (see so that low-income families will in Surrey, shopping CAROLINE rights, are unfail- Jane Silcott’s ‘Cooking the delightful, plaintive essay, have access to fresh, locally- for food, shampoo- WOODWARD ingly eloquent. Class & Marriage Lessons’ is ‘Check the Ingredients!’ by grown food. 978-1-77214-101-6 ing hair, attending The voices are as hilarious. Karen Barnaby’s Ayla Maxwell, a grade 6 stu- graduations, weddings and fu- diverse as the forms: inter- ‘Blackberry Fever’ is heart- dent at Vancouver’s Charles Caroline Woodward, writer nerals. Her genuine Canadian views, memoirs, recipes, both breaking. Jeff Steudel’s ‘Rec- Dickens Elementary School). and lighthouse keeper, grows hospitality imbues her book literal and figurative, prose ipe’ is sensual. ✫ a big garden and cooks feasts project, a celebratory mish- and poems, some as paeans to The writers tackle sub- FOOD, SUSTENANCE, IS INTENSELY for her friends at the Lennard mash of cultures and food. moose meat, bees, bread, beer, jects as difficult as anorexia, personal as well as politi- Island Lightstation. NEW BOOKS FROM THEHE ARSENAL

SODOM ROAD EXIT THE PLAGUE LITTLE FISH Amber Dawn Kevin Chong Casey Plett “Fearless and messy and oozing with love, Little “An extraordinary, strange, and deeply human novel “A nuanced study of human nature under biolog- Fish about the often futile search for redemption, healing, ical siege, and a terrific riff on the Camus classic.” is a devastating book that I don’t ever want Son of a Trickster to be without.” —Zoey Leigh Peterson, and the ways in which we survive.” —Eden Robinson, author of Next Year, For Sure —Jen Sookfong Lee, author of The Conjoined author of

JONNY APPLESEED PROPERTY VALUES FORWARD: A Graphic Novel Joshua Whitehead Charles Demers Lisa Maas A tour-de-force debut novel about a Two-Spirit “In Property Values, Canada’s best and most socially “A moving depiction of grief and loss, but one that also Indigiqueer young man and proud NDN glitter engaged comedian takes aim at the housing crisis includes sweet moments of sexual desire, joy, and laughter, princess who must reckon with his past when he and the death of journalism with equal parts hu- which bubble up even in the most painful of times.” returns home to his reserve. mour, outrage, and literary virtuosity.” —Sarah Leavitt, author of Tangles —Sam Wiebe, author of Invisible Dead ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com

28 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review HISTORY

Commemorating Canada: when he oversaw “the assimi- graffiti in Sydney, Australia, History, Heritage, & Memory, Increasingly we are lationist Indian Residential with the words “NO PRIDE IN 1850s-1990s by Cecilia Morgan School system.” GENOCIDE” and “CHANGE (UTP $26.95) realizing that statues If public history agencies THE DATE” spray-painted do not provide a balanced pic- over the inscription that Cook ture of both the contributions “Discovered This Territory BY MIKE STARR and monuments are and the failures of historic 1770.” figures, others will step in and Australian Prime Minister ECILIA MORGAN’S remove, edit, or deface the Malcolm Turnbull, head of Commemorat- not always reliable commemoration—or provide the Liberal Party, called it ing Canada is their own interpretation. “part of a deeply disturbing a good place to Early in 2017, for example, and totalitarian campaign to start when ex- reflections of history. a page was pasted anony- not just challenge our history Camining the role of historical mously next to the Historic but to deny it and obliterate it.” commemoration in Canada. Sites and Monuments Board A similar statue of Cook The book is part of the Themes of Canada’s plaque to Mat- in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, in Canadian History series, Re-thinking opposite the Empress Hotel, published by University of has so far escaped unscathed. Toronto Press, “designed to I agree that we need to open up a subject to the non- ask the critical questions specialist reader.” and be curious, but we can’t Morgan took on a monu- mental (please forgive the pun) task to document the ways Canadians commemorate MACDONALD their history. Starting, ap- propriately, with a recitation Bashing of history by members of the Iroquois Confederacy, Morgan provides examples of historical commemoration from a wide variety of forms of artistic and educational expression. Her inclusion of songs, parades and pageants, and school texts expanded my idea of BEGBIE commemoration. As well as surveying the various forms of commemo- ration in Canada since the 1850s, Morgan points out instances of controversy or disagreement over the mean- ing of commemorations. For example, of the Vimy Ridge memorial unveiling in 1936, Morgan wonders, “Why was there so little scepticism, even cynicism, expressed in the face of commemorations that focused so relentlessly on the First World War as a noble and worthy sacrifice?”. In this age of re-examining and reassessing some of the historical figures commemo- rated in Canada—and when American Confederate statues are being toppled—the topic of commemoration is timely. There have been calls to Judge Begbie by Ralph Sketch was removed from the Law Society of B.C. lobby in 2017. simply create villains out of remove Sir John A. Macdon- former heroes. History, and ald’s name from schools in narrative? Morgan does not other forms of artistic expres- thew Baillie Begbie in Vic- the people who made his- Ontario, and the Langevin distinguish between the two. sion are intended to inspire toria. tory, are complex. We need Block on Parliament Hill, built Commemorating Canada ex- quiet or ironic reflection. The poster states that “Be- to acknowledge the good and in 1889, was recently renamed plores “the variety of genres But mainly Morgan is justi- gbie got the nickname of the the bad in people, as well as the Office of the Prime Minister and methods that people have fied in equating commemora- ‘Hanging Judge’ by being ruth- in our country, and refuse to and Privy Council. used to establish a relation- tion and historical narrative. less in his conviction of ‘Crimi- acclaim them uncritically as Both of these “Fathers of ship with the past.” Both, broadly and ideally, nals’ … a majority of these either heroes or villains. Confederation” were associ- But historical narrative need to ask critical questions ‘Criminals’ were Indigenous.” While Morgan successfully ated with residential schools and commemoration are in- about people and events in Some institutions, sensing opens up the subject of com- for Indigenous children. Mor- deed distinct. One American Canada’s history and include such changes, have taken pre- memoration to non-specialist gan necessarily only touches curator recently argued that multiple perspectives on the emptive action to avoid criti- readers, the reader should on these more recent political history is a “critical analysis complexities of the past. cism. In 2017, the Law Society not stop here. Many books, issues. In an overview of 150 of people and events,” whereas Ottawa’s Beechwood Cem- of B.C. announced it would and still more articles, schol- years of Canadian commemo- commemoration is “glorifica- etery did this in the case remove a sculpture of Begbie arly and popular, tackle this rations it would be impractical tion or endorsement of those of Duncan Campbell by the Pender Island art- topic. Especially in light of the to go much deeper. people and events.” Scott. Originally ist Ralph Sketch from Final Report of the Truth and Morgan also asks critical While I agree that plac- commemorated as its lobby because, the Reconciliation Commission of questions about how Indig- ing a statue of someone in “one of the out- Vancouver Sun noted, Canada, Canadians are ask- enous peoples were, or more a public place has usually standing figures “it’s a colonial symbol ing important questions about likely weren’t, commemorated implied endorsement, or even in Canadian po- that offends natives.” their history and how it is —while simultaneously their glorification, I don’t think the etry,” in 2015 the Not all interventions commemorated. material culture was taken distinction between history cemetery unveiled a are so quiet or unob- History will judge us if we away for private or public and commemoration is always revised plaque recog- trusive. In 2017 a don’t. 9781442610613 museum collections. clear. Much historical nar- nizing Scott’s “notori- statue of Cap- ✫ rative, whether in written or ous” career in the tain James Mike Starr spent 24 years as WHAT IS COMMEMORATION, AND HOW other forms, has been uncriti- Department of Cook was John A. Macdonald an interpreter, planner, and does it differ from historical cal, while some statuary and Indian Affairs, defaced with manager at Parks Canada.

