Autumn 2017 Volume 31
LOUIS RIEL 39 • YOUR FREE GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS SPIN DOCTOR Ron Norman’s BC Slouching Towards Innocence, a novel of non-stop BOOKWORLD scandals in
VOL. 31 • NO. 3 • AUTUMN 2017 B.C. politics. PAGE 18
Ron Norman
TRICKSTER COLUMBIA
Eden Robinson kicks off her new trilogy with a novel that combines magic realism with brutal realism, reviewed by David Stouck.
See page 13 EDUCATION
Andrew Struthers Jordan Abel Nikki Tate PHOTO on the sacred herb wins $65,000 on the anxious
versus the Griffin Poetry lives of rock- STUDIO
devil’s weed. Prize for Injun. climbing teens.
PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT WORDS
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THE COASTAL LIVES OF WORKING WOMEN P.22-23 www.greystonebooks.com Naturally Great Books
Coming November 2017 from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees
THE INNER LIFE OF ANIMALS Love, Grief, and Compassion—Surprising Observations of a Hidden World Foreword by 978-1-77164-301-6 • $29.95 2017
“Surprising, humbling, and filled with delight.” , author of The Soul of an Octopus
Rise of the Necrofauna Arthur Birdmania Dirty Kids The Science, Ethics, and Risks The Dog Who Crossed the A Remarkable Passion for Birds Chasing Freedom with of De-Extinction Jungle to Find a Home America’s Nomads Foreword by Foreword by 978-1-77164-337-5 • • $29.95 978-1-77164-277-4 • • $39.95 Photos by 978-1-77164-164-7 • • $32.95 2017 2017 Foreword by 2017 978-1-77164-304-7 • • $21.95 2017
No Refuge for Women Rowing the Northwest Passage Rick Hansen’s Man City on Edge The Tragic Fate of Syrian Refugees Adventure, Fear, In Motion World Tour A Rebellious Century of Vancouver and Awe in a Rising Sea 30 Years Later Protests, Riots, and Strikes 978-1-77164-307-8 • • $24.95 2017 978-1-77164-134-0 • • $24.95 Foreword by Foreword by 2017 978-1-77164-344-3 • • $34.95 978-1-77164-313-9 • • $32.95 2017 2017
2 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 PEOPLE TOPSELLERS*
Tomson Highway BCFrom Oral to Written: A Celebration of Indigenous Literature in Canada, 1980 - 2010 (Talonbooks $29.95) Carleigh Baker Bad Endings (Anvil Press $18) Andrew Struthers The Sacred Herb / The Devil’s Weed (New Star Books $19)
Lee Cardwell Lee Cardwell Dementia In the Family Academy Award Practical Advice From A Caregiver Best Picture (Self-Counsel Press $19.95) director Terry Milos Barry Jenkins North of Familiar: A Woman’s Story of Homesteading and Adventure in the Canadian Wilderness (Caitlin Press $24.95) David Doyle HOBO, OSCARS Louis Riel: Let Justice Be Done (Ronsdale $24.95) & LASQUETI Monique Gray-Smith Speaking Our Truth: SISUWORLD oonlight, the indie movie that won best picture A Journey of Reconciliation ELSINKI-BASED WRITER KATJA PANTZAR, FORMERLY (Orca Books $29.95) at the Oscars, was directly inspired by a Cana- associate editor of BC BookWorld, credits Eve Lazarus dian magazine from B.C. Hunhappiness in B.C. for her newfound liter- Blood, Sweat, and Fear: The Story of Soon after his Oscar win, the director of ary success. Inspector Vance, Vancouver’s First Forensic Investigator M Her upcoming book, The Magic of Sisu: In search Moonlight, Barry Jenkins held up a copy of HOBO maga- (Arsenal Pulp Press $24.95) of courage, strength and happiness the Finnish zine—featuring Isabelle Huppert on its cover—saying he way, will be published in the U.K. in April of 2018, Troy and cinematographer James Laxton had been “obsessed” together with Penguin Random House USA’s non- Townsin fiction imprint TarcherPerigee in North America. with HOBO since their college days. Reprint rights have already been sold to China, Czech HOBO is a high fashion-meets-environmentalism maga- Republic, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Kosovo, Poland, Russia, and Spain. zine founded on a chairlift in Whistler in 2000. Although the Pantzar says the book arose from her responses to editorial office is currently in Paris, the family’s address in Canada where “the consumerist and materially ob- Canada for twenty-five years has been on Lasqueti Island. sessed culture left her feeling empty and unhappy.” When she received treatment for depression in her Hobo is owned and published by Christian Dogimont, his mid-20s, medical practitioners simply prescribed wife and his son. medication and sleeping pills, no thought was given to her lifestyle. Although the high-end magazine is distributed in twelve Troy Townsin After moving to Finland, Katja discovered sisu: One Blue Moose countries, mostly in Europe, the content is largely the Finnish approach to well-being defined by a (Sandhill Book Marketing/ special kind of resilience, grit and courage. She Polyglot Publishing $14.95) West Coast Canadian. “The spirit is definitely West embraced sisu and experienced a dramatic turn- Coast,” says Dogimont. Because the contributors Peter Kalmus around in her health and happiness. Exercise Being the Change: Live Well and are worldwide, often HOBO does not meet the (as simple as riding her bike to work), the Nordic Spark a Climate Revolution diet, spending time in nature, swimming, and (New Society $21.99) 65% Canadian content rules required for Ca- having a more courageous outlook on her Matt Price nadian government support or eligibility for world transformed Pantzar’s life. Engagement Organizing: Canadian magazine awards. “Our readers She is previously the author of The Old Art and New Science of three guidebooks: The Hip Guide to Winning Campaigns around the world see HOBO as a Canadian (UBC Press $22.95) Katja Pantzar: Helsinki, Helsinki by Light and 100 magazine—totally,” Dogimont says. discovering sisu Things to Do in Helsinki. Theo Dombrowski Popular Day Hikes 4: Vancouver Island (Rocky Mountain Books $15) Publication Mail Agreement Contributors: John Moore, All BC BookWorld reviews are posted at #40010086 Joan Givner, Mark Forsythe, www.abcbookworld.com Richard Wagamese Return undeliverable Alex Van Tol, David Conn, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations BC Canadian addresses to: Cherie Thiessen, Jeremy BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., (D&M $18.95) Twigg, James Paley, BOOKWORLD Vancouver, BC, Canada V6R 2S3 Caroline Woodward, Caitlin Woods-Rotering Produced with the sponsorship of Roy Henry Vickers Autumn 2017 Writing not otherwise We gratefully acknowledge the unobtrusive Pacific BookWorld News Society. assistance of Canada Council, a continuous partner since credited is by staff. & Robert Budd Volume 31 • Number 3 Publications Mail 1988, and creativeBC, a provincial partner since 2014. Hello Humpback! Registration No. 7800. Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics Publisher/Writer: BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 (Harbour $9.95) Consultants: Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: Christine Rondeau, Sharon Jackson Editor/Production: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Photographers: * The current topselling titles from major David Lester Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6R 2S3 Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk BC publishing companies, in no particular order. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 Proofreaders: In-Kind Supporters: Associate Editor: Email: [email protected] Wendy Atkinson, Tara Twigg Simon Fraser University Library; Beverly Cramp Annual subscription: $25 Deliveries: Ken Reid, Acculogix Vancouver Public Library; UBC Library.
3 BC BOOKWORLDAUTUMN 2017 4 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 PEOPLE & Jane Doe and Other Persons for trespassing, etc. but when “John and Jane Doe” turned around and WE ARE NOT MAKING THIS UP counter-sued Marine Harvest, the Norway-based company dropped their allegations against the unnamed Indigenous people and decided to go uthor and anti-fish farm researcher after only Morton. Alexandra Morton is being sued by Unfazed by this nuisance suit, Morton was back big business again—this time for using in court in June, backed by Ecojustice, for a case Aa spoon to collect a sample of bird poop in which activists are trying to prevent Canada from a buoy belonging to Marine Harvest. from allowing the fish farming industry to continue The company is claiming Morton adversely putting piscine reovirus-infected Atlantic salmon harmed the integrity of the farm’s anchoring system into the Pacific. by touching a yellow, steel buoy when she collected Whereas some DFO and industry scientists have a biological sample during a visit she made to the tried to argue the virus is benign, other DFO scien- fish farm with approximately sixty members of the tists have published results to prove piscine reo- local First Nation. The tribe has consistently voiced virus is, in fact, spreading disease in B.C. salmon. their objection to the presence of the fish farm on Alexandra Morton is being sued Morton claims 87% of the juvenile salmon leaving their traditional territory. for alleged damages—with a teaspoon— the area are infected with sea lice and “most will to a salmon farm buoy, The suit was first launched against Morton & John not survive.”
WARSAW GHETTO Kraft Dinner & hot dogs REVISITED illian Boraks-Nemetz ARSENAL PULP PRESS LIKES COMEDIAN AND PLAYWRIGHT will launch her latest book Charles Demers so much they gave him his own imprint. Lat the 33rd annual Cherie Smith Jewish Book Festival in Starting this fall, Robin’s Egg Books, a collaboration be- Vancouver at the Jewish Com- tween Demers and Arsenal Pulp, will bring book read- munity Centre on November 26, at 2 pm. Born in Warsaw, ers fresh and funny writing on a wide range of topics. Poland, she survived the Holo- caust as a child after she es- The imprint is named for Demers’ late mother Robin. caped from the Warsaw Ghetto “The first book to leave the nest,” as the publicity and lived in Polish villages under a false identity. announces, is What I Think Happened: An Un- She is best-known for young derresearched History of the Western World adult novels that include The Old Brown Suitcase, a fictional (Robin’s Egg Books $17.95) by account of a 14-year old im- migrant girl, Slava, who comes comedian, writer and actor to Canada from Poland after the Evany Rosen. Rosen’s comic Second World War. This book won the Sheila A. Egoff Prize, essays recast famous historical among other awards. happenings from her “wickedly funny Boraks-Nemetz has now reprised her autobiographi- feminist perspective.” Demers, who cal story for Mouth of Truth (Ekstasis $26.95), a novel will be the editor for Robin’s Egg Books, inspired by her experiences. Charles Demers says his inspiration to become involved She is a proud member of the Janusz Korczak Association of with book publishing was because: “Two of the things Canada. that have always given me the greatest joy in life are books and funny people, and so it only made sense to combine the two (the same kind of synergistic in- genuity that gave us, to take but one example, Kraft
Dinner and hot dogs).” 978-1-55152-695-5
Rendering the monstrous Lillian Boraks-Nemetz Coincidentally, the Belfry Theatre in Victoria has kicked adley Louise victimization in Indigenous off its 42nd season with Han- Friedland was communities. nah Moscovitch’s The Chil- Hthe first research Friedland’s analysis of dren’s Republic (Sept 12-Oct director of the University Cree and Anishinabek sto- 8) about how the educator and author Dr. Janusz Korczak of Victoria’s Indigenous ries and oral histories is (pronounced Kor-Chock) and Law Research Unit. In The Hadley Louise combined with academic Friedland his long-suffering female as- Wetiko Legal Principles and legal literature to theo- sociate maintained a sanctuary (UTP $24.95) she examines the rize about the dynamics of wetikos school in the Warsaw Ghetto for Evany Rosen: Polish-Jewish orphans. Rather concept in Algonquian folklore of founding and offenders in cases of child than abandon their charges, member of a cannibal monster or a spirit that sexual victimization. The goal is to they went with their 192 chil- comedy possesses a person, rendering them help provide direction for applying dren to the Treblinka extermi- troupe nation camp in 1942. His most monstrous, known as the wetiko, Indigenous legal principles to con- Picnicface. important book is called How to in the context of inordinately high temporary social issues. Love Children. 978-1-77171-211-8 rates of “intimate violence” and child 978-1-4875-2202-5
5 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 ISLAND OF THE THE WORLD’S COOKING WITH BLUE FOXES MOST TRAVELLED THE WOLFMAN Disaster and Triumph MAN Indigenous Fusion on Bering’s Great A Twenty-Three-Year Chef David Voyage to Alaska Odyssey to and through Wolfman and his Every Country on the Award-winning author wife, Marlene Planet Stephen R. Bown Finn, combine tells an epic tale of In 1990, Mike Spencer classic cooking shipwreck and survival Bown began a two- techniques from the Age of Sail. decade journey that with traditional history | $34.95 would take him through ingredients in their hardcover · 6" × 9" · 288 pages · b&w maps and each of the world’s 195 countries. favourite recipes. cooking | $29.95 memoir/travel | $29.95 illustrations · october · 978-1-77162-161-8 paperback · 8" × 10" · 280 pages · 75 colour hardcover · 6" × 9" · 384 pages · october photographs · october · 978-1-77162-163-2 978-1-77162-142-7