29 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: WAR MAY 15, 2018 STRONG WORDS FOR A POLITE NATION Prime Minister Borden addresses Canadian LUSH troops in England, 1917. TRIUMPHANT LITERARY AWARDS

30ththAAnnniniveversrsarary

The sane cowards who didn’t volunteer for trench warfare madness turned out to be as hard to kill as FICTION 3,000 words the men who enlisted. CREATIVE NON-FICTION 4,000 words CANADA POETRY [suite of 5 related poems] ARCHIVES

AND $3,000 IN CASH PRIZES

LIBRARY FORCED TO FIGHT SUBMIT: www.subterrain.ca Reluctant Warriors: vidual tragedy is not enough to destroy Canadian Conscripts & the Great War the image of Arthur Currie as Canada’s INFORMATION: [email protected] by Patrick M. Dennis (UBC Press $39.95) greatest general of the Great War. Reluctant warriors were critical to Entry fee: $30 (includes a one-year subscription to subTerrain) the success of the Canadian Corps— BY JIM KEMPLING but it does not follow that Currie’s use of this valuable resource was flawed, at FTER THREE YEARS OF MOUNT- least not without much more thorough ing casualties and a grow- analysis than Dennis musters. ing shortage of manpower Dennis’s appended statistical mate- for the war effort, Prime rial, while providing a useful picture of A Robert Borden Minister ’s the conscripts, also cries out for more government in Ottawa passed the Mili- analysis. For example, without looking tary Service Act in 1917. at the breakdown by occupation for the By war’s end, 125,000 Canadians entire group, Dennis’s suggestion that had been conscripted and 24,000 fewer miners died because they might fought on the Western Front. These have benefited from higher exemption men were often unfairly dubbed “slack- rates is pure speculation. One might ers, shirkers, or malingerers.” equally argue that fewer conscripted In Reluctant Warriors, ex-Canadian miners died because more miners en- Air Force colonel Patrick Dennis does listed before conscription was imposed. much to break down the myths of In almost every battle described, conscription and he demonstrates the Dennis argues that a pause here or a importance of the conscripts. Infantry delay there would have allowed the in- battalions — where the greatest number fantry time to recover. While that may served — were absolutely critical in the well be true, any such slackening of an key battles of 1918 and particularly for advance would have provided similar the much-celebrated advance of the last opportunities to the enemy. 978-1-926991-82-5 (pb) 978-0-995868-90-8 (pb) hundred days of the war. It is a common error and conceit of 978-1-926991-90-0 (e-book) 978-0-995868-91-5 (e-book) By examining individual stories, military historians, far removed from Dennis also makes a persuasive ar- battle, to second-guess successful Playing with her grandson on A young, damaged American gument that these “slackers” were as commanders. Tuesday, their day, is the highlight woman who escaped the 1997 effective as the volunteer soldiers who Military historians sometimes assert of Pauline Daniel’s week. She first massacre of 45 Mayans in had preceded them, and whose com- that, if only brilliant minds like theirs shared her insights and his gems Chiapas returns to Mexico rades they remained. had been in command, much less blood on Facebook and now in this seeking revenge. A geopolitical Nowadays, Dennis’ material on would have been spilled. To make such Lieutenant General Arthur Currie, the funny and relatable book. thriller with a dose of love (from a case requires more than a simplistic Commander of the Canadian Corps, is a Vancouver lawyer) is set four recitation of casualty and reinforcement “How strong are your muscles, likely to raise more hackles, particularly figures dressed up with the tragic tales Bubba?” I proudly flex my bicep. years later, when subcomandante in Victoria, where Currie had com- of those who died. “What’s that floppy bit?” Marcos, leader of the Zapatista manded both the Gordon Highlanders Despite these caveats, this book rebels, is resurfacing, demanding and the 5th Artillery Regiment. deserves to become an essential refer- “Come on Jack. Time to clean up.” autonomous political power and Dennis’ description of “Currie’s ence for any serious student examining “I can hear, I’m not listening.” freedom for the Mayans. flawed but ultimately successful strat- the operations of the Canadian Corps egy” is less convincing than the central in 1918. 9780774835978 focus of the book. In his material on If you have a book in you, Currie, Dennis has over-reached his Jim Kempling is a retired army colonel we can help you get it out core thesis concerning the character and currently a Ph.D. student in history — to the entire world! and worth of conscripts. at UVic where he led a team of research- Casualty figures and stories of death ers and students in A City Goes to War, granvilleislandpublishing.com Publisher and distributor abound in Reluctant Warriors, but no- a project focused on the home front. where do we find a parallel examination During his career, Kempling served ŝŶĨŽΛŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵϴϳϳͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬdǁŝƩĞƌ͗Λ'/W>ŬƐ of German casualties. Simply adding up across Canada and abroad in a variety casualty lists and telling tales of indi- of command and staff positions.

30 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 GENDER LGBTQQIAAP

OWADAYS WHEN YOU ENROLL In her foreword, Robin Stevenson in a college you are (author of Pride: Celebrating Diversity likely going to be asked and Community (Orca, 2017), notes to give your name, age that the LGBTQ2SIA community in and your PGP—your Canada is comprised of those who are N preferred gender pro- lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, 20 plus noun. Your professor might be strictly Two-Spirited, gender queer, Canadian- required to address you in accordance born, immigrant, refugee, Indigenous varieties Yoka with your PGP. Will that be ‘she’ and and settler. is reading & ‘her,’ or ‘he’ and ‘him’? Or ‘it’ or ‘they’ “They are teenagers and seniors; or none of the above? single and married; coming recommends: Also, please choose be- out to parents and becoming Speaking tween Mr, Miss, Ms or Mx. parents themselves. Woven Our Truth There aren’t two sexes together, these voices leave by Monique anymore because there never me with a sense of hopeful- Gray Smith were two sexes. Those who ness: a belief that the creativ- wish to reject the old school ity and fierce commitment of (Orca Books). binary system can now do our community will carry us so under the ever-expanding forward as we work to create umbrella of LGBTQQIAAP Lori Shwydky, editor a Canada that lives up to the which stands for Lesbian, dream of freedom and safety Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, it represents to so many people around Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, the world.” Allies and Pansexual. ✫ That second A for Allies represents THE LINE-UP OF CONTRIBUTORS, EDITED BY those who so strongly support the re- publisher Lori Shwydky, includes jection of the binary system that they authors Teryl Berg, Kyle Chen, Wendy want inclusion under the umbrella, Judith Cutler, Corrie Hope Furst, Kevin too, although they might easily be able Henry, Anne Hofland, Chantal Hughes, to be accepted as male or female. Masaki Kidokoro, Dale Lee Kwong, #5 - 1046 Mason St. Victoria, B.C. V8T 1A3 All of which leads to Breaking Austin Lee, JL Lori, Eka Nasution, (just off Cook Street) 1-250-384-0905 Boundaries: LGBTQ2 Writers on Com- Adam Nixon, Rainer Oktovianus, Gail • Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas ing Out and Into Canada (Rebel Moun- Marlene Schwartz, Caelan Sinclair, LS • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome tain Press $13.95) a literary anthology Stone, Sosania Tomlinson, E.T. Turner, PremiumAffordable Quality Pricesat born of struggle, strength, resilience, Hayley Zacks—and artists Joni Daniel- compassion and determination. A group son, Wokie Clark Fraser, Austin Lee, www.yokascoffee.com reading takes place at the Vancouver Trinity Lindenau, Rainer Oktovianus. Public Library, May 14 at 7 pm. 978-0-9947302-7-5

They Called Me Number One: Lost Nuke: Adventures in Solitude: What Not to The Secret Voyage of Secrets and Survival at an Indian The Last Flight of Bomber 075 Wear to a Nude Potluck & Other Sir Francis Drake Residential School (Talonbooks $19.95) (Heritage House $19.95) Stories... (Harbour $26.95) (Douglas & McIntryre $24.95) Bev Sellars interweaves the per- In a gripping page-turner, Dirk Grant Lawrence’s memoir of In 1580, Francis Drake returned sonal histories of her grandmother Septer exposes the time when the growing up in Desolation Sound in triumphantly to England after an and her mother with her own as United States lost a nuclear bomb the 1970s, encountering a gun-toting epic three-year voyage. Queen she tells of hunger, forced labour, over B.C. But was the bomb dropped cougar lady, left-over hippies, and Elizabeth I immediately imposed and physical beatings in a residen- and exploded over the Inside Passage, outlaw bikers. Desolation Sound was a shroud of secrecy around Drake’s tial school where children were or was it blown up at the aircraft’s a place where going to the neigh- travels, creating a mystery that has confined and denigrated for failure resting place in the mountains? This bours’ potluck meant being met with endured for 400 years. Piecing to- to be White and Roman Catholic. In Cold War–era tale follows the last hugs from portly naked hippies and gether the evidence in contemporary this poignant memoir, Sellars breaks flight of bomber 075 and attempts to where Russell the Hermit’s school accounts and maps, Samuel Bawlf her silence about the institution’s unravel the real story behind more of life (boating, fishing, and rock ’n’ retraces Drake’s remarkable voyage effects, and eloquently articulates than fifty years of secrecy, misdirec- roll) was an influence Lawrence’s life and uncovers compelling proof of an her own path to healing. tion, and misinformation. of music and journalism. astonishing feat of exploration.

These perennial B.C. bestsellers are on Selected by Alan Twigg

31 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review FICTION

This isn’t a pretty story, The sawmill and the but no one reads Patrick Lane RIVER for “pretty.” Deep River Night can’t put horrific memories running away or from being isn’t a pretty story but no one dream catcher. He also finds by Patrick Lane behind him. He witnessed evil raped by the men, or maybe reads Lane for ‘pretty.’ You strength in his beliefs and in (McClelland & Stewart $32.00) and now he’s tormented by both. just know that this is a storm his dreams of bringing a wife one time when he did nothing This is not an entirely imag- coming and it’s going to up- over from China. BY to oppose it. Now he’s barely ined world. end the landscape. The hill farmer’s daugh- CHERIE THIESSEN holding on, seeking oblivion ✫ In this violent, bleak and ter, Myrna, and her whole HE MEN IN PAT- in any way he can get it—in PATRICK LANE, INVESTED INTO always unpredictable world, Turfoot family are a hint of rick Lane’s nov- a bottle, in a needle, or inhal- the Order of Canada in 2014, no one seems safe. The would- better things to come for Joel. el, Deep River ing it. was born in 1939 in the Koo- be rapist, Harper, has been Myrna’s mother is wise, an Night, never The camp cook, Wang Po, tenay mountain town of Sheep given the keys to the shed ‘old soul,’ and the father is seem to sleep at has his own demons. He joins Creek, near Nelson, and grew imprisoning Alice. And he’s understanding and helpful. Tnight. They prowl; they lurk; the first aid man in evenings up in the B.C. Interior, primar- not the last person who should Myrna’s brother, Emerson, they watch. The river passing of opium and liquor. Each ily in Vernon. His father, an be granted access. There’s also will soon be like a younger by their camp is their siren. It tell stories they don’t know ex-miner, had moved to the the lusting Ernie Reiner. brother to Joel. If anything, can be clear or murky, quench how to finish. His war was dry Interior because he was Fears and intrigue abound. he will put that switchblade thirst or awaken it, but it can’t different, perhaps even more suffering from silicosis. Joel has to escape the cruelty to use in protecting him, so it be stopped. brutal. He recalls the second Patrick Lane had to leave and sadism of a millworker seems Joel has stumbled onto The forest around Lane’s Sino Japanese War and the school to work as a labourer, who keeps bear skulls over something that could sustain fictional shabby sawmill com- ‘Rape of Nanjing’ in 1930. The fruit picker and his bunk as tro- him. So, there is also loyalty, munity is full of paths. “Bud- slaughter of his parents, the truck driver when phies. Kenning friendship, and honour in this dha told us the path each of rapes, the vicious killings. It his girlfriend be- knows something jagged landscape. us walk is our own,” Wang has driven him to this remote came pregnant. dreadful has hap- Deep River Night presents Po reminds young Joel at the refuge in the forest. He later became pened in the camp a moody, unpredictable and beginning of the book. Runaway Joel Crozier a first aid man in and that McAllis- non-urban world fraught with It’s 1960 in a remote saw- works at the mill largely be- sawmills because it ter, one of the most danger and beauty, like the mill community in B.C.’s cause his father was plan- paid an additional CHERIE powerful and dan- river, beyond control. It’s fic- interior, four hours from Ka- ning to marry him off to a l5 cents per hour. THIESSEN gerous men on the tion—but only for those who mloops. Run down and almost neighbouring girl in order to In the company site, is involved. haven’t lived it. derelict, the old mill is in its eventually inherit more land town of Avola, with 150 peo- He has been haunted by his Patrick Lane’s 25 volumes death throes; it’s being run for the family. Joel ran away. ple, he sometimes dealt with failure to confront evil during of poetry have garnered him into the ground deliberately Harper plucked him from the grisly injuries. He dreamed the war, so, surely, he must numerous awards including by its plant manager, Claude back of a boxcar, nearly frozen of making his living as a pool act this time to avoid further the Governor General’s Award Harper, who says this is the to death. Joel is nursed back player. guilt. for Poetry, the Canadian Au- company’s intention. to health by Kenning, Wang Po “Instead of making $1.50 Why does the boy, Emerson thors Association Award and This is where you go when and the foreman’s wife, Molly an hour I made a $1.65,” he Turfoot, feel he needs to carry the Lieutenant Governor’s there’s nowhere else to go. Samuels. has recalled. “That meant I a switchblade everywhere? Award for Literary Excellence. Harper, who was a major in Joel is a young man caught could buy one case of beer In this frontier, where most Lane has also written essays, WW II, has offered his old war between two strong forces: a month. I’d pretend to get women lead twilight lives in short stories, a memoir and a buddy, Art Kenning, a job here his sexual attraction for the whacko drunk on that one secluded trailers and shacks, previous novel, Red Dog, Red as the first aid man. Kenning hill farmer’s daughter, Myrna case of beer, then I’d wait abuse is commonplace and Dog (Penguin, 2008), a finalist remembers Harper from even Turfoot, and his fascination twenty-nine days until I could nobody’s business. for the Ethel Wilson Fiction further back, when he had with the young indigenous do it again.” The sensitive and artistic Prize and the Amazon.ca/ to stop Harper from abusing 14-year-old Alice, who has ✫ Wang Po has finally taken up Books in Canada First Novel a young woman in an East been bought for $50 from a DEEP RIVER NIGHT TAKES PLACE IN his drawing again, something Award. 978-0-7710-4817-3 Vancouver alley. Later they residential school in order to just 48 hours. From the very he has not done since Nanjing. went to an opium den. help out at the store. Alice is start you feel the maelstrom He was inspired to do so by Cherie Thiessen Art Kenning has been home kept locked up in a shed every building around you, gather- watching a spider building regularly reviews fiction from the war for 14 years. He night, either to keep her from ing force and darkness. This his web outside the window, a from Pender Island.

32 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 Anarchy Explained Sitting Shiva on Minto to My Father Avenue, by Toots Francis Dupuis-Déri Erín Moure & Thomas Déri “A beautiful testimony to a life bravely lived on the edges of contemporary values.” “The best introduction to anarchism —Aaron Peck since Berkman’s 1929 classic Now and After: The ABC of Communist The story of a man who had no obituary Anarchism . . . Should be read by anyone and no funeral and who would have left who wonders what anarchism is, what it no trace if it weren’t for the woman he’d called Toots, who took everything she can be, and how we work towards it. ” remembered of him and — —Mark Leier, author of Rebel Life for seven days — wrote it down. Find it now at newstarbooks.com Find it now at newstarbooks.com

The Receiver Culture Gap Towards a New World Sharon Thesen in the Yalakom Valley Judith Plant

“The body is the receiver of all “Judith Plant’s memoir of the fleeting that is; poetic imagination the achievements and many uncommon transmitter of the world.” good times of Camelsfoot — a philosophical commune out back of beyond — glows with wisdom, Sharon Thesen is a three-time Governor complexity, and compassion.” General’s Award finalist; this is her —Stephanie Mills, author of Epicurean thirteenth book of poetry, and the first Simplicity and In Service of the Wild since Oyama Pink Shale (2011).

Find it now at newstarbooks.com Find it now at newstarbooks.com

new star books fine poetry & prose since 1970 newstarbooks.com | [email protected] | @newstarbooks

since 1990 SPRINGSPRINNG OFFOFFERSFERS from the FORGE!FORRGE!

BLACK STAR HIDER/SEEKER SLINKY NAÏVE a novel by stories by Jen Currin poetry by Caroline Szpak Maureen Medved “Currin writes with precision, “The urban, visceral, longing- “Medved jolts to life a cast of beauty, and tenderness about infused poems in Slinky Naïve academic washouts, Instagram the politics of imperfect are fast, dense, and laser-focused. careerists, vagrant idealists, and relationships and people And when the lines are funny, sex-deprived tenure-obsessed struggling to find wholeness.” and they often are, it’s like thought-experimentalists—each — Kevin Chong, author of laughing before the blade too exquisitely grotesque not to Beauty Plus Pity and The Plague comes down.” — Stuart Ross, author of A seem utterly authentic.” “...this collection is a work of Sparrow Came Down Resplendent — Chris Hutchinson, author of art that cuts brilliantly through 224 pages | $20 Jonas in Frames isbn: 978-1-77214-117-7 to the truth.” 224 pages | $20 March isbn: 978-1-77214-112-2 — Wayde Compton, author of March “Medved masterfully explores 96 pages | $18 her protagonists in all their The Outer Harbour isbn: 978-1-77214-115-3 April fallible glory.” “Jen Currin writes into difficult — Eden Robinson, author of Son places with delicacy, humour BOLT of a Trickster and meditative grace. . .” poetry by Hilary Peach — Shaena Lambert, author of Oh, My Darling and Radiance. The debut collection from West ATOMIC ROAD Coast performance poet Hilary Peach, BOLT is a collection of a novel by Grant Buday STRAIGHT CIRCLES scars and a compendium of It is the height of the Cold War, remedies; a measurement of the eve of the Cuban Missile a novel by lightning. It’s the familiar crisis and New York art critic Jackie Bateman impulse that occasionally seizes Clement Greenberg and French us all, to suddenly run, out of Domestic satire meets gripping Marxist philosopher Louis control. But it’s also a carefully suspense in Straight Circles, the Althusser are in a car together engineered fastener that holds final, explosive chapter of heading for an artists’ retreat at 96 pages | $18 things together. Bateman’s Lizzy Trilogy. The isbn: 978-1-77214-116-0 Emma Lake, Saskatchewan. April original and eccentric cast of characters return in this genre- 224 pages | $20 bending thriller, but not isbn: 978-1-77214-113-9 Contact: March everyone’s getting out alive. 320 pages | $20 [email protected] | www.anvilpress.com isbn: 978-1-77214-114-6 March REPRESENTEDE BY PUBLISHERS GROUP CANADA | DISTRIBUTED BY RAINCOAST