THE CINDERELLA SCULPTURE IN COLLECTED CAMPAIGN CANADA TARTS AND OTHER First Canadian Army A History INDELICACIES and the Battles for the In this A juicy and much- Channel Ports groundbreaking anticipated volume In the twelfth work, Maria from humour columnist installment of the Tippett offers an Tabatha Southey, bestselling Canadian authoritative survey who understands the Battle Series, Mark of sculpture’s coming psychological struggles Zuehlke tells the of age in Canada. of shadowy Russian pee story of the First art | $39.95 PN=B?GANONA?KCJEVAO Canadian Army and how they opened the way hardcover · 8½" × 11" · 272 pages · 130 colour PDA,.>AJAPOKBLQLLUPDNKSEJC=J@D=O@AALHU to Allied victory in World War II. photograps · november · 978-1-77162-093-2 considered the moral quandaries presented by sea military history | $37.95 slug penises. humour | $24.95 hardcover · 6" × 9¼" · 498 pages · b&w photos paperback · 6" × 9" · 352 pages · september and maps · november · 978-1-77162-089-5 978-1-77162-167-0
TRUE HISTORICAL THE WHITE ANGEL CONFESSIONS ATLAS OF FROM THE NINTH EARLY RAILWAYS Award winning writer CONCESSION John MacLachlan Derek Hayes has a Gray has written a novel A funny and passion for old maps based on the true story of affectionate chronicle and what they can the 1924 murder of Janet of rural Canadian life reveal about the past. Smith in Vancouver—a written by Harrowsmith In this volume, he city at the edge of the columnist Dan presents a vivid visual empire, still reeling from Needles, author of history of railways the Great War with a PDA3EJCAH@"=NI around the world. barely functioning police series, winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal history | $49.95 department and a thriving criminal class. fiction | $29.95 for Humour and member of the Order of hardcover · 9½" × 12¾" · 320 pages · 770 colour humour | $22.95 Canada. maps, photos and illustrations · october hardcover · 6" × 9" · 296 pages · available now 978-1-77162-175-5 L=LAN>=?GBNAJ?D=LOÙÖÙ L=CAO 978-1-77162-146-5 available now · 978-1-77162-169-4
A MARINER’S SPINDRIFT GUIDE TO SELF A Canadian Book SABOTAGE of the Sea This salt-soaked 0DEOODKNP?PEKJ collection from anthology, edited by Michael L. Hadley award-winning and Anita Hadley, author Bill Gaston celebrates is populated by our relationship with the characters who are three seas that frame our lonely and alienated— country. It features 170 they are holders of pieces of writing from secrets, members (or would-be members) of KRAN KB =J=@=OIKOPOECJE?=JPHEPAN=NU voices. canadiana | $36.95 OD=@KSUKNC=JEV=PEKJOO?NAS QLOFKUNE@ANO and runaways. fiction | $22.95 hardcover · 6" × 9" · 360 pages · b&w illustrations available now · 978-1-77162-173-1 L=LAN>=?GBNAJ?D=LOÎÙÖÎÙL=CAO available now · 978-1-77162-171-7
6 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 A is for Alexander
A COW-EYED GODDESS STEALS A NYMPH’S tongue. Steering wheels are taken over by octopi. Susan Alexander’s poems in The Dance Floor Tilts (Thistledown $17.95) are derived from eclectic expe- riences such as working as a cham- bermaid, a CBC Radio journalist, at a boutique investment firm and being a stay-at-home mom. The Bowen Islander has won both the 2016 Short Grain poetry prize and the 2015 Vancouver Writers’ Festival Contest. 978-1-77187-152-5 B is for Basran
YET ANOTHER SUCcess- ful graduate of SFU Writers Studio, Gur- jinder Basran of Delta is making the rounds. After read- ing at the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Gurjinder Basran Written Arts, she’s appearing at Word Vancouver (Sept. 19), Victoria Festival of Authors (Sept. 27), Whistler Writers Festival (Oct. 12) and Vancouver Writ- ers Festival (Oct. 16) promoting her second novel, Someone You Love is Gone (Viking $24.95), described as a tale of love and heartbreak that crosses continents and spans generations. 978-0-7352-3342-3 C is for Cain
FOUR YEARS AGO, KRISSY MATHEWS DISAP- peared. When she returns it is through the doors of her hometown’s hospital with a lifeless child in her arms and a man she refers to as her husband. He is charged with kidnapping and Krissy must deal with the Stockholm syn- Justin, drome that developed from the twisted Michel and
abuse she suffered while isolated in a PHOTO
Margaret Trudeau mountain cabin experiencing what she in her parents’ BAGLO believed to be true love. That’s the gist backyard in West of Shelby Cain’s debut novel, Moun-
GLENN Vancouver, from tain Girl (Oolichan $22.95). Cain lives Vancouver in in Fernie. 978-0-88982-315-0 the Seventies. D is for Derrickson WHO’S IN THE RECONCILIATION MANIFESTO (Lorimer $22.95), Arthur Manuel with BRITISH•COLUMBIA H is for Hekkanen Grand Chief Ronald Derrickson, for- mer chief of the Westbank First Nation ONE OF THE UNSUNG HEROES OF B.C. near Kelowna, challenge nearly every- literature, Ernest Hekkanen, is calling thing that non-Indigenous Canadians it quits. The final issue of The New Or- believe about their relationship with WHO phic Review will appear this fall. With Indigenous Peoples and the steps that his wife Margrith, Hekkanen began are needed to place this relationship the bi-annual journal of fiction, poetry, on a healthy and honourable footing. yes, how to apply reviews and essays in 1998 when they The preface is by Naomi Klein. F is for Fralic for grants. Deborah had just turned fifty-one. “To create a 9781459409613 Griffiths, executive product of no obvious practical value,” director of the Cour- he writes in the penultimate issue, WITH A FOREWORD BY DOUGLAS COUPLAND, “and for which there would be an ex- and an introduction by Shelley Fralic, tenay and District tremely limited market, if any at all, E is for Ekstasis research librarian Kate Bird presents Museum, knows her seemed to me an act of defiance worth 149 photos from the Vancouver Sun way around an ap- pouring some hard-earned cash into.” OFFICIALLY, EKSTASIS archives for Vancouver in the Sev- plication. They have kept their Nelson-based Editions was found- enties: Photos from a Decade That Deborah Griffi ths Having been in- publication going for forty issues with- ed by Richard Olaf- Changed the City (Greystone $29.95), volved in museum out financial assistance from any level son in 1982 in the featuring representative images from research and curatorial work in the of government. basement of the the era as well as pivotal moments in Okanagan and on Vancouver Island now-defunct Gal- the city’s history such as the Gastown for over thirty years, Deborah Griffiths leries Untitled on Riot and the founding of Greenpeace. has not only written a novel under a Government Street Personalities range from a five-year-old pseudonym and co-authored Water- Richard Olafson in Victoria. That’s Justin Trudeau to the iconic Chief shed Moments: A Pictorial History of Courtenay and District (Harbour Pub- where he printed Dan George. 9781771642408 his own first book, Blood of the Moon, lishing, 2015), she has e-published The on a 1250 Multilith Press. Equally the Grant Seekers Helper: The Little Book birthplace of Ekstasis was the Breezy G is for Griffi ths on Grants for Big Community Dreams Bay Farm Bed ‘n’ Breakfast on Saturna (Amazon, 2013), that has evolved into Island, still very much in business. The ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WERE PRACTICAL The Grant Writing and Funding caretaker in the early 1970s was Rich- skills such as how to change a car- Coach: Target and Acquire the Funds ard Olafson—now marking his 35th buretor or pluck a chicken. We have You Need (Self- Counsel Press $16.95). anniversary as a publisher. advanced to learning how to Skype and, 978-1-77040-288-1 Margrith and Ernest Hekkanen
7 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 WHO’S
Marianne Ignace is professor of linguistics and First Nations studies at SFU. Chief Ronald E. Ignace is a Secwépemc historian, storyteller, politician and adjunct professor at SFU.
called House of Blazes, from the power- ful Healey brothers, Levi Hayes ends up I is for Ignace in lock-up when the great earthquake of 1906 hits. Now he must escape the WIFE-AND-HUSBAND TEAM MARIANNE IGNACE collapsing building and burning city and Chief Ronald E. Ignace’s 10,000- while avoiding theHealey’s revenge, and year history, Secwépemc People, also get the gold coins. 978-1-77041-286-6 Land, and Laws (McGill-Queen’s $39.95), has contributions from ethno- botanist Nancy Turner, archaeologist Mike Rousseau, and geographer Ken L is for Layland Favrhold. It weaves Secwépemc nar- MICHAEL LAYLAND TRAINED AS AN OFFICER ratives about ancestors’ deeds filtered and mapmaker in the Royal Engineers. through past and present Secwépemc As a follow-up to his prizewinning The storytellers. It reveals how the Sec- Land of Heart’s Delight: Early Maps wépemc peoples resisted oppression and Charts of Vancouver Island (Touch- and the theft of their land, and how wood, 2013), A Perfect Eden: Encoun- they fought to retain political autonomy ters by Early Explorers of Vancouver between the mid-1800s and the 1920s. Island (Touchwood $39.95) digs more 978-0-7735-5130-5 deeply into the story of the men who explored the shape of Vancouver Island J is for Julie and discusses some of the mysteries yet to be resolved. 9781771511773 IN A DAY WITH YAYEH (TRADEWIND BOOKS $19.95), a grandmother passes down her wisdom of herbs and mushrooms M is for McAthy during a First Nations family outing in the Nicola Valley. Beautifully il- FOR CHEESE-LOVING VEGANS WHO THOUGHT lustrated by multiple BC Book Prize they had to give it up or resort to un- winner Julie Flett with text by Nicola appetizing non-dairy ‘cheeses’, there’s Campbell. Suitable for ages 4-7. now cultured plant-based cheese and 9781926890098 Karen McAthy’s Plant-Based Cheese- making (New Society $29.99). It con- tains recipes and encourages experi- K is for Kalteis mentation for beginners and foodies, making a distinction between ‘cheese’ LEVI HAYES HAS SERVED HIS TIME IN and ‘cheeze.’ Offerings include walnut San Quentin Prison for the theft of ricotta cheeze, seed cream cheeze, $30,000 in gold coins from the San coconut kefir curd, almond curd feta, Francisco Mint and now he is ready to cumin seed cashew and coconut gouda. take back what is his in Dietrich Kal- McAthy was born and raised in Alert teis’ House of Blazes (ECW $19.95). Bay to parents who came from agri- After scheming to retrieve his saloon, cultural backgrounds. 978-0-86571-836-4
Karen McAthy, chef and founder of Blue Heron Creamery.
8 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 WHO
now an RCMP Corporal, and enjoying a thousand-kilometre cycle ride to raise N is for Nardelli funds to fight childhood cancer. But soon enough, murder hits the cyclists. SELF- STYLED MYSTICAL COUNSELOR 978-1-4602-9146-7 Linda Nardelli reveals “the inherent wisdom and spiritual essence within all our felt-senses and life experi- is for Qilan ences” in Mystical Intimacy: Enter- Q ing into a Conscious Relationship LYDIA KWA’ S MAGIC- REALIST NOVEL with Your Spirit and Human Nature Oracle Bone (Arsenal Pulp Press (Agio $24.99). The book discusses the $19.95) subverts traditional tropes teachings of Masiandia, “a group soul of Chinese mythology to tell a tale of comprised of seven spirits who are here greed, faith, and female empowerment. to help us remember who we are. They The story takes place in seventh- are here to help us strengthen our self- century China, a time of ghosts, mar- belief, challenge our self-deceptions, tial arts, magic, fox and teach us how to trust our soul spirits and demons. evolution.” 978-1-927755-52-5 Empress Wu Zhao’s evil-minded lover is for Obsession Xie becomes ob- O sessed with finding and possessing a IN REVERIES OF A SOLITARY BIKER magic object called (Talonbooks $16.95), Catriona the oracle bone that Strang’s poetry ponders the difficul- Lydia Kwa will bestow immortal ties of living an anti-capitalist life; the powers on him. But blocking his way to invisibility of much of women’s labour; the bone, is Qilan, an eccentric Daoist and the complexities of sustainability nun. Along the way, the many secrets as she cycles around Vancouver. These and powers of the magic bone are re- poems reference and pay homage to vealed. Lydia Kwa works in Vancouver Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s unfinished as a writer and psychologist. Her The 1776 manuscript of obsession, Rever- Walking Boy (Key Porter, 2007) was ies of the Solitary Walker. With cycling, shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Strang finds it particularly conducive Prize in 2008. 9781551526997 to slow, non-deliberate thinking. She lives in Vancouver and has publicly performed parts of Reveries of a Solitary Biker with clarinetist François Houle. R is for Ross 9781772011807 WITH THE PUBLICATION OF THE NATURAL Eclectic: A Design Aesthetic Inspired P is for Police by Nature (Figure 1 $42.95), Heather Ross added author to the list of her KAY STEWART’S DEBUT NOVEL—FEATURING career accomplishments: artist, pho- RCMP Constable Danutia Dranchuk— tographer and stylist. Ross also owns A Deadly Little List (2006), was under- a décor boutique at 2170 Fir Street in taken as a writing experiment with her Vancouver, known for its mixture of the husband Chris Bullock. “Our marriage new and the found with the natural. survived that experiment,” she says. Her aesthetic has been called “coastal After that foray, Stewart was the sole chic” and her colour palette described author of her second police procedural, as “where the sea meets the shore.” Sitting Lady Sutra (2011) and back The Natural Eclectic features over again with her husband for Unholy 300 of her photographs that illustrate Rites (2013). Now the Victoria-based Ross’s approach to decorating, which is duo have produced Tour de Mort: A inspired by her West Coast upbringing Danutia Dranchuk Mystery (Friesen and two years spent living and antiqu- Press $20.99). Danutia Dranchuk is ing in Paris. 978-1927958469
Heather Ross is a regular contribu- tor to House & Home and Western Living magazines. She has been nominated for national magazine awards and her art has been placed in feature films.