33 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 SPRING BRILLIANCE! review Songen new poetry Patrick Friesen YOUNG ADULT 978-1-896949-64-2 | 106 pages | $19.95 | paper A beautiful body of work, the poet at his fi nest. 7KHSRHPVLQSongenPRYHOLNHVZLIWV(DFKSRHP RQHVHQWHQFHORQJDQGVHSDUDWHGE\FRPPDVWUDFNVWKH PRYHPHQWRI WKHPLQG2FFDVLRQDOO\XVLQJZRUGVDQG SKUDVHVIURP0LGGOH(QJOLVKDQG/RZ*HUPDQWKHSRHPV WRXFKRQPXVLFDOLQÁXHQFHVWKHFKDQJHVLQODQJXDJH RYHUWKHFHQWXULHVDQGRQWKHGLVVROXWLRQVGLOHPPDVDQG LQHYLWDELOLWLHVRI ROGDJH FriesenZULWHVSRHWU\HVVD\VGUDPDVRQJO\ULFVDQGWH[W IRUGDQFHDQGPXVLF+HKDVFROODERUDWHGZLWKYDULRXV PXVLFLDQVFKRUHRJUDSKHUVDQGGDQFHUVDQGKDVUHFRUGHG &'VRI WH[WDQGLPSURYPXVLFZLWK0DULO\Q/HUQHU3HJJ\ /HHDQG1LNR)ULHVHQZDVVKRUWOLVWHGIRUWKH*ULIÀQ3RHWU\3UL]H DFRWUDQVODWLRQZLWK3HU%UDVNRI  Frayed Opus For Strings & Wind InstrumentsE\'DQLVKSRHW8OULNND*HUQHV LQ+LVSOD\A Short History of Crazy BoneLVEHLQJVWDJHGE\7KHDWUH3URMHFWV0DQLWRED M MOTHER TONGUE Celebrating 10 years PT PUBLISHING LIMITED of quality publishing

Crow Jazz short stories Linda Rogers 978-1-896949-65-9 | 225 pages | $22.95 | paper Gail Anderson-Dargatz A wild breath of fresh air for literary Canada. $GD]]OLQJÀUVWFROOHFWLRQRI LQFDQGHVFHQWVWRULHVIURPWKH FRUYLGFRPPXQLW\ZKHUHVH[DQGGHDWKDUHFHOHEUDWHGZLWK PLUWKDQGFRPSDVVLRQ+LJKO\LQYHQWLYHFOHYHUDQGTXLUN\ FKLOGUHQIDPLOLHVFURZVDQGWKHROGEHZLWFKDQGDVWRQLVKWKH Baker, homemaker, LPDJLQDWLRQ,PSURYLVDWLRQV\QFRSDWLRQDOOWKHMD]]ZRUGV FRPHLQWRZRUGSOD\ Linda RogersLVDQRYHOLVWHVVD\LVWHGLWRUVRQJZULWHUDQG SDVW9LFWRULD3RHW/DXUHDWH+HUDZDUGVLQFOXGHWKH'RURWK\ /LYHVD\*ZHQGRO\Q0DF(ZHQDQG0LOWRQ$FRUQ3RHWU\ risktaker 3UL]H6KHZURWHWKHVFUHHQSOD\IRUWKHDZDUGZLQQLQJÀOP Legend of the Dolphins DQGWKHSOD\WarholIRUWKH2QWDULR *DOOHU\RI $UW A single mom learns how to The Winner of the 4th Great BC Novel Contest is BILL STENSON start her own business and be the for Ordinary Strangers, an astonishing and compelling novel about an abduction. To be launched in October! best cookie maker in town. mothertonguepublishing.com Heritage Group Distribution 1- 800-665-3302 From Scratch And with knowledge, comes power. by Gail Anderson-Dargatz While From Scratch is written (Orca Books $9.95) using simple language, the story is strong and the characters believable. Readers will immediately find them- BY CAROL ANNE SHAW selves on Team Eva, and alongside her, will learn just what it takes to start AIL ANDERSON-DARGATZ’S one’s own business. From Scratch is a recent From market research to a solid release from Orca Books’ business plan, to a professional website GRapid Reads Program— and advertising, readers will discover a genre of short, high- how to tick all the boxes on a shoestring interest novels penned by bestselling budget. authors with the aim of helping adults Perhaps most importantly though, is improve their literacy. the message of hope in this little book. It is the story of a single mother, Eva As we follow the highs and lows of Eva’s (aka “Cookie), a hardworking woman challenging adventure, we come to who finds herself facing unemployment understand how consistency and true when the owner of the local bakery passion are so often the sparks that where she works is forced to sell. bring a dream to life. Money is tight, and with a daugh- While the novel contains a romantic ter in college and no promising job element, the story is never saccharine prospects in sight, protagonist Eva is or overly sentimental. In fact, readers understandably stressed. Factor in the will relate to the very real but often frustrating, going-nowhere-chemistry awkward chemistry between Eva and she has been sharing with Murray, a Murray—I know I did. And while they regular customer to the bakery, and are both quite vulnerable, each with Eva is feeling pretty hopeless about their own insecurities and personal de- her future. mons, they are also refreshingly honest Sure, she dreams of taking over the and strong of character. bakery herself; she’s talented enough, From Scratch is a quick and touching and the little shop is the heartbeat of story of pride and perseverance, as well the small community where she lives. as a novel that offers a lot of practical But Eva is a realist. She has no capital information. Readers struggling with and no real entrepreneurial skills. It English as their second language will doesn’t matter how good her cookies be drawn easily into this story about are because money talks. a woman who, with a little support, But when her daughter Katie con- reaches her true potential while real- vinces Eva to enrol in some college izing a life long dream. courses as a mature student, it isn’t And finally, there is a wonderful long before her horizons begin to look recipe on the final page of From Scratch, a little brighter. Soon, what started as for “Cookie’s Oatmeal Doily Cookies.” a pipe dream becomes something that (Because, as we all know, you can never just might be possible after all. have too many cookies.) 9781459815025 With Katie’s help and the support of her teacher and classmates, Eva Carol Anne Shaw is the author of the rolls up her sleeves and starts “from “Hannah” books, all from Ronsdale scratch.” It’s overwhelming at first, Press: Hannah & the Spindle Whorl but little by little, Eva learns what she (2010), Hannah & the Salish Sea (2013), needs to bring her dream to fruition. and Hannah & the Wild Woods (2015).

34 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 review THEATRE

King Arthur’s Night and Peter seen, not seen through. What Panties: A Collaboration across an elusive experience that has Perceptions of Cognitive Dif- If you have a heart that enjoys compassion, ference by Niall McNeil been for people with disabili- and Marcus Youssef the audaciousness of King Arthur’s Night’s ties. Or anyone who has been (Talonbooks $16.95) marginalized, categorized, and confounding camaraderie can be thrilling. labeled, for that matter. “To be seen is to exist: to be BY PAUL DURRAS Imperfections and sudden dictable interplay is almost a whole new category for Spe- recognized for your human- detours make for the most vaudevillian, giving rise to cial Needs Theatre. ity and personhood, to have T’S NOT QUITE STRAVINsKY’S memorable moments. King heartfelt audience applause. One patron who left the presence and potential, to be The Rite of Spring. Or Arthur frequently mentions Onstage throughout, with show furious drew a parallel to an equal in a relationship and Judy Chicago’s The Richard Gere. Guinevere only her drummer for com- the Special Olympics. They’re not merely the client of a social Dinner Party. But there might mention the movie pany, keyboardist and com- held ever four years and who worker; to be a subject, not is an audaciousness Titanic. When there’s sexual poser Veda Hille provides a really wants to watch? an object.” Ito Neworld Theatre’s produc- innuendo, someone might add sensitive soundscape that is But neurotypicals might For those who are not seek- tion of King Arthur’s Night an impromptu “Get a room!” essential to the wholesome- watch the Special Olympics ing Shakespeare or Lord of that made it perfect fare for The subsidiary characters ness of this undertaking. if Usain Bolt was included, the Rings, the words spoken the recent PuSh Festival, an in Camelot are professional Arguably the addition of a passing the baton in a relay in King Arthur’s Night are a annual showcase for theatre actors on stage to shadow the choir for the PuSh production to sprinters with Down syn- subtext for a deeper level of and dance that pushes the faltering performances, feed- was unnecessary because the drome. communication. proverbial envelope. ing them lines and improvis- audience can’t grasp McNeil’s It is the collaborative aspect King Arthur’s Night is not Now the musical play is ing in order to keep the show incomprehensible lyrics. of Neworld’s production that just therapeutic for four ac- being published as King Ar- on track. If you are a “neurotypical” makes it uplifting and some- tors and a launch pad for the thur’s Night and Peter Pant- On opening night, because who is keen on coherence, this times fascinating. Arguably, a playwright; it’s the antidote to ies: A Collaboration across McNeil’s version of Camelot is play is downright goofy and documentary film about put- Etmanski’s frank and chilling Perceptions of Cognitive modeled on a visit he made you’ll want to leave half way ting this production together contention that “to be an ob- Difference by Talonbooks, the to Harrison Hot Springs (one through. But if you have a would be as moving as the ject of pity, servitude, or deri- pathfinding imprint for Cana- of the songs contains the heart that enjoys compassion, actual show. sion is a horrible existence.” dian plays dating all the way repeated line: “Go to the Har- the audaciousness of King Inspired by the produc- King Arthur’s Night is an back to Michel Tremblay’s rison Hot Springs. Go to the Arthur’s Night’s confounding tion process for this play, eye-opener. early work and George Ryga’s Harrison Hot Springs.”), he camaraderie can be thrilling. Order of Canada recipient Al Avoid pity. Make contact. The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. spontaneously asked his So, is this art or is this Etmanski, a long-time cru- ✫ People are curious to see mother in the audience if he social work? To each his own. sader on behalf of people with THE OTHER PLAY WRITTEN BY NIALL this show because four of was remembering their visit If you are someone who wants Down syndrome, including McNeil and Marcus Youssef, the ten actors have Down correctly. She called out, yes. to navigate new pathways for his daughter, has provided Peter Panties, is a radical re- Syndrome, including the title And so, this show swerves empathy, and you are seeking a foreword to the published imagining of the Peter Pan sto- character portrayed by Niall and veers and hiccups its way the deep pleasure of recogniz- play in which he imagines a ry in which Peter Pan and Cap- McNeil, who is also the main along; different every night. ing the dignity and strength better world—a Neworld—for tain Hook (or is he Macbeth?) playwright. Delightfully played There are just two plot that resides in people who are those who are described as drink lattes, the Lost Boys with an endearing shyness points. King Arthur has slept too often invisibilized, King developmentally disabled, “In hang with detectives from CSI, by Tiffany King, his queen with his sister Morgana and Arthur’s Night is a winner. this new world, people don’t and Peter desperately wants Guinevere doesn’t remem- now she wants her son Mor- It’s not implausible to look through you. Instead they to have sex with Wendy and ber her lines well, if at all, dred to get the Holy Grail and imagine Canada Council see you. They see you for your make a baby. Sexual exclusion but she’s one of the show’s claim the crown from his fa- could now proceed to invent abilities and contributions. and the denial of full adult- strengths. ther. Meanwhile Lancelot and What an elusive desire that hood are no laughing matters Niall McNeil is similarly Guinevere have a platonic love has been for me as a parent: for people whose lives include challenged. But more prob- affair that rankles the king. that my daughter might be Down syndrome, but McNeil’s lematic can be his tempera- Prior to a puzzling battle “riffing” style of writing is not mental resistance to prompts and the production’s bela- without humour. 9781772012033 from his on-stage coach, Mer- boured completion, there’s a lin, who is depicted by co-writ- completely charming comic Paul Durras reviews er/producer Marcus Youssef. turn by Andrew Gordon as a for VancouverPlays. McNeil’s galvanizing and port- soldier slowly twirling his axe ly stature as an all-powerful in synch with gifted drumming king can dissipate with pique from professional musician if those two male egos clash. Skye Brooks. Their unpre- Youssef is frequently forced to feign obsequiousness to bow to the king’s demands, but who’s really in control? CAMELOT beyond neurotypicals TO PHO