9 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 WHO’SWHO BRITISHCOLUMBIA
S is for Stanley Y is for Yahgulanaas
WHEN SHE FIRST HEARD THE NEWS OF HER ARTIST AND AUTHOR MICHAEL NICOLL YAHGULA- husband Simon’s head injury, Kara naas has created another graphic novel Stanley packed a copy of Joan Didion’s that retells an ancient Haida tale in The Year of Magicial Thinking into her his unique mix of Northwest coast art duffel bag and took the Langdale ferry and the Japanese comic style known to Vancouver General Hospital. She was as Manga. War of the Blink (Locarno already reading it due to her mother’s $24.95) is about a fisherman caught diagnosis of breast and lymphatic in a high-stakes cancer. Now Kara Stanley’s Fallen: A game of kidnap and Trauma, A Marriage and the Trans- bluff while trying formative Power of Music (Greystone to save his home $19.95) has been compared to Didion’s village from raid- PHOTO celebrated memoir (about the year fol- ers. In a showdown lowing her husband’s sudden death and in which one of the PARADIS her daughter’s near-death experience). sides must blink Fallen incorporates the extent to which Michael Nicoll first, the villagers music can be a transformative force STANTON Yahgulanaas find a way to save when coping with a catastrophic brain Simon Paradis (left) learned how to live in a wheelchair and re-learned face and their home. and spinal cord injury. We follow Simon how to play the guitar after his brain and spinal cord injury. Ultimately, it’s a story about find- Paradis’ battle to return to work as a ing the courage to choose peace over professional musician. 978-1-77164-102-9 war. It follows up his award-winning RED: A Haida Manga. Yahgulanaas, also a sculptor and graphic artist, has T is for Turner work in the collections of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum JASON TURNER OF VANCOUVER IS A COMIC of Art, and Vancouver Art Gallery. He book artist whose first graphic novel, speaks frequently about social justice Fir Valley (Cloudscape Comics $25), and community building. is seemingly set in North Vancouver. Nicola Levell, assistant professor The town of Fir Valley, on the side of of museum and visual anthropology at a mountain, is shaken when a man is UBC has produced The Seriousness of killed and his son disappears. While Play: The Art of Michael Nicoll Yah- the community reacts to these events, gulanaas (Black Dog, $29.95) which the mystery is investigated and dark focuses on Yahgulanaas’ Haida Manga. War of the Blink: 9780995994621 secrets from the town’s past come to Seriousness: 978-1910433119 light. And there is something lurking in the woods... Turner has self-published comics Z is for Zwicky since the late 1980s, and has been put- ting his comics on the internet since the TO KICK-START THE UNIVERSITY OF REGINA’S late 1990s. He co-wrote the True Loves new venture called Oskana Poetry & trilogy with his wife Manien Bothma. Poetics, series editor Jan Zwicky has More recent work includes Farm School, released her own title, The Long Walk The Adulation and Bird Comics. His (U of Regina Press $19.95), further comics column in comic form, Jason exploring how environmental aware- and the Comics, ran in Broken Pencil ness in the wake of colonial barbarism for five years. 978-1-927742-10-5 and ecocide can give rise to spiritual Lisa Charleyboy hosts New Fire (CBC radio), on Indigenous youth today. transformation. It’s a follow-up to her collection, Songs for Relinquishing the U is for Up Earth, recently cited by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the four ILLUSTRATED BY DANIELLE DANIEL, YOU HOLD W is for Wiebe most noteworthy poetry titles in the Me Up (Orca $19.95) by Monique Gray past twenty-five years. 978-0-88977-449-0 Smith aims to foster empathy and re- SARAH MARIE WIEBE’S EVERYDAY EXPOsure: spect among young people, their care Indigenous Mobilization and En- providers and educators. It encourages vironmental Justice in Canada’s children to show love and support for Chemical Valley (UBC Press $32.95) each other and to consider each other’s examines the devastating health issues well-being in their everyday actions. suffered by the Aamjiwnaang First Na- Previously, Monique Gray Smith’s tion near Sarnia, Ontario, home to one novel, Tilly: A Story of Hope and Re- of Canada’s densest concentrations of silience, won the 2014 Burt Award for chemical manufacturing plants. The First Nations, Métis and Inuit Litera- Aamjiwnaang have long expressed con- ture. She lives in Victoria. 9781459814479 cern over declining birth rates and high rates of miscarriages, asthma, cancer and cardiovascular illness. PHOTO
Daniel Griffin is for Voices 978-0-7748-3264-9 V PIRIE
VANCOUVER’S LISA CHARLEYBOY HAS CO-EDITED X is for Dead PEARL #NotYourPrincess: Voices of Na- tive American Women (Annick Press TWO ROADS HOME BY DANIEL GRIFFIN $14.95) with Mary Beth Leatherdale. (Freehand Books $21.95) tackles the This young adult anthology demon- tough decisions activists make when strates how Indigenous women break fighting against social injustice. Set in down stereotypes through essays, sto- 1993 on Vancouver Island, the novel ries, music, poetry, and art. Presented follows a group of environmental activ- with a bold visual design, stories of ists as they find peaceful protest too abuse and intergenerational trauma ineffectual and move on to sabotage are countered by outraged passionate that ends in death. voices demanding change. Charleyboy Daniel Griffin was born in Kingston, Jan Zwicky was named by the Huffington Post as Ontario. He has been a finalist for has published one of three Aboriginal Millennials to the Danuta Gleed and ReLit Awards, nine collections watch, and her writing has been pub- and holds an MFA from UBC. He cur- of poetry. lished in The Guardian. 9781554519576 Sarah Marie Wiebe rently lives in Victoria. 978-988298-21-4
10 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 the Kamloops society for the wri en arts IMPRESSIVE FALL BOOKS presents
Euclid’s Orchard & Other Essays Theresa Kishkan 978-1-896949-63-5 | 168 pages | $22.95
.LVKNDQ·VQHZFROOHFWLRQRIOXPLQRXVHVVD\VXQUDYHOVDQ W R I T E R S intricately patterned algorithm, a madrigal of horticulture DQGORYH2SHQLQJ·ZLWK´+HUDNOHLWRVRQWKH Theresa Kishkan iVWKHDXWKRURI WKLUWHHQERRNVRI SRHWU\ÀFWLRQDQGFUHDWLYHQRQÀFWLRQLQFOXGLQJ Mnemonic: A book of Trees and Patrin$ÀQDOLVWIRUWKH+XEHUW(YDQV1RQ)LFWLRQ3UL]HDQGWKH(WKHO November :LOVRQ)LFWLRQ3UL]HVKHZRQWKH(GQD6WDHEOHU3HUVRQDO(VVD\3UL]H 3 to 5 MT MOTHER TONGUE Creating a Legacy 2017 P PUBLISHING LIMITED of Art and Literature The Life and Art of Arthur Pitts The 10th and last book in the remarkable Unheralded Artists of tickets & more information: by Kerry Mason, Foreword by Daniel Francis 978-1-896949-62-8 | 144 pages | $35.95 | 110 colour images BC series! NOV www.kamloopswritersfestival.com Arthur Pitts (1889-1972) born in the UK, pursued a career RI DUWDQGDGYHQWXUHÀUVWLQ6RXWK$IULFDWKHQ&DQDGD ZKHUHKHWUDYHOOHGRYHUPLOHVLQ%ULWLVK&ROXPELDDQG Alaska, producing a large body of watercolours focusing on &RDVW6DOLVK1XX&KDK1XOWK.ZDNZDND·ZDNZ7OLQJLW +DLGDDQG.WXQD[D)LUVW1DWLRQV+LVVWRU\LQFOXGHVOLIH DVDQDUWLVWLQ9DQFRXYHULQWKHV V+HOLYHGLQ 6DDQLFKWRQIRURYHU\HDUV+LVZRUNLVDWWKH5R\DO%& 0XVHXPDQGWKH*OHQERZ0XVHXP “The remarkable life and work of Arthur Pitts will be welcomed by the WSÁNE´C (Saanich) people, and by many others in the Pacific Northwest, including cultural historians and ethnographers.” –RICHARD MACKIE, EDITOR, THE ORMSBY REVIEW. Kerry Mason is an art historian, author, curator and art “Beautifully designed and FRQVXOWDQWZKROHFWXUHVDWWKH8QLYHUVLW\RI 9LFWRULD well-researched series.” mothertonguepublishing.com Heritage Group Distribution 1- 800-665-3302 HIGHLIGHTS GAVRIEL SAVIT PNINA GRANIRER Photo: Peppa Martin STEPHEN TOBOLOWSKY RUBY NAMDAR RACHEL KADISH %R[2ƯFH jewishbookfestival.ca 11 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 CLAIMING the LAND Claiming the Land British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado Daniel Marshall Marshall focuses on the 1858 Fraser River gold rush and its little-understood battle between the California mining culture and that of the First Nations, with the British struggling to keep the peace — resulting in the formal inauguration of colonialism, native reserves and British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado the expansion of Canada to B.C. With 50 photos & maps. Daniel Marshall 978-1-55380-502-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-503-8 (EBOOK) 300 pp $24.95 Song of Batoche LOUIS Louis Riel Maia Caron RIEL Let Justice Be Done LET JUSTICE This novel from a Métis author tells the story of BE DONE David Doyle the Riel resistance on the Saskatchewan (1885) In this imaginative re-enactment, Riel is finally given largely through the eyes of the Métis women the opportunity to respond to his conviction for involved, including Madeleine Dumont and treason, offering his side of the story at Batoche and Marguerite Riel. Red River so as to clear his name. With 16 b&w photos. 978-1-55380-499-4 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-496-3 (PRINT) DAVID DOYLE 978-1-55380-500-7 (EBOOK) 376 pp $18.95 978-1-55380-497-0 (EBOOK) 206 pp $24.95 Emily Patterson Finding John Rae The Heroic Life of a Milltown Nurse Alice Jane Hamilton Lisa Anne Smith Hamilton follows Rae as he discovers the missing A biography of the first nurse in Western Canada, link to the Northwest Passage and evidence of whose medical skills earned her great recognition cannibalism within the Franklin Expedition — sending shockwaves throughout Victorian England. Emily Patterson around the 19th-century sawmilling communities of FINDINGNGG Hastings Mill and Moodyville. With 30 b&w photos. 978-1-55380-481-9 (PRINT) THE HEROIC LIFE OF A JoJ hnh RRae MILLTOWN NURSE 978-1-55380-482-6 (EBOOK) LISA ANNE SMITH 978-1-55380-505-2 (PRINT) ALICE JANE HAMILTON 978-1-55380-506-9 (EBOOK) 240 pp $21.95 228 pp $21.95 Narrow Bridge Collecting Silence Barbara Pelman CollectingCollecting Ulrike Narwani These poems, Barbara Pelman’s third collection, In this moving debut volume of poetry, Narwani explore the bridges — real and metaphoric — that travels from Canada to the Baltics and then to Asia we build to overcome our separateness from one to show how, in silence, our deepest experiences talk another. to us in a “language we all know without speaking.” 978-1-55380-508-3 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-487-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-509-0 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-488-8 (EBOOK) Barbara Pelman 92 pp $15.95 ULRIKE NARWANI 94 pp $15.95 FOR YOUNG READERS Stealth of the Ninja Philip Roy En route to Japan in his homemade submarine, Al finds his courage and loyalty dramatically tested in the 2011 tsunami that has Fukushima and thousands of people in its path. 978-1-55380-490-1 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-491-8 (EBOOK) Railroad of Courage The Kingdom of 210 pp $11.95 Dan Rubenstein & Nancy Dyson No Worries The Nor’Wester Twelve-year-old Rebecca makes a daring Philip Roy David Starr escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad to Canada, led by the famous Three boys create a “kingdom” on an island, A Scottish boy flees to Canada, where he is taken on by the Harriet Tubman, aided along the way by attracting multitudes to their utopia — until North West Company and sent to join Simon Fraser on compassionate abolitionists. the police arrive to evict them, and they face his epic 1808 journey to the sea — facing death, danger and a difficult decision. treason along the way. 978-1-55380-514-4 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-515-1 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-511-3 (PRINT) 978-1-55380-493-2 (PRINT) 164 pp $11.95 978-1-55380-512-0 (EBOOK) 978-1-55380-494-9 (EBOOK) 152 pp $11.95 214 pp $11.95 Available from your favourite bookstore or order from PGC/Raincoast Ronsdale Press Visit our website: www.ronsdalepress.com 12 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review FICTION him like mosquitoes and tor- ture him until he submits and becomes a powerful shaman. The old lady believes Jared is like the second brother. But Jared insists he has not believed in such magic since the time he stopped believing in Santa Claus. She insists he will and that she can be his guide. Beginning in a chapter titled “Welcome to the Jungle,” he sees in hallucinatory fash- ion numerous embodiments of Indigenous narratives: a company of naked savages wearing necklaces of finger bones, humans and otters spliced together in one body, more talking ravens who insist his father is a Trickster. A THE INCREDIBLE DEFTNESS OF grizzly bear attends a house party, but only Jared and his mother see it. His beloved Nana Sophia also transforms. He sees something with a long, terrible beak under her skin and reptilian eyes—“like a pterodactyl.” ✫ COMING- OF- AGE NARRATIVES BEINGBEING embody a search for identity and Eden Robinson ends her story with a shuffling of re- From brutal realism to magic realism, lationships—Who is the real PHOTO father? Who is the real Nana? Eden Robinson poses a connection Monsters are also very ordi- STUDIO between drugs and mythology. nary contemporary folks, and WORDS an important spiritual figure is RED also a common enough pinch penny and Bible-thumper. At Son of a Trickster on a fishing boat while waiting different, as the dust jacket was “dark as cedar bark, with the close Jared is being taken by Eden Robinson for word of him. Travelling the suggests, is that his coming of yellowed fangs and knobby, (Penguin Random House $32.00) to an AA meeting. coastline becomes an occasion age crashes up against Indig- twisted knuckles.” In spite I have followed the plotting for introducing the reader to enous beliefs and their unique of her solicitous concern, he of this narrative in terms of a traditional culture with its view of the natural world. shuts the door, backs away human psychology and Indige- BY DAVID STOUCK different language dialects, The novel poses a connec- and watches “the thing un- nous mythology at the expense N 1997 A BOOK OF REMARK- its myths that explain the tion between the use of drugs derneath the Grandma-skin of the humour that pervades able short stories by a landscape and its creatures, and myths. Key to that link is start to snarl.” He blames it almost every page. Much of young Haisla/Heiltsuk and its unique food practices— the brief second chapter that on magic mushrooms. that humour is the subversive woman came across making “grease” to flavour food posits time not as a progres- Before he sees her again I kind where one’s expectations my desk. It had been by rotting oolichans, whipping sion of sequential events, but the narrator tells us that are turned upside down—a selected as Editor’s Choice soapberries with water to states that all time is simulta- individual human bodies are mother who is more violent and Notable Book of the Year create frothy “ice cream.” So neous. Accordingly, the totem- recycled carbon that was once and foul-mouthed than any of by The New York Times. That the reader is given a guide to ic figures of Indigenous carv- grass, crickets, dinosaurs, the male characters, a “grand- book was Traplines (1996) coastal B.C. that was nomi- ings and storytelling are not and creatures that swam in mother” who reveals herself a and its author was Eden nated for two national literary just historical; they transform ancient oceans, and they now snarling wolf inside. But much Robinson from the village of awards. into contemporary humans sing to you in your dreams. of it is language—its frequent Kitimaat. Of the four stories Her second novel, Blood and vice versa. Jared, not yet “You think they are extinct, vulgarity, its pop-culture ref- in that collection, “Queen of Sports (2006), describes the attuned to this knowledge, is but they wait, coiled and un- erences. Chapter titles with the North” struck me as one plight of people in Vancouver’s harassed on a bus to Terrace thinking, in your blood and their wide-ranging references of the best Canadian short Downtown Eastside. by a man who claims to be his bones.” and borrowings embody much stories ever written. Its theme In her new novel, Son of biological father and says his Jared again sees the old of that blunt fun: “Cookie was dark—violence to children a Trickster, the reader is no name is Wee’git (Trickster). lady, first in a dream where Dude,” “Powder House Rules,” that was rooted in the resi- longer a tourist or outsider, Jared moves to the back of he is on a fishing boat with “Oxydipal Complex,” “Ragged- dential school system —but but is brought to identify the bus (“Christmas always her and they are surrounded Ass Road,” “Goodbye to All the author’s touch was light, closely with the experiences of brought out the crazies”) and in the water by talking killer That,” “Sucks to be You.” or “deft” as critics have fre- a sixteen-year-old Indigenous is glad to see the man get off whales (the orcas remind The span of this novel from quently phrased it. boy named Jared. Like many at the next stop. But when he Jared this is their hunting brutal realism to magic real- For the next twenty years of his non-Indigenous peers looks out the bus window to ground), and then fully awake ism embodies for me much of Robinson has published nov- he has some major alcohol see if the man is really gone, after school when he stops for what it meant to make contact els that have explored related and drug issues—he is highly he sees a raven flap upwards a pizza and sees her Cadillac with the B.C. members of my themes, insisting, in deft fash- valued by his friends for the in his place. in the parking lot. Again, the extended family. But more im- ion, that horror can be allied marijuana cookies he bakes. Such transformations be- monster underneath her skin portantly what this novel does to humour. But he especially engages come a pattern and source of snarls, but this time she intro- for the non-Indigenous reader There is an interesting tra- the reader because he is a knowledge in the book, what duces herself as Mrs. Georgina is to make totem poles, masks, jectory in her novels as regards caregiver for his family—his critic and novelist Robert Smith, though her old name, and legends come alive. This her reader. I would suggest frequently violent mother, Wiersema calls its magic she adds, is Jwasins. And remarkable novel accordingly that the audience for her first his deadbeat father, and for realism. One afternoon when she “doesn’t normally share takes Indigenous writing to a novel, Monkey Beach (2000), his close ties to his grand- Jared is hitchhiking home dreams with humans.” new level. 