CASEY

TRISTAN Niall McNeil as King Arthur

35 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 BOOKS • EVENTS •BOOKSELLERS • SERVICES Self-Publish.ca First Nations Libraries Ltd. Memoir Writing Services We have a huge inventory of FIRST NATIONS titles, plus Your life adds up to a story. virtually every local Tell it. history written in B.C.
     Now you can hire an experienced writer—   with more than two decades as a full-time freelance writer in Vancouver—to help you: This business is now FOR SALE. " ' '(  • Record your life stories through an extensive interviewing process. The major focus of this business is to &)*$+$#,+-
provide books and archival materials to Conduct research to augment your story. ./( • Western Canadian First Nations and • Write the story with you. university, college and regional • Manage the book design. libraries as well as the public. 
 
 
Provide advice on printing.  
 
• Please visit me at 1818 Quebec St. (by appointment only), 
 
 
For more information contact me at Vancouver, near Main,  
 
 604-688-1458 • [email protected] near the Olympic Village. Text or email for an appointment  !"#$%& Beverly Cramp [email protected] LAURA SAWCHUK PHOTO

community-minded but globally connected

We are proud An Independent Bookstore in Vancouver for 48 years! to be nominated for a Libris award for Bookseller Marlene Schiwy, PhD of the Year! Gypsy Fugue: Archetypal Images of the Soul O penOpen year-round year-round with with over over 25,00025,000 titles titles plus plus great a great selection selection Sun, March 25 I 11:30am-1pm of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. Free Talk & Book Signing Visit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com V isit us at www.galianoislandbooks.com at Banyen Books & Sound 250.539.3340 • [email protected] 250.539.334076 Madrona Drive, Galiano [email protected] Island, BC V0N 1P0 3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com Please Join Us 76for ourMadrona Annual Drive Literary Galiano Festival Island • www.galianoliteraryfestival.com BC V0N 1P0

CBBAG Books Arts Fair at the Vancouver Public Library Central Branch on Georgia, Saturday May 26. Free! Open to the public from 10 am to 3 pm. Beautiful journals, artists books, displays and demos of various book arts crafts. Come and meet interesting artists and craftspersons!

36 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 OBITS

ORN IN COMOX, JOAN SKOGAN ogan revealed the appeal of the Virgin knew joy and sorrow. She Mary across Canada. could be impossible—and ✫ she could be the kindest, JOAN SKOGAN HAD A MASTERS IN FINE ARTS most generous friend. A from UBC and she was shortlisted for Bwanderer and a wonderer, she was at JOAN SKOGAN various literary awards, but she was home in bars with bikers and loggers not someone who hobnobbed in liter- and fishermen, or equally comfortable ary circles. at the symphony and opera. (1945-2017) Mezzo-soprano Barbara Ebbeson Joan Skogan was never able to knew her as a fierce and loyal friend recover from the disappearance of her who was soft-spoken and ladylike—an 31-year-old son Joe Skogan who was Known to dance on table tops or elfin beauty who could also be a wild reported missing in 2004. Joe was the woman: “She was known to dance on product of her marriage to Ole Skogan, sleep rough in ditches in Bosnia, table tops in bars. To sleep rough in a a fisherman. In 2007, Quadra Island Joan Skogan did not suffer fools. ditch in Bosnia. She would not suffer RCMP responded to the discovery of her fools, not ever. She corrected people son’s remains in a wooded area off of She had a radiant obsession with for calling river otters sea otters. She Cutter Road. Foul play was ruled out; loathed cute signs on boats or houses. hence suicide was presumed. Canada and she loathed cute She liked to sing the song Barnacle The Campbell River Mirror recorded Bill with me but was very disapproving that he had attended a party at which signs on boats or houses. when I named my pink skiff ‘Barnacle he was involved in a fight with another Belle.’” man over a woman. Bachmann, awash “No women on boats,” the captain still “She brooked no opposition, from He left the party but in the nets of tran- complains. At the first opportunity, he friends, editors, or fellow-writers,” later returned. He BC LIT sient fishermen, a returns to port and drops her off. But recalls journalist Margaret Horsfield, took a taxi from the woman at mid-tide, during a ferocious storm, the captain “scorning shoddy thinking, poorly Heriot Bay store to OBITS having drifted from must reach out for the help of the red- researched history or badly expressed his rental home at rebellious youth into headed girl. opinions.” ARTHUR BLACK 6 a.m. The cabbie a wordless marriage. For her most wide-ranging book, Afflicted with rheumatoid arthritis, dropped him on Cut- (1943-2018) She meets Russian, Mary of Canada, Skogan scoured Ca- she became isolated and often angry, ter Road where he Polish and Cana- nadian towns and tomes for her non- but neighbours all liked her and looked got out and began AL NEIL (1934-2017) dian fishing and religious celebration of the cult of Mary. in on her. The constants in her house walking. According PETER TROWER (1930-2017) cargo ship crews. “Mary lives in Canada. I know now,” were her books, sculptures and First to a life-long friend, Rose finds herself Skogan proclaimed. From dashboard Nations baskets. Everything was neat RAFE MAIR (1931-2017) a handgun and bul- pictured in the rock statuettes of Mary to Leonard Cohen’s like the inside of a boat. JACK BOUDREAU (1933-2018) lets were missing form of a petro- ribald re-creation of Blessed Kateri Few people had impartial relations from his home. ROB MORRIS (1949-2018) glyph entitled ‘The Takawithan in Beautiful Losers, Sk- with her, and she had her share of lov- After the loss of For complete obituaries visit One Who Fell From ers. She was not someone who stayed her son, Joan Sk- abcbookworld.com Heaven,’ near Prince on the sidelines. “The most important ogan took some of Rupert. She imag- thing about Joan,” wrote Barbara her son’s possessions out into her ines, in a brilliant song to her past and Ebbeson, “was that she had a garden on Gabriola Island to weather, those she has loved, voyages both real radiant obsession with Canada. including a cradle, and she planted and surreal. She loved this country, every native plants for him. She never wrote In The Good Companion (Orca inch of it.” another book. She said she could no Books, 1998), superstition rules the Joan Skogan died in longer write due to the lingering effects sea. The captain of a ship holds fast to Nanaimo. Her ashes were of a brain aneurysm she had suffered the old ways. The crew’s coffee cups, spread on the Skeena in her 40s, but her final book Mary of hung in a row above the sink, always River. Canada (Banff Centre Press, 2003) was face inboard. No whistling to call up completed after that aneurysm. the winds. No black suitcases to bring For Joan Skogan’s ✫ death on board. No cans opened upside complete bibliography JOAN SKOGAN’S FIRST BOOK WAS A COLLECTION down for fear of overturning the boat. A visit abcbookworld.com of nine legends of animals and mythical girl with long red hair comes alongside creatures from the Prince Rupert and in a half-swamped skiff, asking to come Metlakatla area, The Princess and the aboard. The captain is forced Sea-Bear and other Tsimshian Stories to keep the girl on board (Metlakatla Band Council, 1982). She when the weather turns

would write several books for young foul. “We’ll haul nothing PHOTO readers during her career. but water now,” he warns. She followed her 1983 history of But the nets are full of OSTENECK the Skeena River fishery, Skeena: A fish day after day.