9780345810786 with its reference to Sasquatch mother—the first chapter is after a weekend of partying, She tells him a quest story stories, is the tourist, some- titled “Nanas I Have Loved.” “an old Native woman” in a about a shaman’s two sons: one like myself from Ontario He is also caregiver to elderly burgundy Cadillac stops to the oldest wanted to succeed David Stouck is an editor and when first visiting Indigenous neighbours and their grand- give him a ride. She was “per- his father, but in his fast- biographer. His last book, relatives on northern Vancou- daughter, Sarah, who eventu- fectly respectable in a flow- ing and self-flagellation with Arthur Erickson: An Archi- ver Island. The first-person ally shares his bed. Jared’s is ered dress, work jacket and spikes of devil’s club, he dies. tect’s Life (D&M, 2013), won narrator in Monkey Beach is a coming of age story familiar square orthotic shoes,” but The other brother rejects his various awards including the searching for her brother lost to all cultures—but what is he saw something in her that father’s life, but spirits flock to Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize. 13 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 Exemplary B.C. books* are available on BC Ferries The Sacred Herb / The Devil’s Weed Mapping My Way Home: (New Star, $19) A Gitxsan History by Andrew Struthers (Creekstone Press, $29.95) by Neil J. Sterritt Informative and even enlightening, but above all, a hilarious look at a humble Mapping My Way Home traces the journeys plant that has entertained, inspired, and of Europeans who came to take advantage occasionally terrified so many for so long. of the opportunities at the junction of the Andrew Struthers directs his “brilliant Skeena and Bulkley rivers. Gitxsan leader madness” towards the ambivalent nature Neil Sterritt shares the stories of his people, of marijuana, once the target of “reefer stories both ancient and recent, to illustrate madness” hysteria and now available for their resilience when faced with the chal- quasi–legal purchase. lenges the newcomers brought. Winner of the 2017 Haig-Brown regional book prize. The Promise of Paradise: Utopian Communities in Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through British Columbia the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care (Harbour Publishing, $24.95) (Heritage House, $22.95) by Andrew Scott by Gary Geddes Andrew Scott delves into the dramatic stories of utopian and intentional settle- Gary Geddes turns his investigative lens ment attempts over the past 150 years of across Canada to interview Indigenous B.C. history. These fascinating, but often elders willing to share their experiences doomed, communities included Doukhobor of segregated health care, including their farmers, Finnish coal miners, Quakers and treatment in the “Indian hospitals” that hippies. While most discovered hardship, existed from coast to coast for over half disillusionment and failure, new groups a century. A shocking exposé of the dark sprang up—and continue to spring up—to history and legacy of segregated Indigenous take their place. health care in Canada. *selected by Alan Twigg A HAUNTING TALE OF LOVE OUTSIDE TIME “Grief has the power to remake us, and for Simran and her mother, it proves truly transformative, blurring the lines between self and other, home and history—even life and death.” —ALISSA YORK, author of Fauna and The Naturalist “A beautiful, haunting story of one family, spanning generations and continents, as they face life’s inevitable losses, struggle with grief, and reach for redemption.” —SHILPI SOMAYA GOWDA, New York Times bestselling author of Secret Daughter and The Golden Son Author photograph © Karolina Turek 14 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review HUMOUR The Sacred Herb / will become the box, a closed The Devil’s Weed system like capitalism, which by Andrew Struthers UNDER THE VOLCANO seemed like such a good idea (New Star $19) when it made us all rich, but now it has made us cogs in HAS A COUSIN… a monstrous water-boarding ARIJUANA CAN machine that figures out with be dangerous computers how much stress and joyous. will kill you then backs of the Anyone tell- It’s high time Andrew Struthers gets his due M screws till you can pay your ing you mari- bills. juana is one thing, and not the as one of Canada’s most original stylists “New Trudeau promised other, is a liar. to legalize cannabis for his And, yes, it can also be that doesn’t resemble any new Liberal government is that ter. But there’s hope. The new election special, and claims medicinal for some. Much like other book as a follow-up to after a decade of Conservatism Alien is by Vancouver genius he has a plan for pot rather alcohol, except the death rate his equally mind-bending we’re finally heading back to Neill Blomkamp and the new than just a scheme to get his and social costs have been memoir, Around the World the future. Yet the more things Trudeau is my pot dealer. old bedroom back. Meanwhile, far less. on Minimum Wage (New Star change, the more they stay in- “They say the dealer is not a new report commissioned You don’t have to read a 2014). People in Ontario would sane. When I began to smoke your friend, even when he’s a by the Cannabis Growers government study to figure be thoroughly mystified if this pot in 1978 Alien was on the long-haired shirtless feminist, of Canada claims pot is a this stuff out. And don’t trust stuff ever reached them. After big screen and Trudeau was and that might finally be true $5-billion-dollar industry, and pot proponents or your neigh- a carnival ride of comedy, Prime Minister. Forty years this time because pot’s great- if legalized would provide $1.5 bour Brad to give you the here’s where he ends up: later, Alien is on the big screen est power was helping us think billion in tax revenue. But all lowdown. “The official story of the and Trudeau is Prime Minis- outside the box. But now it of this is beside the point. The truth, my friend, is Most Canadians can’t wait brilliantly provided in Andrew for pot to be legalized so that Struthers’ hilarious, dualistic, they’ll never have to read an- ying/yangish, James Joycean, other goddamned editorial on expert compilation of two the subject. manuscripts sleeping in the “One cloud on the horizon same bed, The Sacred Herb is that along with legalization / The Devil’s Weed. will come Walmart, and the One half of this upside- down ‘double paperback’ af- fords a scintillating distilla- Andrew Struthers says he tion of marijuana-induced is in no way biased towards misadventures gathered from legalizing the sacred herb Struthers’ acquaintances and even though he considers his Facebook group of infor- it to be completely harm- mants called The Sacred Herb. less and lots of fun “unless This is a rollicking, strung- you count the killer strain together, strung-out narrative he smoked last week with that captures the creative, a guy called Dennis who mostly benign insanity and he met at a bus stop, three weird energy of pot trips. puffs of which nearly put Or you can turn the book him in a wheelchair.” upside down and start reading the other half first. Struthers has gone beyond anecdotal dollars that keep every small evidence for The Devil’s Weed, town in the B.C. interior afloat cobbling together a somewhat right now will suddenly dry more sociological survey of the up. Twenty-five thousand humble weed that purportedly people are presently employed makes music sound better. there just to trim colas. If the But listen up, kids. Ganga can jobs end up at Walmart all make some people go off the those mom-and-pop grow-ops deep end. will be forced to adapt the way Imagine Hunter S. Thomp- a corner store adapts when son re-invented as an auda- Save-On-Foods opens down cious, post-hippie iconoclast the street: by vanishing with- in Clayoquot Sound, riffing out a trace. in his hot tub in a prolonged “I don’t doubt Trudeau’s reverie, having consumed heart is in the right place, too much “chocolate” cake but his head looks a lot more (“having eaten enough THC like his mom’s than his dad’s, to kill Tusko the Elephant”), which means sooner or later recounting all the goofy and he’ll be partying with the ILLUSTRATION strange pot stories you can’t Rolling Stones. So it’s hard to imagine… and you’re only just have faith in his vague plan STRUTHERS beginning to get the feel of this to unleash legalized pot on Al- outrageously funny, literary berta, a province that smokes triumph. ANDREW less than half the herb B.C. Best of all, Struthers affects burns… EXCERPT from The Sacred Herb/The Devil’s Weed: After a guy named Win- the brash charm of a storytell- “Of course, I’m not suggest- ston smokes a bowl of Thai stick with Peter and the narrator in 1980… er who doesn’t care whether ing Albertans are stupid. I’m you like him or not. He first going to prove it with science. smoked a joint of grey schwag “The stuff’s so strong he launches first time like the Challenger and back A 2010 survey from Maclean’s with a kid called Max on the in Kelowna relates his adventure to his Lutheran parents, who explode and found that my hometown of last day of high school in Victoria has the highest aver- Prince George in 1978. “Before call the pastor then all three pray and wail for hours trying to cast the Devil age IQ in the country, while I knew it, nothing happened. out of Winston till his mind folds like a pair of twos and the last time Pete my ex-wife’s hometown of Ed- That was par for the course in monton ranks eighth…” those days. Failure-to-launch sees him is in the bunny bin at UBC, three hundred pounds of unshaved pain And so it grows. syndrome was so common This is a raucously British hectored by voices in his head, smoking cigarettes till dawn and watching that tokers would warn first- Columbian masterpiece that timers that they were about to Wheel of Fortune with both lobes flattened by old-school antipsychotic drugs, Malcolm Lowry would have have no fun.” envied if he hadn’t drunk him- And so it grows. Struthers after which I take pot’s storied harmlessness with a pinch of lithium salt…” self to smithereens. has produced another book 9781554201150 15 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 Celebrating our first five years. LURE SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD RECIPES FROM THE WEST COAST Ned Bell with Valerie Howes “Sustainable seafood recipes that are accessible, well considered and, most importantly, delicious.” Michael Cimarusti, Michelin-starred chef of Providence $38.95 THE OKANAGAN TABLE THE ART OF EVERYDAY HOME COOKING Rod Butters “Rod Butters is a game changer, a pioneer, and an innovator. With this book, he is helping us all cook a better future.” Anita Stewart, Canadian cookbook author and food activist $37.95 PORTLAND COOKS RECIPES FROM THE CITY’S BEST RESTAURANTS AND BARS Danielle Centoni “I love this book! The ultimate immersion into our one-of-a-kind, funky, fun, warm, and delicious city.” Martha Holmberg, cookbook author and food editor $37.95 ARAXI ROOTS TO SHOOTS, FARM FRESH RECIPES James Walt “You could call it a celebration of the fresh foods of British Columbia, or a landmark in Canadian cookbook publishing, or just the best-looking book of the year.” Julian Armstrong, Montreal Gazette $37.95 MORRICE laura brandon · victoria dickenson · patricia grattan · laurier lacroix · gerald mcmaster THE A.K. PRAKASH COLLECTION IN naomi fontaine · lee maracle · foreword by senator murray sinclair TRUST TO THE NATION Katerina Atanassova et al The National Gallery presents a lavishly illustrated, personal and artistic exploration of Canada’s foremost modernist painter, the good lands James Wilson Morrice, with paintings from the A.K. Prakash Collection. $50.00 THE GOOD LANDS CANADA THROUGH THE EYES OF ARTISTS Victoria Dickenson et al Through the works of Canada’s artists— both Indigenous and non-Indigenous, canada through the eyes of artists historical and contemporary—we are invited to see our country with new eyes. $60.00 Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books www.figure1publishing.com and internationally by Publishers Group West and Prestel Publishing 16 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review FICTION In Case I Go by Angie Abdou gether by Elijah’s charitable (Arsenal Pulp Press $17.95) wife. They were star-crossed MOUNTAINS lovers, doomed from the start. Their spirits penetrate Eli’s VIVID EVOCATION OF consciousness, fill his dreams place is one of and carry him back to an ear- the pleasures of OF SORROW lier era, the memories flooding Angie Abdou’s through him in raging waves. work. Her fifth With Ktunaxa characters and spirituality, ’s “Imagining all those Mary’s, Anovel, In Case I Go, is set in Angie Abdou at once different and at once the Crow’s Nest Pass, a moun- novel is dedicated to the late . the same makes me dizzy,” tainous region with a history Richard Wagamese he says. of climactic and industrial Describing Eli’s simultane- catastrophes. physical disabilities, low the town. Con- In the first two decades ous experience of then and One of her characters de- as he becomes liter- struction work on of the twentieth century, the now, “the present-past-pres- scribes the mountains on ally haunted by the new subdivisions original Mary was abandoned ent whiplash of lives buzzing every side of the fictional town, spirits of his restless churns up skeletal as a young girl by her parents. by in the wrong direction,” Coalton, as feeling like a cage. ancestors. remains from the Having no family or commu- is a technical challenge that “When the clouds settle down Being haunted is desecrated burial nity protectors, her job as a Abdou handles skilfully. below the mountain peaks, not entirely a nega- sites of the First Na- cleaner in the local hotel made At the same time, the in- it’s as if someone has closed tive experience. As JOAN tions. her easy prey for unscru- terwoven Aboriginal and im- the lid.” a friend tells Eli ✫ pulous customers. She and migrant lives inject another Coalton came into being “the people without GIVNER ELI FINDS GUIDES TO Elijah, a foreman at the mine, challenge into Abdou’s cre- as a mining town when im- ghosts are the ones the real truth in his were unwittingly brought to- ative process—that of cultural migrants from around the haunted. And maybe their neighbour, Sam Browning, a appropriation. This is territory globe flooded into the region, kind of haunting is worse biologist and spokesperson that has proved a minefield for displacing and dispossessing than ours.” for the Ktunaxa First Na- writers, and adds a new di- the Indigenous population. Eli learns that the realm of tion, and Mary, his mute mension to the traditional In the present day it at- the dead is not separate from niece, whose non-verbal anxiety of authorship. tracts tourists and those in real life. communications only In a prefatory note flight from the suburbs seek- In his effort to come to Eli can interpret. The and again in her ac- ing a simpler life, only to bring terms with his ancestral lega- lives of his forebears knowledgements (the condos, monster homes on cy, Eli also learns a lot about and theirs are inex- repetition testifies to ski slopes, gourmet restau- “official stories versus real tricably linked, and her anxiety) Abdou es- rants and all the amenities of truths.” The official stories it is through Mary that tablishes her awareness suburbia they hoped to leave are presented in a television Eli reconnects with his of the problem, makes behind. documentary and in the local great-great grandfather. clear her sensitivity to Among the newcomers are museum, replete with old pho- The relationship of the subject, and explains Lucy and Nicholas Mountain, tographs and the simulated the first Elijah and Mary’s her respectful handling an academic and an environ- voices of the dispossessed foremother is the central of it. She acknowledges at mental scientist respectively, First Nations and the immi- story. the outset that the Ktunaxa hoping to save their troubled grants. From his window he people do not want their spiri- marriage and help their ailing, sees the cemeteries of conflict- tuality represented in fiction asthmatic son, Elijah (known ing religious denominations. or used for profit. Accordingly, as Eli). There is also sinister evidence she does not reproduce the Because Nicholas has deep of another graveyard be- tribal wisdom transmitted family roots in Coalton, they to Mary by her mother “in are able to repossess his fam- case I go.” Abdou sought ily home—a miner’s shack permission for the use built by his great-grandfa- of the Ktunaxa name ther; Nicholas finds work in and language and the open surface mines that land; she express- have replaced the old ones. es gratitude to the Through the mountains, Ab- Ktunaxa people dou peels back the layered who read the man- past with all its secrets and uscript and to the abuses. Ten-year-old Eli, the Ktunaxa National namesake of his great-great- Cultural liaison offi- grandfather, Elijah, is the cer and to the Elders prism through which the past Advisory Council. is revealed. She found cru- Eli is an “old soul,” whose cial inspiration in premature birth and early the advice that the struggle to breathe have en- late Ojibway writer, dowed him with special gifts. Richard Wagamese, Described by a doctor as gave in a lecture to a having “so much empa- white audience: thy, it’s like telepathy,” “You can’t undo the he has an uncanny past. You don’t have ability to read unspo- to feel guilty about the ken communica- past. You don’t even have tions. In Coalton, to apologize for the past. he is disturbed All you have to do is say by forces more YES. Yes, this happened.” amorphous Those words brought than his her work into focus. She frames her novel, which is dedicated to Richard Wagamese, as her “yes.” 9781551527031 Biographer and novelist Joan Givner writes from Victoria. Angie Abdou lives in Fernie. 17 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review FICTION Slouching Towards Innocence before a critical media scrum. by Ron Norman My only complaint is that (Now or Never Publishing $19.95) Malcolm’s character, at least at the outset, isn’t as colour- ful as the supporting cast. BY JEREMY TWIGG He comes across as a some- HESE DAYS, OUR what meek fellow who tip- collective atten- toes around his ever-critical tion is dominat- girlfriend. He is initially sub- ed, like it or not, servient; life happens to him. by the Trumpian Norman writes, “Malcolm tried Tfiascos of American politics. to think of something he felt so Ron Norman’s Slouching strongly about that he would Towards Innocence is a re- take a stand—no matter what. freshing detour into our corner Nothing came to mind.” of Canadian politics. Eventually Malcolm’s star B.C. is often referred to as begins to rise in the B.C. leg- the ‘wild west’ of Canadian islature, thanks to bonafide politics and Norman stays issues management work true to that reputation. Af- that saves numerous political ter young, impressionable reputations. His shrewdness reporter Malcolm Bidwell is grows along with his profes- hired by the province’s newly- sional stature. elected United Party to provide Beyond the central topic of communications services, he save-your-own-skin politics, is introduced to Premier Ste- SPINARAMASSPINARAMAS Norman sheds light on the ven Davis in a most unusual newspaper industry’s struggle manner: when a legislative AT THE LEDGE to survive, big city elitism and staffer named Catherine—who our collective obsession with is secretly sleeping with the house prices. Premier—calls Malcolm in a From that late-night, Vi- middle-of-the-night panic. agra-induced rescue, to a This is worse than Gordon minister caught with same-sex Campbell’s drunk driving prostitutes, to the premier’s incident in Hawaii. The situa- newspaper business, only lingered hopefully, unable to animal cruelty charges for tion? Our illustrious premier is complicates his life further. resist the allure of perhaps killing a lowly crow, Slouch- comatose on Catherine’s bed, ✫ making the six o’clock news, ing Towards Innocence treats sporting an enormous, Viagra- AS A DEBUT NOVELIST, RON NOR- A neophyte spin yet knowing that they were the reader to non-stop scan- induced erection, and can’t man, who lives in Brentwood only of interest if they had dal and action—all distinctly be woken with any amount of Bay, adheres to that old adage doctor stumbles badly mis-stepped… homegrown. shaking and prodding. ‘show, don’t tell.’ As the chief upon anxiety and “Opposition communica- ✫ Malcolm’s reluctant deci- of staff unfavourably describes tions staff weaved their way WHILE NOVELS ABOUT B.C. POLITICS sion to help lug Davis’ dead a principled, veteran cabinet social ills in Victoria through the reporters and are rare, Ron Norman’s wel- weight to his hotel—as surrep- minister whose political days government communicators come debut is not the first book titiously as possible given the are numbered for not toeing informative and entertaining. like spies working behind en- with a title alluding to Yeats’ offending appendage—puts the party line, a quintessen- An ex-reporter, Norman has emy lines, monitoring media 1919 poem ‘The Second Com- our protagonist forever in the tial Victoria scene takes place also spent more than a decade scrums and sending back ing.’ Joan Didion’s well-known premier’s debt. But it also outside: “A horse and car- as a senior bureaucrat in B.C. intelligence via smartphone for collection of essays, Slouching makes him a de-facto con- riage clip-clopped lazily down politics, so he writes from a critics to use during Question towards Bethlehem, has been spirator with the female staffer the tree-shaded street, going position of authority. Period.” followed by Robert Bork’s (who has a tendency towards in and out of the patches of “Commissionaires in white Slouching Towards Inno- bestseller Slouching Towards low-cut blouses). sunlight that peeked through shirts, clipped black ties and cence provides the reader Gomorrah and English profes- This cringe-worthy, 3 a.m. the leafy canopy, a string of military epaulettes patrolled with a crash course in media sor W.C. Harris’ Slouching scene feels like it’s straight out cars backed up in frustration the hallway trying unsuccess- relations. You’ll learn tricks Towards Gaytheism. Chinua of a movie. One gets the sense behind it.” fully to exert some control over politicians use to handle tough Achebe referenced Yeats’ poem that Norman wrote the book I work at a communications the chaos by issuing verbal questions from reporters. for his title Things Fall Apart in with the intention (or hope) agency that provides public cautions for reporters to stay For instance, the minister in 1958 and Robert Parker also of having it made into a film. affairs consulting (which is off the red carpet, so as not to charge of Veteran Affairs gets wrote a detective novel called Indeed, the opening chapter, just a fancy way of saying block access. Backbenchers chastised for the mistake of The Widening Gyre. in which the premier gives a government relations) so I sauntered through the maze repeating a negative in his At least Ron Norman is in cynical victory speech, is writ- have a general sense of how of reporters untouched and response—a classic no-no. good company. ten in screenplay format. government works. Yet I found largely unrecognized. Malcolm points out this rookie A fall-out with Malcolm’s Norman’s behind-the-scenes “Parliamentary secretaries, mistake, then teaches him Jeremy Twigg is a girlfriend, who disapproves glimpses into the inner work- ministers of state, and min- about ‘bridging’ away from graduate of UBC’s of his decision to leave the ings of the legislature both isters with minor portfolios tough questions just minutes Creative Writing Program. Stonedrift Press THIRST JASPER WILD KATHERINE PRAIRIE Whistler Independent Book Award Nominee BY GEORGE MERCER Deep in a Columbia River valley rocked by violence and tightly controlled by a U.S.-Canada military force, geologist Alex Graham joins the search for a suspected toxic spill as Book Three in the the victim count rises. But the lethal contamination is no accident. Dyed In The Green “THIRST not only goes where other detective/thrillers fall short; it provides a rivetingly absorbing story line fiction series about that’s hard to put down.” - D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review our national parks. Alex Graham returns in BLUE FIRE ISBN: 9780987975447 • $19.99 An impossible discovery. A race for the truth. Fiction / Suspense Thriller www.georgemercer.com Trade Paperback Ebook 978-0-9949377-5-9 • 978-0-9949377-0-4 Available at independent and Indigo bookstores across Canada. Winter Release Also available as an ebook from Amazon and Kobo. Available in bookstores and from online booksellers | www.stonedriftpress.com 18 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 LifeLife onon 1/10th1/10th thethe fossilfossil fuelsfuels turnsturns outout toto bebe awesomeawesome How a climate scientist and suburban father cut his climate impact down to one-tenth the US average, and became happier because of it. “Kalmus’ straightforward and necessary steps toward ameliorating the challenges of global warming will be welcomed by a wide readership. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal starred review, July 2017 “Peter writes with joy, infectious curiosity, and a hopeful enthusiasm that’s Being the Change hard to resist.”—Katherine Martinko, TreeHugger Live Well and Spark a “Addressing both climate change helplessness and the meaning of everyday life, Climate Revolution this book posits a personal, positive approach to environmental mindfulness. “ PETER KALMUS —Foreword Reviews, 5 stars, August 2017 US/Can $21.99 The Secret Life of Your Uprooting Racism - 4th edition A New Garden Ethic The Aquaponic Farmer Microbiome How White People Can Work Cultivating Defiant Compassion A Complete Guide to Building Why Nature and Biodiversity are for Racial Justice for an Uncertain Future and Operating a Commercial Essential to Health and Happiness PAUL KIVEL BENJAMIN VOGT Aquaponic System SUSAN LYNNE PRESCOTT & US/Can $24.99 US/Can $18.99 ADRIAN SOUTHERN & WHELM KING ALAN CHRISTOPHER LOGAN Over 50,000 copies sold of earlier editions! 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Join the aquaponic farming revolution! your microbiome for optimal health The Permaculture Earthworks Pure Charcuterie The New Carbon Architecture The Modern Homesteader’s Handbook The Craft and Poetry of Curing Building to Cool the Climate Guide to Keeping Geese How to Design and Build Swales, Meats at Home BRUCE KING KIRSTEN LIE-NIELSEN Dams, Ponds, and other MEREDITH LEIGH US/Can $29.99 US/Can $19.99 Water Harvesting Systems US/Can $29.99 Soak up carbon into beautiful, healthy Raise a gaggle of geese, the unsung DOUGLAS BARNES Urban Homesteader Hacks Series buildings that heal the climate heroes of the small farm US/Can $32.99 Salt, sausage, smoke – the artistry of Maximize your water harvesting potential curing your own meats with efficient, cost-effective earthworks 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. 19 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 TALONBOOKS FALL 2017 CELEBRATING 50 YEARS 1967—2017 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF BOOK PUBLISHING From Oral to Written Anima A Celebration of Native Canadian Literature WAJDI MOUAWAD translated by Linda Gaboriau 1980–2010 This award-winning novel by playwright Wajdi Mouawad TOMSON HIGHWAY is a thriller and a road novel – written in the North Tomson Highway’s From Oral to Written is a study of African storytelling tradition in which events unfold from Native literature published in Canada between 1980 and multiple animal points of view. 2010, a catalogue of amazing books that sparked the 978-1-77201-003-9 • $19.95 • 368 pages • Fiction embers of a dormant voice. 978-1-77201-116-6 • $29.95 • 432 pages • Non-fiction A Crossing of Hearts Zora MICHEL TREMBLAY A Cruel Tale PHILIPPE ARSENEAULT A Crossing of Hearts continues Michel Tremblay’s Desrosiers Diaspora series of novels, a family saga set in translated by Fred A. Reed & David Homel Montreal during World War I. Arseneault’s Rabelaisian fantasy is a gothic tale of 978-1-77201-011-4 • $16.95 • 216 pages • Fiction the macabre and the bizarre, of black magicians and alchemists, and of the life and times of Zora Marjanna Lavanko, the daughter of a brutish tripe-dresser who dies for love. 978-1-77201-175-3 • $19.95 • 392 pages • Fiction full-metal indigiqueer Injun JOSHUA WHITEHEAD JORDAN ABEL This poetry collection focuses on a hybridized Injun is a long poem about racism and the representation Indigiqueer Trickster character named Zoa who of Indigenous peoples. Composed of text found in western brings together the organic (the protozoan) and the novels published between 1840 and 1950, Injun uses erasure, technologic (the binaric) in order to re-beautify and pastiche, and a focused poetics to create a visually striking re-member queer Indigeneity. response to the western genre. 978-1-77201-187-6 • $17.95 • 136 pages • Poetry Winner of the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize ! September 2017 978-0-88922-977-8 • $16.95 • 112 pages • Poetry Intertidal Prison Industrial Complex Explodes The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968–2008 MERCEDES ENG DAPHNE MARLATT Combining text from government questionnaires edited by Susan Holbrook and reports, lyric poetry, and photography, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes examines the possibility Intertidal is the definitive oeuvre of Daphne Marlatt’s of a privatized prison system in Canada leading up to poetry exploring the city, feminism, and collaboration. then Prime Minister Harper’s Conservative government Includes poetry from sixteen published collections and passing the Anti-Terrorism Act, also known as Bill C-51. a number of previously unpublished or uncollected poems. 978-1-77201-181-4 • $17.95 • 124 pages • Poetry October 2017 978-1-77201-178-4 • $49.95 • 648 pages • Poetry October 2017 Reveries of a Solitary Biker Wayside Sang CATRIONA STRANG CECILY NICHOLSON After Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Les rêveries du Wayside Sang concerns entwined migrations of Black- promeneur solitaire, translated as Reveries of the other diaspora coming to terms with fossil-fuel psyches Solitary Walker (or A Solitary Walker). Biking around in times of trauma and movement. This is a poetic Vancouver, Strang returned to several issues of lifelong account of economy travel on North American roadways, interest, her own version of Rousseau’s obsessions. across the Peace and Ambassador bridges and through Reveries of a Solitary Biker collects her poetic responses. the Fleetway tunnel, above and beneath Great Lake rivers between nation states. 