River Remembered (BC Packers Ltd.) GERDA with a memoir of working on foreign ships as a Canadian fisheries observer, during which time she lived aboard three ships beyond the 200-mile limit, mostly unable to communicate with Joan Skogan, crewmembers who spoke Russian or 1998 Polish. Voyages at Sea With Strangers (HarperCollins, 1992), was her attempt to make the leap into the bigtime. Argu- ably ahead of its time, her brave book touched upon sexual politics at sea. In 1989, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground, resulting in an unprecedent- ed oil spill, Joan Skogan had been on a ship in the area and heard the radio call to the coast guard. Thereafter she could and would recite the distress message she heard word-for-word. She helped with the clean-up of marine life and was greatly disturbed by the catas- trophe. As a coastal writer, she could be fierce in her opinions, particularly regarding the environment: e.g. rogue waves did not exist. Whale watching did not bear discussion. Joan Skogan’s Moving Water (Beach Holme, 1998) told the story of Rose

37 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 Shelley Adams creates easy to follow recipes from fresh ingredients that aim to turn home cooks into culinary rock stars in Whitewater Cooks: More Beautiful Food. WHO’S BRITISH•COLUMBIA A is for Adams

SHELLEY ADAMS HAS DONE IT AGAIN. Her fifth cookbook, Whitewater Cooks: WHO More Beautiful Food (Alicon / Sand- hill $34.95), immediately shot to the top of the BC Bestsellers list and stayed property. It’s one of there for months. She and her husband is for Donna the facts in Turtle opted to stick with self-publishing ever D Island: The Story since her second book, Whitewater IN HER MEMOIR, SUMMER OF THE HORSE (HAR- of North America’s Cooks At Home. Now she’s easily one of bour $19.95), Donna Kane describes First People (An- B.C.’s most successful authors of the leaving a twenty-five-year marriage nick Press $16.95), 21st century. 978-0981142432 to be with a wilderness guide, Wayne by Eldon Yellow- Sawchuk. Expecting to depart with horn and Kathy him on a three-month horse-packing Eldon Yellowhorn Lowinger describ- B is for Barclay expedition, her plans are kiboshed ing how Indigenous by a serious injury to a gelding that peoples lived in North America as far VANCOUVER POET requires her to stay home and attend back as fourteen thousand years ago— Adèle Barclay won to the horse’s recovery. before Columbus. Primarily based on the 2017 Dorothy As a novice horsewoman, she even- archaeological finds and scientific re- Theatre Projects Manitoba is stag- Livesay Poetry Prize tually describes her inaugural trail ride search, Turtle Island is for ages eleven ing Patrick Friesen’s previous book DISCORDER

/ A Short History of Crazy Bone (2015). for her debut collec- into an area dubbed the “Serengeti of and up, with seminal myths opening tion, If I Were in a the North,” the Muskwa-Kechika pro- each chapter. An SFU archaeology Cage I’d Reach Out professor, Yellowhorn is a member of the centuries and on the dissolutions,

VANHOUTEN tected area. With honesty and humility, for You (Nightwood the Pikiani First Nation. dilemmas and inevitabilities of old age. JEN she describes finding her place in the Adèle Barclay Editions $18.95). world and rethinking her assumptions 978-1-55451-943-9 Songen is his 18th release, the first to Her poems, accord- be designed by his daughter Marijke about the wild far north. 978-1-55017-819-7 ing to her publisher, “dwell in surreal Friesen, and has been praised by pockets of the everyday warped land- F is for Friesen George Fetherling as a haunting suite scapes of modern cities and flood into E is for Eldon about “the complexity of life inside the the murky basin of the intimate.” If I OCCASIONALLY USING WORDS AND PHRASES words we use to describe ourselves.” Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You WHEN THE COLONY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA from Middle English and Low Ger- 978-1-896949-64-2 was also shortlisted for the 2015 Robert passed the Indian Graves Ordinance in man, the 86 poems or meditations in Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry. 1865, it was the first public law to ban Patrick Friesen’s Songen (Mother grave robbing, making all Indigenous Tongue $19.95) touch on musical in- G is for Gough cemeteries in B.C. into government fluences, the changes in language over C is for Carter WRITING IN THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLE- ment, Jan Morris has declared Barry SELF-ESTEEM FOR OLDER Gough’s dual biography about the early teens is hard to 20th century relationship between come by. In Brooke Winston Churchill and Admiral John Carter’s first novel Arbuthnot Fisher as “enthralling” and for and about teens, “a work of profound scholarship and Another Miserable interpretation.” Gough has investigated Love Song (Orca how the two friends clashed over World 2016), a girl down War One strategies in his 600-page Brooke Carter on her luck looks to Churchill and Fisher: Titans at the join a punk band. Admiralty (Lorimer $39.95). Gough In Carter’s Learning Seventeen (Orca delves deeply into the collisions of their $9.95), smart and sarcastic Jane temperaments, describing the work as Learning feels she is been held captive “an inquiry into . . . the role of person- in a Baptist reform school called New ality and character in the making of Hope Academy. A gorgeous bad girl history” chiefly when Churchill became with fiery hair, Hannah, persuades her First Lord of the Admiralty, the Navy’s there’s hope outside the walls of the political chief, and Fisher was its First prison Jane prefers to call No Hope. Donna Kane with Spunky who insisted on passing and occasionally biting Sea Lord, its professional chief. 978-1-459815-53-7 the other horse on the trek in order to establish pecking order. 9781459411364

38 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 humans are left. For all our heroine and her loved ones know, they might H is for Hayes be the only survivors of mankind. After seven years of meagre but peaceful DEREK HAYES HAS co-existence, an outsider on the run continued his best- shows up and suddenly threatens to selling atlas series destroy the functionality of everything with an intensely they’ve managed to create. Johnson detailed examina- lives in Kelowna. 9781501155734 tion of rail travel from its earliest beginnings—when Derek Hayes carts caused ruts K is for Kurdi in roads as early as DESCRIBING HERSELF AS A “NOBODY HAIRDRESS- 2200 BCE—to the 20th century. His er” in Coquitlam, Tima Kurdi, the aunt gathering of 320 maps and 450 photos of two-year-old Alan Kurdi—whose in Historical Atlas of Early Railways death on the tideline in Turkey in 2015 (D&M $49.95) mainly traces the evo- awakened the world to the plight of lution of rail travel in Britain and the Syrian refugees—has produced The rest of Europe. It’s his 14th very large Boy on the Beach: My Family’s Es- format book since 1999—and it has cape from Syria and Our Hope for a been released globally. 978-1-77162-175-5 New Home (Simon & Schuster $32). She and her brother Abdullah, Alan’s father, now promote awareness of I is for Iona refugees with the Kurdi Foundation. Her family memoir is due in mid-April. IONA WHISHAW’ S 978-1-5011-7523-7 grandfather was a spy in both World Wars and the hero- ine in her murder L is for Lilburn mysteries is inspired TIM LILBURN’S THE LARGER CONVERSATION: by her extraordinary Contemplation and Place (U. of mother, a sophisti- British Columbia Alberta $34.95) continues to trace a cated risk-taker who Historical Federation Iona Whishaw relationship between mystic traditions was a British spy and the political world. He proposes in World War II. In Whishaw’s fourth nothing less than “a new epistemology mystery, It Begins in Betrayal (Touch- leading to an ecologically responsible wood $16.95), it’s been four years since and spiritually acute relationship be- Flight Lieutenant Darling and his crew tween settler Canadians, Indigenous were shot out of the sky, crash landing peoples, and the land we inhabit.” It’s their Lancaster in a field behind enemy a work of environmental philosophy lines in occupied France. A British for those engaged in the process of 44 2 government official comes to King’s Richard Kelly Kemick ‡ Read. enhancing conversation between In- They can hear your stomach churn, Cove, near Nelson, B.C., and summons digenous peoples and settlers. smell the cavities in your molars, elevendollarsninetyfive Darling to London for further question- seepoetry your pulse gallopingand prose into the soft parts of your neck. There is no place they do not know you. Subscribe. 978-1-77212-299-2 ing about the air crash. He’s arrested and charged with murder. Whishaw’s Submit. 1940s detective heroine Lane Winslow M is for Marlatt proceeds to London to save the man Because every issue she loves. 9781771512619 DAPHNE MARLATT WAS AT THE CENTRE OF the West Coast poetry movement in is an EVENT. the 1960s including an association J is for Johnson with the TISH group that encour- • 2017 Canadian Magazine Awards Winner, Best Literature aged her non-conformist approach IN TYRELL JOHNSON’S POST-APOCALYPTIC • 2016 Journey Prize Finalist to language. Four decades of Daphne suspense novel, The Wolves of Winter • 2016 National Magazine Awards Marlatt’s poetry has been collected (Simon & Schuster $24.95), set in the Finalist, Fiction & Personal Journalism for Intertidal: The Collected Yukon, we are introduced to a • 2015 National Magazine Awards Earlier Poems, 1968-2008 fierce young woman named Finalist, Poetry (Talonbooks $49.95). Lynn McBride—think Some of the book’s Hunger Games—and poems are from the McBride fam- eventmagazine.ca Marlatt’s well- ily after the planet known work; has been ravaged others are pre- by war and dis- viously unpub- ease. Order has lished. Marlatt Raven collapsed. Nobody was appointed knows how many to the Order of Publishing Inc. Canada in 2006 Books about Pacific NW Coast and became the Tima Kurdi’s 19th recipient of the Aboriginal Art and Culture nephew Alan Kurdi George Woodcock Life- was the Syrian boy time Achievement Award New washed up on the in 2012. shores of the Medi- terranean Sea, near 978-1-77201-178-4 Bodrum, Turkey in 2015. Draw, paint, carve, do cross stitch and marquetry, enjoy. English, French, German, Spanish