978-1-77201-180-7 • $16.95 • 88 pages • Poetry October 2017 978-1-77201-182-1 • $16.95 • 96 pages • Poetry October 2017 20 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review NON-FICTION The Year Canadians Lost Their Minds and Found Their Country: The Centennial of 1967 by Tom Hawthorn IT WAS 50 YEARS AGO TODAY, (Douglas & McIntyre $26.95) TAUGHT BY FORREST D. PASS THE LAND 1967. It was the year that The Beatles TO PLAY released Sgt. Pepper. EXPO 67 Whether some approve or not, anniversary celebrations can OW THE YEAR Canadians energize citizens, according to reviewer Forrest D. Pass. Lost Their Minds and covered in Peter H. Aykroyd’s caused Canadians to lose their For instance, the cultural Found Their memoir, The Anniversary Com- minds, the notion of “finding nationalism of the CBC and NCountry recounts with hu- pulsion (Dundurn, 1992). their country” is a little trickier the Massey Commission dated mour, affection, and a little Hawthorn does acknowledge to pin down. In his preface, from the 1950s, while many nostalgia the myriad ways in government projects and sub- Hawthorn asserts that: of the political hallmarks of which ordinary Canadians sidies, but never loses sight “The Canada of 1968 was modern Canadian identity— marked their country’s hun- of his focus on individual and a profoundly different place universal health insurance, dredth birthday in 1967. community initiatives. It was than the Canada of 1966. All or a colour-blind immigration The 1967 Centennial cel- this government largesse that that was to come … was made policy, a precursor to modern- ebrations overshadowed any made possible so much of the possible during the Centennial day official multiculturalism previous Canadian patriotic Centennial celebrations and year. It was the beginning of a —were products of the early commemoration in scale and Tom Hawthorn their lasting legacies. new sense of national identity, 1960s, not of 1967. enthusiasm. Inspired at least in part by celebrations. one in which race, culture and Hawthorn himself lived in The celebrations marked the success of grant programs In this light, the celebra- language would play lesser Montreal during the Centen- a unique convergence of a during the British Columbia tions were perhaps not quite roles than we had become ac- nial year, and considering the federal government keen to Centennial of 1958, the fed- as spontaneous as Hawthorn customed to in the country’s reception and aftermath of celebrate its hundredth birth- eral Centennial Commission seems to suggest. Canadians first century.” the Centennial in Quebec, it day and a citizenry ready, as subsidized the construction embraced the Centennial for Here I think he overreach- is odd that he suggests that Tom Hawthorn puts it, to of Centennial scholarships, a variety of reasons, includ- es. Certainly the 1960s in language politics would play a “lose their minds.” arenas, parks, squares, com- ing official promotion and the Canada were a decade of so- lesser role in national identity And lose their minds they munity centres, monuments, enticement of funding for com- cial, political, and cultural fo- after 1967 than it had before. did, but in a good way. and celebratory plaques, many munity projects. ment, but were the Centennial Before the Centennial year Ida Dekelver, for example, of which remain the most If the book clearly demon- celebrations a driver or merely closed, René Levesque would commemorated the centenary tangible connection to the strates that the Centennial a symptom of these changes? form the Mouvement Souver- and the contributions of her aineté-Association, which in Overlander ancestors by walk- 1968 would become the Parti ing from Clearwater, near Québécois. Kamloops, to Saskatchewan For more than a quarter- accompanied by two donkeys. century to come, language Eldra Robertson of Chase and culture would be central was one of hundreds of women to discussions of Canadian from coast-to-coast who pro- national identity. Indeed, the duced elaborate Centennial celebration for the next major quilts, many of which are the anniversary of Confederation, prized possessions of commu- Canada 125 in 1992, was nity halls and local museums little more than an effort to to this day. shore up Canadian federal- St. Paul, Alberta, con- ism in the wake of the failed structed its famous UFO Meech Lake and Charlotte- Landing Pad as a Centennial town accords. project, one of many unusual Major commemorations of- roadside attractions to sport ten inspire the revival and re- the Centennial logo. formulation of national myths, With an eye for the quirky and Hawthorn occasionally and the quixotic, Hawthorn falls into the myth-making recounts dozens of other Cen- trap. Yet he also acknowledges tennial projects, national, lo- that not everyone was thrilled cal, and personal. about the anniversary. Expo 67 in Montreal gets a Chief Dan George of the chapter of its own, needless to Tsleil-Waututh Nation (Bur- say. Marquee official projects rard Inlet, North Vancouver) such as the Confederation used the occasion of a Domin- Train and Caravan also re- ion Day address in Vancouver ceive well-deserved attention, to lament the second-class along with Stuart Ash’s iconic status of Indigenous people modernist maple-leaf emblem, in Canada. Bobby Gimby’s celebratory With the benefit of a half- ear-worm “Ca-Na-Da” and Alex century’s hindsight, Canadi- Colville’s minimalist Centen- ans’ Centennial antics might nial circulation coin designs. seem a little quaint, but the The book’s groovy typogra- excitement and optimism be- phy and bright colours cap- hind them were heartfelt. ture something of the sixties 9781771621502 style so evident in Centennial promotions and the endless Forrest D. Pass is a historian souvenirs that still abound at the Canadian Museum of in the thrift shops of Canada. History. Originally from the Hawthorn steers clear of Sunshine Coast, he writes on the “behind the scenes” orga- B.C. regionalism, Canadian nizational history of the Cen- nationalism, commemorations, tennial, ground already well and public history. 21 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review COASTAL LIFE Beckoned By The Sea: Women at Work Protectors, a formidable quartet of gifted women on the Cascadia Coast by Sylvia Taylor who work with diverse groups to better their (Heritage House $19.95) communities. They are respectful, patient and PAT CARNEY’S visionary in their roles as educated analysts, admired as superb communicators. SIDE FROM SALTWA- Profiled here are Katie Beach, marine and CARNIVAL ter Women at Work river biologist on the Fraser River, and Tofino’s current mayor, Josie Osborne, also a marine On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers (D&M, 1995) by biologist with an extensive background as liaison by Pat Carney (TouchWood $21.95) CASCADIENNES between the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and Vickie Jensen, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. which is no longer Patriarchal power patterns are indentured over centuries. Portland, Oregon’s trailblazing Megan Mack- BY PAM ERIKSON Ain print, there has not been an ey found her calling at Ecotrust and works with HE OPENING STORY OF PAT CARNEY’S Books about trailblazing women are necessary stepping stones to progress. policies for the fishing fleets of all Cascadia to collection On Island: Life Among overview on women of Cascadia protect the ocean and sustain livelihoods. the Coast Dwellers sets a fable- (Pacific Northwest coast) with mar- Caroline Woodward applauds a new book about watery women. Similar work is carried out by Leesa Cobb like tone. On a sunny, summer executive director of the Port Orford Ocean Re- morning a mysterious woman itime-related occupations. Sylvia source Team. The last words are hers: Treleases eight cats, then boards a ferry, never Taylor’s anthology about twenty- guished Ucluelet First Nations councillor, band of the book. by urban bureaucracy, when lighthouse keep- are profoundly smitten by a seal’s eyes or a “Could we extract something different from the to return. manager, language and economic development Descended from Aleut and Russian seafarers, ers delivered jerry cans of gas to nearby boaters whale’s gaze at an early age. Sidney-based Lela ocean that is very high value and could support The cats, as independent and resourceful four strong women fills the gap. as their human counterparts, wind their ways researcher, and treaty negotiator. Japanese- Vonnie Fry exemplifies those who must wait who had run out of it and when keepers had a Sankeralli and Adria Johnstone are naturalists the community? I believe we should think about throughout the vignettes of island life, con- Canadian elder Mary Kimoto of Ucluelet leads on shore, raising kids as a single parent while fully-functioning station boat on site in order to and educators and in Johnstone’s case, a marine the ocean as something to protect and something After an elegant foreword from poet Renee necting stories and characters. And, like the a group preserving the history of their fishing the fishing fleet is out for weeks and months rescue people in trouble. Her parents’ legacy, mammal trainer at the Vancouver Aquarium. So- we use, and get the best of all worlds from it.” Sarojini Saklikar introducing the profiles to cats, human characters appear and reappear. come, Beckoned by The Sea: Women at Work heritage, including the disruption of forcible at a time in the high-risk waters off Alaska. like her grandparents before them, of keeping nia Frojen is a longboat paddling instructor and 978-1-77203-179-9 The people are not named, which adds to on the Cascadia Coast begins with The Har- internment and the seizing (aka theft) of their Kyuquot’s Nicalena Chidley spent her child- a watch on the waters has been passed on to school program co-ordinator in Port Townsend, the stories’ fairy tale quality. They are known vesters, those women who work hard to provide homes and fishboats during World War Two hood and youth as the daughter of long-serving Chidley’s children who head out in a boat upon Washington, and Tsimka Martin is a First Na- Caroline Woodward’s book, Light Years: Memoir only by title or description: the Mountie, the life-sustaining food. on the west coast. Her account of working in lighthouse keepers, Ed and Pat Kidder. Her hearing distress calls. tions paddle tour guide based in Tofino. of a Modern Lighthouse Keeper was nominated Professor, the Church Warden, the Old Man, We meet Captain Laura Rasmussen of Polaris canneries as a teenager is one of the highlights recollections hark back to an era less dominated The Teachers category will attract those who The book comes full circle to end with The for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Award in 2016. the Pirate Queen, and Blondie, the golden- with whom I’ve traded for prawns while I was haired “pagan princess-of-the-harvest,” with her dog, Goldie, and her golden cat. working as a lightkeeper at Nootka Lightstation, The feline and human characters must as well as intrepid kelp harvester Rae Hopkins find ways to connect and fit in—as we all from Bamfield and Comox-based Roberta Ste- do—in ways that are both part of society and venson, a shellfish cultivator and executive di- separate from society. rector of the BC Shellfish Growers’ Association. Often the inability to communicate with Plus there is much to learn from Newport, Oregon the outside world heightens the sense of restaurateur (Local Ocean), conservationist and separation of the Gulf Island communities fair food pricing activist, Laura Anderson. “marooned in the ocean.” The high cost of For young people con- ferries and frequent storms compound a feel- templating marine careers, ing of isolation, a recurring and connecting this book also offers in- theme. Stories such as ‘Lights Out’ highlight valuable insights from the scourge of the islands: recurring power trailblazing women like outages and loss of phone service. The aptly- Connie Buhl who was the titled ‘Storm’ tells a tale of frustration as a first American woman to woman attempts to get to the Mainland dur- ing intermittent ferry closures. earn her chief engineer’s In ‘Battle for the Beach,’ islanders and CAROLINE license along with three off-island property investors clash when individual licenses: un- WOODWARD absentee land owners seek to privatize and limited chief engineer of limit access to traditionally communal, pub- steam, motor and gas turbine vessels. Buhl, like lic spaces. The islanders’ opinion of these Portuguese-born tugboat captain Bela Love and invaders is revealed in their name for the Canadian Coast Guard Captain Rhona Lettau, gated communities that impede free access went for the challenges, adventures and good to previously public trails: Fascist Estates. pay that these traditionally male occupations Islanders band together to save the beach provide. and the salmon, to maintain the interdenomi- In The Travellers category, Gibsons-based national church, and to help one another Gillie Hutchinson, a veteran sailing instructor in times of need. While Carney reveals the with her own company, LadySail, says, “Sailors isolated and sometimes exclusive nature of are kind of a different breed. We’re calmer. We island life, she also deftly illustrates a dif- ferent, double nature of small communities: don’t get so uptight… Problems and overcoming they are united and cooperative but also, at them: it just creates this different mindset. Sail- times, claustrophobic. ing has helped me do that. Café gossip over fair-trade coffee and “You’re not in control. It doesn’t matter. You gluten-free lemon cake is a reminder of don’t have to be. You just have to be safe and ever-watchful eyes that scrutinize the com- be at one with the environment, not fighting it. ings and goings of the community. Secrets Not be in control of it. are never truly secrets, and the actions and “And when I come ashore I find I’m just in this indiscretions of individuals affect the collec- zoned-out place where I’m just super-calm. And tive. Island ecosystems are fragile and com- everybody around me is all twittered up and on munity ecosystems are equally vulnerable their iPhones and doing and rushing.” to disruption. In The Creators section, readers encounter the At the same time, these stories can be life paths taken by Port Townsend boat builder exquisitely Canadian, and Carney nods and shipwright Diana Talley, Vancouver’s subtly to such national institutions as David Suzuki, Alice Munro, Tim Hortons and Vickie Jensen, a writer and photographer, Qua- canned Pacific Evaporated Milk. licum Beach painter Peggy Burkosky, and—in Lori Pappajohn, Mirroring the interconnection of water- a fascinating niche occupation not found on ways, ecologies, and communities, On Island: Canada Employment Centre help wanted lists professional Life Among the Coast Dwellers is a delightful alongside machinists—a professional mermaid, mermaid, harpist, collection of stories that often feels magical Lori Pappajohn. and sometimes biographical. 9781771512107 I must now get my hands on a mono-fin to composer and arranger swim like a mermaid—a harp, evidently, is re- with 11 albums. Pam Erikson is an English writing quired equipment. tutor living in Kamloops. The History Keepers include Vi Mundy, distin- 22 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 23 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 “Absolutely necessary.” —Kirkus, starred review Speaking Our Truth: A Journey of Reconciliation (Orca Book Publishers $29.95 HC) by Monique Gray Smith 9781459815834 Ages 9-13 Monique Gray Smith ecti efl on R s Can you ‘Reconciliation you know? imagine this happening to you or someone Let’s start begins with with some basic questions to help you refl ect on your you,’ own knowledge and beliefs. says Chief Dr. Robert Joseph of the Do you Gwawaenuk First know any Nation in Monique Indigenous people? Gray Smith’s Are you an Indigenous person? Is someone formidably executed in your family “new book, Speaking Indigenous? Photo: Shari Nakagawa Our Truth. This simple maxim reinforces the First Nations, Métis, the cumulative effect Non-indigenous Whose and Inuit Literature, is unquestionably readers, who empathize territory is your purpose of the titular school on? journey—one that and the board book authentic and respectful. with this reframing of Whose territory is comprehensive in My Heart Fills with The author also Canada’s history and is your house on? scope, interactive, and Happiness, illustrated describes the incredible are eager to take on a decidedly inclusive. by Julie Flett, which resilience Indigenous role in the reconciliation What do The book, which won the Christie Harris peoples have shown process, will embrace you know about the history of the is divided into four Illustrated Children’s since the Royal Smith’s use of the territory where sizeable chapters, Literature Prize. She is Proclamation of 1763. positive term ‘ally.’ As a you live? explores the painful also an international Smith explains that in package, the book offers What do history of residential speaker who advocates residential schools, the a perfect framework you know about for the well-being of ‘overall message was that for readers actively the Indigenous schools, investigates people whose what reconciliation Indigenous children. traditional Indigenous exploring Indigenous territory you live means, and identifi es Smith infuses her ways of being were history and current on? specifi c actions conversational writing inferior to non- issues. Welcoming, Indigenous ways’ and individuals can take. with encouraging honest, and down to Reconciliation— As a mixed-heritage expressions and takes that ‘this contributed earth, Speaking Our woman of Cree, Lakota care to explain the to shame and loss of Truth is the tool many the restoration and and Scottish ancestry manner in which she language, culture, and Canadians have been healing of a relationship. interviewed various pride.’ An interactive waiting for. living in Victoria, Smith In Canada, this brings authenticity and people. This transparent feature called refers to the process passion to her role as glimpse into the writing Reflections—illustrated —Excerpted from Jill author. Her previous process underscores her with a line drawing Bryant’s starred review taken on by the Truth books include Tilly: humble, gracious tone. of a hand drum—lists of Speaking Our Truth in and Reconciliation A Story of Hope and The author supports probing questions, none the September issue of Commission to revitalize Resilience, which won all her assertions of which have simple Quill & Quire the Burt Award for with documentation; answers. the relationship between the citizens of Canada IS FALL (Indigenous and non- ALSO COMING TH Indigenous), as well as “Calming, positive, and serenely affi rmative.” — Kirkus ” the Nation-to-Nation “Heartwarming!” —Debbie Reese, American Indians in Children’s Literature relationships with the A foundational picture book about building relationships, fostering empathy, Government of Canada. and encouraging respect between peers, starting with our littlest people. You Hold Me Up by Monique Gray Smith (Orca Book Publishers $19.95 HC) 9781459814479 Ages 4-8 24 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review ENVIRONMENT A River Captured: bottom before the flooding. The Columbia River Treaty RETHINKING THE COLUMBIA TREATY Her father Christopher and Catastrophic Change by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Spicer was offered $30,000 (Rocky Mountain Books $20) for his farm in the late 1960s. He searched the province for a comparable property but BY JOHN GELLARD could find nothing for less than four times that price. FOR THE COLUMBIA RIVER TREATY (CRT) CRY ME A RIVER He refused to sell and hired a of 1964, signed by the Social Damming the Columbia River: lawyer. He kept his farm and Credit Party of W.A.C. Ben- got $60,000 from Hydro for nett, communities lost or moved lost towns and drowned dreams. an easement to flood the best included Halcyon Hotsprings, 100 acres, to put the highway Arrowhead, Arrow Park, Burton, than by not building your too expensive and probably but in the end BC got money across his place, and to build Fauquier, Needles, Edgewood, town in the flood plain. If you wouldn’t have worked anyway. and downstream benefits in a substation there. He did not and Renata. need electricity, or if you want Once you start controlling exchange for 15 million acre- live long after watching the Now reviewer John Gellard to make the desert bloom, you a river, you can’t stop. feet of water storage behind floodwaters cover his land. assesses A River Captured, It was decided flood con- the High Arrow, Duncan, and Now Janet carries on. Eileen Pearkes’s exploration of build a dam. There are many similar sto- the CRT’s controversial history The river-as-machine view trol and electricity generation Mica dams. and its impact on the ecology, has prevailed since the Grand could be enhanced by putting We also got flood control ries of Hydro chiseling, threat- farmland, salmon, and politics of Coulée Dam on the Columbia more dams upstream. from the Libby Dam on the ening and bullying landowners the Kootenay region. was conceived in the 1930s But there was that pes- Montana segment of the Koo- to give up their land. The boast For one dam alone, the High and completed in 1942. The ky 49th parallel. Canada’s tenay River. by W.A.C. Bennett that the Arrow (Keenleyside) Dam, com- idea was to make the semi- formidable General A.G.L. ✫ province got “tens of millions pleted in 1968, BC Hydro appro- desert of eastern Washington McNaughton, avatar of the FOR HER BOOK, PEARKES TOURED THE of dollars” for 7.1 million acre priated 3,144 properties in Arrow bloom as farm land. Then river-as-machine philosophy, entire river system in search feet of Arrow Lakes water stor- Lakes and relocated 1,350 people. the war came along and the wanted to keep Canadian con- of human interest stories, age rings hollow. dam’s best use was to gener- trol of the rivers. He hatched finding tales of heartbreak “No one in government NCE UPON A TIME ate electricity for munitions a scheme to divert the upper and enormous courage, and of cared about the people who a ferry went up manufacture. Kootenay into the Columbia breathtakingly callous govern- lived here, who loved living and down the Ecologically, the dam was a and later to build a tunnel to ment high-handedness. here,” says Janet Spicer. “No lakes of a splen- disaster. It blocked the ocean take Columbia water to the all- Janet Spicer grows or- one was consulted.” did valley, col- going salmon from the upper Canadian Fraser River. ganic vegetables on what’s ✫ Olecting fresh cherries, peach- Columbia in BC. There was a Mercifully, the byzantine left of her father’s Arrow Lake THE RESERVOIR BEHIND THE LIBBY es, apples and vegetables tentative plan to build a 12 km machinations of the CRT in farm – the 29 acres above the Dam backs up into B.C. and from hamlets with names like fish ladder to help the fish over the 1960s put a stop to that. flood line. Her rich topsoil was carries the fatuous name of Renata, Deer Park, Halcyon the 168 m structure. It was far Pearkes gives us the details, backhoed up from the valley “Lake Koocanusa.” The land is and Appledale. quite dry with open “montane” Kokanee salmon and bull vegetation, suitable for free trout spawned in the deltas range cattle. Here, Pearkes of the small streams cascad- meets Stanley Triggs who ing from the mountains. You once photographed and docu- could selectively log your fir, mented the dispossession of cedar and cottonwood, and prosperous ranchers. on the slopes you could graze “I documented a tremen- cattle. dous loss...” says Triggs, now But that valley is gone. in his 80s. “They whittled The Arrow Lakes on the those people down to the bone. Columbia River between Cas- What they got paid for their tlegar and Revelstoke are now land was criminal.” behind the High Arrow dam ✫ under a reservoir storing water SOME HEROIC ATTEMPTS AT MITI- to generate megawatts and gation have arisen from in- provide flood control for farms dividual initiative. Dutchy and towns in Washington and Wageningen devised a method Oregon. to let bull trout migrate from A River Captured, by Ei- Kootenay Lake to Duncan leen Delehanty Pearkes tells Lake through the double dis- in fascinating detail the story charge gates on the Duncan of the Columbia River Treaty- Dam. There was also once a -and how and why virtually plan to encourage ocean sock- all of the Columbia River and eye to migrate up Okanagan the Kootenay River became a Lake, and eventually into the series of reservoirs. upper Columbia. ✫ What, if anything, has been EILEEN PEARKES SHOWS THAT THERE learned? are two fiercely opposed views Once again, with the pro- of how humans should use a posed Site C Dam, there’s the river system. same atavistic drive to “con- The first is to realize that a trol” the Peace River. river is an ecosystem. Human Once again we are seeing activity can be part of the life the same chiseling and bul- of a river. The Sinixt Indians lying of landowners to make lived with those rivers for them give up and leave fertile PHOTO millennia, migrating with the lands. hugely abundant salmon, deer A River Captured should be SOCIETY and birds, and making use of required reading for politicians the bountiful variety of plants from all B.C. parties, and any- HISTORICAL that grew in rhythm with the one else in the province who water cycle. Farmers settled LAKE prefers the “river-as-machine” in the valleys and took similar metaphor. 9781771601788 ARROW advantage of the water cycle. / The other view is that a John Gellard’s articles have PARENT river should be controlled and appeared in The Globe and turned to its so called “highest Mail and the Watershed Sen- MILTON and best” human use. If you A VIKING FUNERAL (cremation): In 1968, BC Hydro flooded the Arrow Lakes to make tinel. Last issue he reviewed get flooded out you deal with way for Keenleyside Dam, but refused to contribute to restoring the SS Minto, a heri- David Suzuki and Ian Haning- that by flood control rather tage sternwheel steamboat, forcing the owners to set it on fire. ton’s book on climate change. 25 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 Make the most of life with a cruise Give the gift of history MAKE THET MOST OF THE CRUISE WITH OUR BOOKS Author Anne Humourous, tragic, personal, ColourCo photography City & port maps Vipond and engaging ColourCo pullout map Ship docking locations NEW! Alaska By Cruise Ship – 9th edition Caribbean By Cruise Ship – 8th edition This is your chance to share British Hawaii By Cruise Ship – 3rd edition Columbia’s stories. Every issue of Mediterranean By Cruise Ship – 7th edition British Columbia History magazine is NoNorthernr Europe By Cruise Ship – 2nd edition full of photos, illustrations, book th Panama Canal By Cruise Ship – 5 edition reviews, and more. 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LIQUOR, LUST, AND THE DUTCH FEAST DEAD RECKONING FIGHTING FOR SPACE SAIGON CALLING LAW Emily Wight Carys Cragg Travis Lupick Marcelino Truong; David Aaron Chapman 978-1-55152-687-4; $32.95 978-1-55152-697-3; $19.95 978-1-55152-712-3; $24.95 Homel, trans. 978-1-55152-714-7; $26.95 A modern take on classic Dutch A gripping and emotional memoir in The epic grassroots story of 978-1-55152-689-8; $28.95 An updated edition of Chapman’s cuisine, by the Vancouver-based which the author comes to meet the Vancouver’s revolutionary approaches A graphic memoir about growing colorful history of Vancouver’s Well Fed, Flat Broke blogger. man who murdered her father twenty to drug addiction that is saving lives. up Vietnamese in London as the legendary Penthouse Nightclub, years earlier. Vietnam War intensifies. including new material and photos. WHAT I THINK IN CASE I GO DON’T TELL ME WHAT ORACLE BONE HAPPENED Angie Abdou TO DO Lydia Kwa Evany Rosen 978-1-55152-703-1; $17.95 Dina Del Bucchia 978-1-55152-699-7; $19.95 978-1-55152-695-9; $17.95 “Angie Abdou has written a grown- 978-1-55152-701-7; $17.95 “A transfixing narrative that bears the From Charles Demers’ new humour up work of fantasy, transporting as it “Dina Del Bucchia writes that fictional intimate familiarity of a dream with < imprint Robin’s Egg Books: a is grounded and real.” line that divides tragedy and comedy, the grandeur of a historical< epic.” recasting of historical events from the —Andrew Pyper a line is also unrelentingly, achingly —Doretta Lau author’s wickedly funny perspective. human.” —Jen Sookfong Lee ARSENAL PULP PRESS arsenalpulp.com 26 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review WAR Martha Black tries Vickers machine gun and scores 64 hits out of 75. Witley Camp, 1917. Yukon Archives. From the GRITKlondike to Berlin: TO THE CORE portrayed in his poetry, the The Yukon in World War I by devastation and suffering Michael Gates (Harbour $24.95) The outpouring of centenary books about of war, with the result that aspects of Canada’s involvement in the his writing was targeted by BY JIM WOOD Canada’s chief censor. “Great War” continues with From the Klondike Yukon history has been ROM THE KLONDIKE well documented for the Trail to Berlin presents to Berlin: The Yukon in World War I of ’98 and the Alaska Highway; a narrative his- From the Klondike to Berlin, tory of the men sane,” “girt for the combat,” known for having climbed ous gallantry near Amiens in however, explores new terri- and women who and “grit to the core.” the Chilkoot Trail of 1898 1918. tory, using local and archival Flived in the Yukon, then an ✫ while pregnant and going on ✫ sources to reveal the experi- isolated Canadian mining GEORGE BLACK QUALIFIED IN to create a thriving sawmill FROM THE KLONDIKE TO BERLIN ences of individuals serving outpost, when war broke out Victoria to become a captain. business. During the war she includes wide-ranging cov- on both the home front and in 1914. Michael Gates has He recruited 255 men for the led patriotic fundraising cam- erage of war experiences of overseas, documenting the im- highlighted their patriotic, in- Yukon Infantry Company, and paigns in Dawson City, and Yukon soldiers, including the pact on Canadian families of domitable spirit, born during went on to lead his men in in England she continued her exhaustion and high casualty an increasingly dire manpower the Gold Rush of 1898 and the battles of Amiens and the work with hospital visits, letter rate suffered by Joe Boyle’s situation in the later stages of continued by the hardy folk Hundred Days. writing, and administration of Machine Gun Battery in action World War I. who answered the call to serve The 2nd Canadian Motor the Yukon Comfort Fund. In at the Somme, Vimy Ridge, Hill From the Klondike to Berlin the British Empire. Machine Gun Brigade served 1935, she became the second 70, Passchendaele, Amiens, concentrates on Yukon men One recruit summed up the with the Allied occupation woman elected to the House and the Hundred Days. Boyle and women’s uniqueness of northern spirit among his fel- force in Berlin after the Ar- of Commons (the first being went on to assist the Romanian character and fortitude that is low soldiers: “I am going with mistice, and following their Agnes Macphail), and the royal family by transporting the proud heritage of Canada’s Yukoners because I believe no departure for Canada, Black first American-born woman the Crown jewels on a treach- north country. part of the world can produce stayed on to act as defence to do so. erous 1300-kilometre journey Nearly one thousand men men more accustomed to all- counsel for several British Their son Lyman Black through Bolshevik Russia. of Yukon’s population of about round frontier experiences…in Columbian soldiers who had joined up as a student from Robert Service’s work as five thousand enlisted, a rate the face of all kinds of difficul- been charged in the Kinmel Dawson Public School, went an ambulance driver, journal- much higher than in the rest ties which try every man’s re- Park demobilization riots in on to be promoted to lieuten- ist, and intelligence officer is of Canada, and fundraising sourcefulness to the utmost.” Wales in 1919. ant, and was awarded the shown in From the Klondike campaigns garnered a simi- At the centre of the region’s Martha Black was well Military Cross for conspicu- to Berlin to have frequently larly patriotic response. war efforts were two locally- Where the average Cana- raised units: Joe Boyle’s Yu- dian donation to the war was kon Machine Gun Battery and one dollar per capita, Yukon- the Yukon Infantry Company, ers raised donations at twelve recruited by George Black, times that rate. Yukon’s territorial commis- Yukon lost about 85 men sioner. Boyle’s unit trained at of the thousand who served. Hastings Park in Vancouver Impressive memorials were and Black’s infantry group at mounted in the years follow- Victoria’s Willow Camp. Upon ing the war. being sent overseas, both Michael Gates has cap- units were merged into the tured that spirit, built on the 2nd Canadian Motor Machine challenges of northern living Gun Brigade. and carried forward to the war From the Klondike to Berlin effort, patriotic fundraising, features the Black family, and recognition of the sacri- George, Martha, and their son fices made. 978-1-55017-776-3 Lyman, as the epitome of a Yu- kon family at war, displaying Jim Wood wrote Militia Myths: what Canadian poet Robert Ideas of the Canadian Citi- Service depicts as “The Law zen Soldier, 1896-1921 (UBC of the North” where men and Press, 2010). He teaches his- women are “the strong and the Canadian armoured cars going into action, Battle of Amiens, August, 1918. tory at Okanagan College. 