39 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 WHO’SWHO

Peggy Reading, circa 1927, watercolour by N is for Nelson Arthur Pitts, from The Life and Art of NELSON IS FAST BECOMING A HUB FOR MYSTERY Arthur Pitts. writers in B.C. Long-time resident JG (Judy) Toews is the latest to make her debut in that genre. Set in Nelson, her debut novel Give Out Creek (Mosaic Press, $24.95) was shortlisted for the Arthur

Ellis Award for best unpublished first . LTD

crime novel. Having re- turned to the PUBLISHING small mountain town where she TONGUE

grew up, newspa-

per reporter Stella MOTHER Mosconi doesn’t ever mention her P is for Pitts crippling fear of JG Toews deep water. With MONA FERTIG HAS SOMEWHAT MIRACULOUSLY spring runoff, the managed to publish the tenth and alpine creeks are swelling as she final volume of her series The Unher- watches the level of the lake rising alded Artists of B.C.—Kerry Mason’s outside her door. When a new friend extensively illustrated The Life and is found dead in her rowboat, she is Art of Arthur Pitts (Mother Tongue drawn into the investigation despite $36.95), with a foreword by Daniel a complicated history with the police Francis. If you haven’t heard of Ar- officer in charge. She will have to find thur Pitts (1889-1972), well, that’s the courage to overcome her intense sorta the point. The fear of water in order to help solve two visual arts hierar- murders. chy in B.C. was long JG Toews has also had a career as a akin to a closed shop nutritionist, and along with Nicole Par- controlled by a mini, ton Fisher penned three non-fiction self-elected hierar- books about healthy living published chy that excluded— by Key Porter Books. 978-1-77161-305-7 among countless Mona Fertig others—Fertig’s fa- ther. O is for Ootsa Pitts attended Westminster School of Art in London in 1920 and the new DURING THE ‘20S AND ‘30S, ON THE NORTH Vancouver School of Decorative and shore of Ootsa Lake, south of Burns Applied Arts in 1925, studying un- Lake, George and Else Seel raised der Fred Varley, Charles Scott and their children near the village of J.W.G. Macdonald. In the 1930s he Wistaria. She and her son Rupert travelled over 4,000 miles sketching remained there until 1952 when Ken- and painting—in watercolour—First ney Dam construction, as part of the Nations people and ceremonies. Alcan project, raised the level of Ootsa 978-1-896949-62-8 Lake, flooding their property and forc- ing the evacuation of the Cheslatta First Nation. Q is for Quibble Jay Sherwood’s seventh book, Ootsa Lake Odyssey: George and Else THE NEW YORK TIMES HAS ACCORDED A GLOW- Seel: A Pioneer Life on the Headwa- ing review to Terese Marie Mailhot’s ters of the Nechako Watershed (Cait- debut memoir Heart Berries (Double- lin $24.95), recalls Else’s vanished, day $25) about growing up within the mixed community. 978-1987915211 Seabird Island Band in B.C. Good for her. It helps to have an American imprint and a glowing endorsement from her writing instruc- tor, Sherman Aleksie. Meanwhile Karen Charleson’s debut novel about modern life in a First Nation community atop Vancouver Island, Through Different Eyes (Signature $19.95), is rich in empathy and affords a deep appreciation of community. We hate to quibble, but Charleson is more worthy of hype. Eyes: 978-1-77324-006-0 Heart Berries: 978-0385691147

From Jay Sherwood’s Ootsa Lake Odyssey: A monument outside the Wistaria commu- PHOTO nity hall to celebrate the united colony of

SHERWOOD British Columbia.

JAY

40 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 BRITISHCOLUMBIA

R is for Ruebsaat U is for Uphill X is for Xwi7xwa

BORN IN GERMANY PREVIOUSLY A MAYOR OF FERNIE, THE NEW UBC UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, in 1946, Norbert Thomas Uphill was B.C.’s longest serv- Susan E. Parker, was hired last Ruebsaat came to ing MLA from 1920-1960. His political September. The purview of UBC’s Canada in 1952 and career began during British Columbia’s libraries is vast. It just acquired the grew up in the B.C. Prohibition. Uphill opposed Prohibition first item ever printed in Vancouver; interior where he on the grounds it restricted the average the first copy of the endured schoolyard worker’s right to enjoy a well-deserved Vancouver Weekly taunts of “Kraut” beer at the end of his working day. Herald and North Norbert Ruebsaat and “Hitler boy.” Uphill famously Pacific News print- In addition to his stood up in the ed in 1886. Mean- poetry collection, Cordillera (Pulp legislature and while, with more Press, 1979), he was librettist for Barry brandished a than 15,000 items, Truax’s Love Songs and he worked bottle of beer, Xwi7xwa (pro- with Hildegard Westerkamp on envi- declaring, “Beer nounced whei-wha) Susan E. Parker ronmental sound compositions. As a is as necessary is a UBC library that translator, he’s provided English ver- to the worker was started in the 1970s for exclusively sions of plays by Handke and Brecht, as milk to the Indigenous materials as part of the In- as well as poems by Rilke. baby… Hands dian Education Resource Centre. The After teaching Communication and off the workers’ beer!” Wayne Norton, name is also the Squamish word for Media Studies at SFU and Columbia author of Fernie at War: 1914-1919 echo. The collection later came under College, he retired in 2015 and moved (Caitlin $24.95), has been campaigning Lori A. Brotto the care of the Native Indian Teacher researches to New Denver from where he has pub- to get a plaque for Uphill installed at Education Program (NITEP). women’s lished his memoirs, In Other Words: A the legislature in Victoria. sexual health. German Canadian Story (CreateSpace At Norton’s book launch, at Swan’s $16.20). 978-1547129027 Brewpub in Victoria, patrons enjoyed Y is for Yayeh a new beer named Thomas Uphill Amber Ale. 978-1-987915-49-5 W is for Wagstaffe SET IN THE NICOLA VALLEY, NICOLA I. CAMP- S is for Shari bell’s A Day with Yayeh (Tradewind JOHANNA WAGSTAFFE’S MATERNAL GRAND- $19.95), illustrated by Julie Flett, is SHARI GREEN OF CAMP- V is for Venus parents and her mother fled Hungary a picture book about a girl who spends bell River has won during the 1956 revolution, lived in a a day gathering edibles such as herbs the ALA Schneider ROMAN GODDESS OF LOVE, VENUS, WAS ORIGI- refugee camp in Yugoslavia for a year, and mushrooms with her grandmother. Family Book Award nally worshipped for fertility; later for then immigrated to a small town in Campbell has won the TD, Marilyn Bail- in the Middle School sexual love. As Canada Research Chair Western Australia, near Meckering, lie and Anskohk Aboriginal Children’s Books category for in Women’s Sexual Health, Vancouver where a 6.9 earthquake struck. Her Book of the Year awards. 978-1-926890-05-0 her middle-grade Venus expert Lori A. Brotto exam- grandmother recalls the devastation novel Macy McMil- ines desire, arousal and satisfaction in Fault Lines: Understanding the Shari Green lan and the Rain- for women in and outside of Power of Earthquakes (Orca Z is for Zussman bow Goddess (Pa- the bedroom in Better Sex $24.95), Wagstaffe’s first jama Press $12.95). It’s a free-verse Through Mindfulness: book, a lively and well- ON A DAY WHEN GREEN PARTY LEADER novel that introduces the reader to How Women Can Culti- illustrated primer Andrew Weaver soundly criticized Pre- deaf, sixth-grader Macy’s world. An vate Desire (Greystone on earthquakes, is mier John Horgan for drumming up elderly neighbour, Iris, learns how to $22.95). About half both historical and business for the province’s languishing communicate with Macy through sign of all women experi- educational. LNG industry came news about a new language, and Macy, in turn, learns ence some kind of A meteorolo- book to examine the current NDP/ how Iris sends messages through the sexual difficulty at gist and science Green provincial government. gift of cookies. Their relationship helps one point in their host for CBC, A Matter of Confidence: The In- Macy to navigate friendships, family lives; lack of inter- Wagstaffe fre- side Story of the Political Battle for changes and school assignments. Macy est in sex being the quently shares BC (Heritage $22.95) by B.C. legislative McMillan and the Rainbow Goddess is most common. her passion for reporters Richard Zussman and Rob also a finalist for the 2018 Silver Birch 978-1-77164-235-4 science educa- Shaw is based on interviews with more fiction award. Shari Green works as a tion with chil- than seventy political insiders includ- Licensed Practical Nurse.978-1-77278-017-8 dren. ing Horgan, Weaver and former premier Meteorologist 978-1-4598-1243-7 Christy Clark. Johanna T is for Takach Wagstaffe

AS B . C .’ S PIPELINE politics become in- creasingly at odds with Alberta’s economy, Geo Takach, Ph.D, a writer, filmmak- er, workshop Geo Takach leader, and, as associate Richard professor of Communication Zussman and Culture at Royal Roads University in Victoria, has Richard Zussman was surprisingly published Tar Wars: Oil, fired by the CBC for announcing he Environment and Alber- was writing the book while under the ta’s Image (U. of Alberta employ of the Mother Corp. Premier Press $34.95), an assess- Horgan was among the many who ment and documentation defended Zussman’s rights for free of how “image-makers” speech, calling him an “outstanding manage the tensions young journalist in a sea of cyni- and conflict between cism” and “a breath of fresh air.” the continuous growth Countless CBC personalities mandated by a global- have written and published books ized economic system while employed—from Peter and its unsustainable Gzowski nationally to Mark environmental costs. Forsythe provincially. 978-1-77212-140-7 9781772032543

41 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 LETTERS QQUICKIES A COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD FOR INDEPENDENTS

QUICKIES is an affordable advertising vehicle for writers, artists & events. For info on how to be included: [email protected]

Father Placid brings beekeeping to Luhombero Captain Joe & want to say thank you to all the readers of BC It is inspiring and encouraging for all of us here Grateful Jake BookWorld who have helped us in Luhombero. in a remote place to know funds from your news- by Emily Madill I With your donations, we’ve developed two paper are now being set aside for the eventual large farming projects at Luhombero and Kasita. purchase of a vehicle. MIVA, a European organi- Confidence boosting These will soon be self-sustaining. zation, has already committed to pay 50% of the books for kids. To start a new industry for the area, I have purchase and delivery costs. 978-0981257907 • $11.95 each graduated from a course taught by Ted Rabenold of Rome was not built in a day, and Luhombero AVAILABLE: Chapters, Amazon, Barnes & Noble AfricanBeekeeping.com to train African beekeep- cannot be uplifted overnight, but we are making www.emilymadill.com ers, in both English and Swahili. much progress all the same. KIDLIT This course was taught in a rural area outside Placid Kindata Ifakara, accessible by ‘zipline’ ferry that enabled Luhombero, Tanzania us to cross the Little Ruaha River one at a time. HelpLuhombero.org Fall in Love With Your Life, E-Course Feast of Eden BCBW in schools with certified professional life coach Emily Madill, LATELY, WE’VE TAKEN A MORE ASSERTIVE THANK YOU FOR YOUR DISTRIBUTION TO OUR based on her latest book. approach in distributing BC Book- school (Magee-Vancouver Secondary). 978-0988127333 • Hardcover & Kindle World on The Drive. With the Eden I LOVE your periodical/newspaper AVAILABLE: Amazon, Red Tuque, Chapters, Robinson issue, the one where she and look forward to seeing each new www.emilymadill.com was on the cover, we gave everyone issue. They are always most infor- SELF-HELP who bought one of her books a copy mative and helpful in our purchas- of BC BookWorld. In 2018, rather than ing patterns. Thanks again for your just leave the paper for customers FABULOUS publication! Erotokritos to pick up, we’re going to offer it to Susan Pearson by Vitzentzos them directly. What was I thinking Department Head-Resource Komaros before??!! It is such an obvious way Services, Magee Secondary School, Transcribed by Manolis. to generate sales. Vancouver Lea Watson of Canterbury Books The only longhand book Lea Watson of its kind — a long poem 500 years old—transcribed Canterbury Tales Bookstore Gloss gross by an 11-year-old boy. to Westminster, I suggest it be named The Drive, Vancouver 978-1-926763-36-1 • $5,000.00 Surrey, British Columbia,” he wrote. I AM WRITING FROM THE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE www.libroslibertad.ca Queen Victoria had named New West- town of Cumberland on Vancouver EPIC POEM Yes Surrey, no sirree minster, B.C., thus it became known Island. I have been an avid reader of as “the Royal City.” In England, across THE ARTICLE “YES SURREY” IN THE WINTER BC BookWorld for years. I find it very the Thames from Westminster was issue of BC BookWorld, when men- useful when purchasing new books. I Beyond the the County of Surrey. Thus it struck tioning how Surrey was named, man- get BC BookWorld at my local library, Floathouse the clerk as appropriate that across ages to consign the English County which is part of the Vancouver Island Lifelong Learning with the river from New Westminster there friends & family of Surrey into London. Never! Surrey Regional Library system. Then I buy should also be a Surrey.—Ed.] by Myrtle Siebert lives as a county. the books I want to have in my per- A continuation of Roger Stonebanks sonal library, and borrow others from Myrtle’s remarkable life the library. and varied careers. Victoria 252 Indigenous 978-0-9880709-2-9 • $17.95 ✫ BC BookWorld is a great way to www.myrtlesiebert.com SURREY, ENGLAND, IS A COUNTY SOUTHWEST authors find out about new books, otherwise NON-FICTION of London. At its northeast it borders I don’t know how I’d ever find out on Greater London, still far from IN THE WINTER BC BOOKWORLD, THERE they exist. I am retired and spend a the City of London. In fact, neither was mention that “information per- great deal of my time reading. I don’t The Listener Buckingham Palace, nor the Houses taining to 252 indigenous authors in like the way it now has a glossy page by David Lester of Parliament, are within the limits of British Columbia” is available at the front and back and more glossy pages “A dense and fiercely the City of London. ABCBookWorld reference site. How in the centre. It adds nothing to the intelligent work... Steve Drinkwater does that work? reading experience. all in a lyrical and Sechelt Lisa Ottenbreit, Ellen Rainwalker stirring style.” Cumberland — Publishers Weekly (NY) [According to the City of Surrey, Surrey Teacher-Librarian, was named by the first Clerk of the Windsor Secondary School 978-1894037488 • $19.95 Send letters or emails to: www.amazon.ca Municipal Council, Mr. W. J. Brewer, North Vancouver BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., GRAPHIC NOVEL around 1880. “Due to the geographic [Easy. Choose Advanced Search on Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 [email protected] similarity of this district to that of the abcbookworld.com website; then Letters may be edited for clarity & length. County Surrey in England, in relation select Aboriginal Authors.—Ed.]

Annick Press...26 Ellis, David...36 Marquis...43 Royal BC Museum...34 Anvil Press...33 Federation of BC Writers...2 Mermaid Tales Bookshop...36 Self-Counsel Press...27 Arbeiter Ring Publishing...40 Friends of VPL...39 Mother Tongue Publishing...34 SFU Writers Studio...26 Arsenal Pulp Press...28 Friesens Printers...43 New Society Publishers...18 Sub-Terrain/LUSH...30 Banyen Books...36 Galiano Island Books...36 New Star Books...33 Talonbooks...14 Bayeux Arts...7 Gareau, Roq (Soulful Fellowship)...40 Orca Books...4 Tanner’s Books...36 BC Ferries Books...31 Granville Island Publishing...30 The Ormsby Review...11 UBC Press...16 BC Historical Federation...39 Greystone Books...16 Penguin Random House...17 University of Alberta Press...39 Caitlin Press...20 Harbour Publishing...44 Playwrights Canada...25 Vancouver Desktop...36 CBBAG Books Arts Fair...36 The Heritage Group of Publishers...13 Printorium/Island Blue...43 Watershed Sentinel Books...40 AD Cramp, Beverly...36 Houghton Boston...43 Raven Publishing...39 Word On The Lake...2 Douglas & McIntyre...6 Libros Libertad Publishing...26 Ravenscrag Press...36 Write On The Sound Conference...2 INDEX Douglas College/EVENT...39 Maa Press...40 Ronsdale Press...25 Yoka’s Coffee...31

42 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 BOOK PRINTERS

Jorge Rocha • B.C. Mainland • 1.877.205.7255 • [email protected] Gerhard Aichelberger • Vancouver Island • 1.888.364-2500 • [email protected] friesens.com

FIRST NATION BOOKS FICTION

ANNUALS 911 Fort Street • Victoria • BC • V8V3K3 • T 250-385-9786 • TF 1-800-661-3332 NON-FICTION

TRAVEL BOOKS Family owned & operated for 105 years POETRY

GRAPHIC NOVELS MEMOIRS

COLOURING BOOKS BC’s Book Printing Experts CHILDREN’S BOOKS Building Trust in Client Relations

LOOKING FOR A PARTNER FOR YOUR BOOK PRINTING PROJECTS?

WE ARE BLACK & WHITE COLOUR MADE FOR OFFSET EACH OTHER DIGITAL

| The Art of Finding Your Solution marquisbook.com | 1 855 566-1937

Printing Excellence Since 1919 709 43rd Street East • Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada S7K 0V7 Ph: (306) 664-3458 Fx: (306) 665-1027 www.houghtonboston.com

43 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018 44 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2018