27 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review POETRY A Temporary Stranger: ball or puck slips by unhin- the sunlight. a comforting lack of same. In guy.” It’s one of those telling Homages/Poems dered, the movement called Round About Midnight those days, it was like being moments when some of us Recollections by Jamie Reid (Anvil Press $18) a fake. These poems, at their in the moonlit garden. in The Third Man without the realized the social revolution best, shake and lean the head Ironically (for a poet), it’s ruins of Vienna in the back- we believed in had already in one direction in order to the prose Recollections that ground. been co-opted by corporations POSTHUMOUSLY move the body’s stem in the reveal the literary and social In another essay, he re- that would re-package and sell published book opposite direction. All of them critic we knew from Reid’s counts a chilling memory of it back to us in one of those is like an invita- are rooted in language and its table talk over glasses of red being stopped at a red light cynical daisy-chains that have tion to the Read- easiest vagaries, which always wine. In one, Reid with friends en route since become a familiar fea- ing of the Will; speak for themselves, even as conjures up memo- to Bob Dylan’s first ture of post-modern life. Ayou can’t help wondering what I intervene with them.” ries of Vancouver’s big Vancouver con- The best essays preserve you might get. Here the ‘fake’ poems infant hipster scene cert, realizing the what you never remember If you knew Jamie Reid, emerging out of his lifelong in- in the early Sixties. skinny shaggy guy after a late night involving as so many Vancouver writ- terest in poetics are bracketed Confined to a few in the limo beside wine. As a literary critic, Reid ers did before his death from by two ‘real’ poems, “Warbler” blocks of Robson them was the man possessed not only penetrat- a heart attack in 2015, you and “Where to Find Grace,” Street called Rob- himself, escorted by ing insight but the ability to know a post-mortem work the latter an elegantly simple sonstrasse because JOHN two sleek thuggish convey it in clear, incisive may have been penned by your rephrasing of the Taoist adage, the small cafes and MOORE minders. Dylan’s language—a talent notably Absent Friend, but he didn’t Tao lives in the hearth: shops all seemed to response to their lacking in supposedly expert get his say about its final Under the kitchen table with be run by European emigres enthusiastic waves was a academics. Reid’s essays on shape. That’s the work of an the floor some people still referred to shrivelling goblin glare of pure the influence of UBC Prof War- editor; in this case Talonbooks and the cat dish, in the as DPs (displaced persons); hatred. ren Tallman, who nurtured publisher Karl Siegler. kitchen sink people who had fled coun- Encountered at the gig, the the TISH movement in the Like Reid, Siegler is a vet- with the supper dishes and tries crushed by the weight minders (A&R men, as they Sixties, on John Newlove, eran of the explosive period the bubbles of soap. of too much history for a were called), confided “there’s and especially on marginalized of CanLit, the 1960s. The job Behind half closed eyelids in country that seemed to have a lot of money riding on this poets Gerry Gilbert and Neil must’ve been made harder by Eustache, are more valuable emotions that accompany try- than all the volumes of jargon- ing to produce a fitting “Hail enriched compost produced by and Farewell” for a life-long English profs and published comrade, yet Siegler succeeds in university-funded ‘liter- in assembling a sampler rep- ary magazines’ for over four resentative of the range not decades. only of Reid’s writing, but of Reid’s awareness of the his thought and influence, wider social and political con- which were far more exten- text of poetry enables him to sive than his bibliography locate poets like Gilbert and suggests. REBEL Eustache—neither of whom A Temporary Stranger con- have ever been acknowledged, sists of three superficially dif- never mind treated with cour- ferent parts; Homages, Poems tesy either by the Canada and Recollections. Each part WITH A HEART Council and the publishers can be enjoyed separately, who depend on it—solidly just as the pieces can be read within the tradition of rebel individually, but read in se- poets that extends from the quence they achieve a kind Beats through Apollinaire, of swelling symphonic effect, Cendrars, Rimbaud, Baude- likely due to Siegler’s editorial laire, to the English Roman- skill. The result may not be tics, right back to His Unholi- “the man in full,” but in under ness, Francois Villon. 200 pages, it’s more than just The Recollections make a a good sketch and captures knock-out symphonic finale to his essence. A Temporary Stranger, but you The Homages are transliter- can’t help hoping that Reid, ations, not translations; works like most writers, had a base- created the way jazz musi- ment, attic or garage stuffed cians riff on a old standard with boxes of manuscripts and show-tune, beat the hell out notebooks he never got around of it, put it through a blender to turning into books and that and produce something that’s this volume may turn out to be mockingly familiar, yet totally a temporary epitaph. fresh and new. Significantly, 978-1-77214-098-9 Reid based them on poems by Apollinaire, Paul Eluard, John Moore reviews from Andre Breton, Jacques Pre- Garibaldi Highlands. vert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud; all French poets of a century IN PASSING ago or more who were rebels in full: politically, socially and Jamie Reid (1941-2015) poet artistically. A recovering radi- Karlene Faith (1938-2017) cal Marxist who never lost his author, scholar, activist faith in the importance of the S.C. Heal (1925-2017) struggle for social justice, in nautical historian, publisher later life Reid returned to these Joan Skogan (1945-2017) poets to revive and nourish his novelist, historian resurgent literary soul. Jim Wong-Chu (1949-2017) The centrepiece section poet, activist, mentor Fake Poems (so called because The best essays by Jamie Reid Reid once observed, at heart, “all art is a fake), appear here “preserve what you never David as a kind of interlude that Watmough introduces a new theme, a Jamie Reid, remember after a late night (1926-2017) counterpoint to poetry as it’s a recovering radical novelist, usually understood. Marxist who never PHOTO involving wine” according to lost his faith in poet Reid uses the athlete’s the importance of slang for a ‘fake out’ or ‘deek,’ the struggle for John Moore GASZTONYI as he explains: “The head goes social justice. For full obituaries of these six one way, the body another, the GABOR authors, see abcbookworld.com 28 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 Check out these titles, now on BC Ferries. THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID, NEEDS TO BE SHOWN, AND NEEDS TO BE TOLD . . . Native women and girls demand to be heard in this stunning anthology. 978-1-55451-957-6 pb / 978-1-55451-958-3 hc New Authors Published and distributed by Read a sample chapter on our website. are always welcome! annick press granvilleislandpublishing.com www.annickpress.com available from your favourite bookseller ŝŶĨŽΛŐƌĂŶǀŝůůĞŝƐůĂŶĚƉƵďůŝƐŚŝŶŐ͘ĐŽŵϴϳϳͲϲϴϴͲϬϯϮϬdǁŝƩĞƌ͗Λ'/W>ŬƐ an imprint of UBC Press Purich Publishing was founded by Don Purich and Karen Bolstad in 1992. Together, they built an influential and enduring list of books in Indigenous studies and law, and on Western Canadian issues. UBC Press is delighted to announce that we will continue to build on this significant legacy under a new imprint, Purich Books. We are moving forward with a clear purpose: to publish impassioned and experienced voices that will ignite understanding and champion change. We look forward to continuing to publish engaged, forward-thinking titles under the Purich Books imprint, and we are so pleased to count you as Purich readers. PurichBooks.ca 29 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 36 Maps, 350+ Photos, review Watershed Tour, Geology, Ecology, Secwepemc History, History of Settlement POETRY It’s a textbook for IT TAKES ONE TO TANKA “understanding one of the most beautiful and least understood landscapes – Naomi Wakan venerates and it should be mandatory reading for anyone who lives human contact in a cold world in or visits the Shuswap. The Way of Tanka Wakan elaborates: “The haiku Mark Hume ” – by Naomi Beth Wakan speaks only of images: an empty (Shanti Arts Publishing $20.00) cabin, a canoe filled with leaves. Yet, PRICE $ + Shipping on consideration, it is clear to us that ISBN 978-0-9950522-0-8 this haiku clearly speaks of the imper- shuswappress.ca BY PHYLLIS REEVE manence of things, using just those BORN IN ENGLAND IN 1931, NAOMI DEUTSCH images with no overt indication of this came to Canada in 1954 and worked as a inner idea. psychotherapist in Toronto. “The tanka also has a strong sense She and her second husband Elias, a of images: the drifting boat, the loon’s wood sculptor, married in 1977. Together call, but it allows itself a comment that KAT ROSE they chose their surname Wakan, a Sioux directs our thoughts to the high value word meaning “creative spirit.” of human contact in a cold world.” The couple moved to B.C. in 1982 and There is nothing new about this founded Pacific Rim Publishers in 1986 in sort of poetry in the English language. Vancouver, moving to Gabriola Island ten The early modernists who called them- years later. selves Imagists learned from Japanese Her new anthology explores tanka, a poetics. If none of the tanka quoted by Japanese poetic form consisting of five Wakan attain the impact of William lines. Carlos Williams’ Red Wheelbarrow or Ezra Pound AVING LIVED IN JAPAN ’s petals on a wet black for two years, Naomi bough, most approach an intensity and Wakan became a prac- focus worth striving for. Htitioner and teacher of As a mentor, Wakan has felt moved haiku, hosting work- to offer a way “to bridge the gap be- shops and contributing on an inter- tween what people wanted to express They say keep your friends national scale. and what they were able to express, close and your enemies closer, Haiku is known to most readers of the chasm between inner and outer even if you're related. poetry as three-line poems. She has lives.” treated haiku exhaustively in previous Naomi Wakan recalls a comment kat-rose-c1r1.squarespace.com books, especially The Way of Haiku once made of her poetry, that it is really (Pacific Rim Publishers, 2012). prose until you come to the last line. More recently, she has found her ✫ way to tanka. In The Way of Tanka, a THE WAY OF TANKA BEGINS WITH A chapter called “Tanka compared with selection of fifty tanka. Only after read- Haiku” explains tanka as “five-line ers and would-be writers have digested these, does the instruction begin. poems that move from image to image, idea to idea, feeling to feeling, yet the Chapters address the uses and va- whole five lines flow together seam- rieties of tanka, love tanka, nostalgic lessly to present a strong statement tanka, witty tanka, response tanka of humanity’s place in the universe, [two poets carry on a conversation even though the poem may be intensely in alternate tanka], ekphrastic tanka personal.” [tanka describing another work of The five lines follow a pattern: short, art, e.g. a painting], tan renga [first long, short, long, long. To clarify the three lines by one poet, last two by distinction, she offers an example of someone else] and tanka as self- each on a similar topic. expression. The discipline involved in a tanka, First, a haiku by Devar Dahl: like that in any traditional form wheth- empty cabin er it be sonnet or villanelle, can calm the beached canoe the poet’s eye. That said, most readers ISBN:978-0-9947302-4-4 ISBN:978-0-9947302-7-5 fills with leaves of this book will have dabbled in haiku $10 - 6"x 9" - 108 pages and be ready to move on—or to move Then a tanka by Christopher back and forth, depending on the day Herold: and the mood. 978-1-941830-60-4 Contact: [email protected] in the morning fog we slip our oars and drift between loon calls Retired librarian Phyllis Parham Reeve In all that’s left of the world is co-founder of the bookstore at Page’s Other the warmth of our bodies Resort & Marina on Gabriola Island. Words Naomi Wakan was the inaugural Poet Laureate of Nanaimo (2013-2016). A German Canadian Story NORBERT RUEBSAAT Vancouver book launch Oct.7th 3 PM Info: 778.928.5038 Order: Amazon.com 30 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review Self-Publish.ca TEEN LIT " ' '( &)*$+$#,+- ./( ! "#$%& Memoir Writing Services Your life adds up to a story. Tell it. Now you can hire an experienced writer— Nikki Tate has written 27 books and is also an avid rock climber (above). with more than two decades as a full-time freelance writer in Vancouver—to help you: • Record your life stories through an extensive interviewing process. • Conduct research to augment your story. • Write the story with you. WHEN FEAR IS • Manage the book design. • Provide advice on printing. For more information contact me at NOT AN OPTION 604-688-1458 • [email protected] Beverly Cramp LAURA SAWCHUK PHOTO Deadpoint by Nikki Tate The path of intrepid climbing does (Orca Books $9.95) not run smooth. When Lissy and her father are seriously injured on Black Dog Mountain during a terrifying ac- BY CAROL ANNE SHAW cident, it means Ayla and Carlos will be Three debut collections, pushed to their limits both physically st IKKI TATE’S LATEST YA THRILLER, available October 1 ! www.thistledownpress.com Deadpoint, is part of the and emotionally. fast-paced, easy-to-read During the fast-paced rescue opera- action novel series called tions, young readers’ heart rates will climb right alongside Ayla and Carlos Orca Sports. These are “My first impression of Jasmina Odor’s work was of relatively short (25,000 words) stories as the two teens brave adverse condi- fiction precisely made in order to capture chaotic N $18.95 well-suited for the reluctant reader. tions and, somehow, save the day. The times, vivid emotions and lurking danger. I read her In Deadpoint we meet Ayla, an anx- main characters are believable and the early stories but I felt then — as I still feel — that dialogue is refreshingly authentic. The I was reading the work of an experienced writer, ious, sixteen-year-old who loves to rock someone who knows things I am grateful to learn.” climb—providing it takes place on an compelling plot, narrative tension and — André Alexis, Giller Prize-winning author of indoor climbing wall. Her best friend, gratifying finish hooked my attention Fifteen Dogs Lissy, is much more adventurous. and sustained my interest. In fact, I Passionate about the great outdoors, loved it. fearless Lissy doesn’t spend her time ✫ NIKKI TATE, HERSELF AN AVID CLIMBER, HAS t i 978 1 77187 144 0 $18 95 worrying about what might happen, 978-1-77187-144-0 • • stories succeeded in writing a novel that not the way Ayla does. poems When Carlos, an adventurous new only entertains but educates in the arts of both story telling and rock climbing. boy, arrives in town, he and Lissy share • Detailed descriptions of climbing ma- 978-1-77187-152-5 an instant connection that has Ayla “I felt as if I’d come upon a contemporary book feeling a little bit like a third wheel. neuvers and appropriate jargon hap- of common prayer, each entry fresh and deeply Young readers will relate to the con- pen at just the right time, and in just resonant, rich with the details of daily life and the Deadpoint poet’s desire to touch the sacred. It is in her boldness fusing feelings Ayla experiences when the right place. Not only did leave me with some real knowledge of to do so, in her clear-eyed vision, and in her humble Lissy makes room in her life for Carlos acceptance of human frailties that these poems shine.” the sport, I now feel inclined to give it and his outgoing personality. He is, • $17.95 — Lorna Crozier after all, everything Ayla is not. He is a try—and I’m afraid of heights. also the first boy ever to complicate 9781459813526 their friendship. Carol Anne Shaw is the author of the A couple of subplots deserve men- “Hannah” books, from Ronsdale Press. tion: Ayla’s mother lives three time $18 95 zones away, has a new husband, a $18.95 • new life, and a busy career; and Ayla’s father, with whom Ayla lives, spends Teen Revolutionary “Rage, by John Mavin, is a diamond with many most of his time depressed in front of facets: turn its pages and you will find one insight Samantha Smart is living the life into the human soul after another, each shining the TV worrying, like Ayla, about things of your average teen, even captain through with a brilliance that catches the light of that might never happen. of her high school soccer team, our surroundings — no matter how dark we are at 978 1 77187 141 9 978-1-77187-141-9 When Ayla finds herself agreeing to when a close election leaves her the edges.” • go on a weekend climbing trip with Lis- country teetering into totalitarian- — Wayde Compton, author of The Outer Harbour ti sy and Carlos to Black Dog Mountain, ism. Samantha is thrust into the stories along with Lissy’s dad, she has mixed fight to save democracy in emotions. On the one hand, Ayla will be How Samantha Smart Became able to keep an eye on the relationship a Revolutionary (Red Deer between Lissy and the daredevil Carlos, Press $14.95) by Victoria’s Dawn but on the other, she’s going to have to Green. 9780889955493 push herself out of her comfort zone. 31 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 review SOCIETY WE ARE FAMILY The Language of Family: For a time, Portuguese Joe Stories of Bonds and and his family lived in the Belonging edited by Michelle van der Merwe traditional village of P’apeyek (Royal BC Museum $27.95) (now known as Brocton Point in Stanley Park). In 2015, Marston erected a monument VERYONE’S IDEA OF to Portuguese Joe at Brocton family is differ- Point. ent: There’s the Historian and writer Lar- classic nuclear ry Wong recounts how, in family of mother, the 1960s, Mary Chan saved Efather and kids; there are Strathcona, Vancouver’s oldest extended branches of kin- neighbourhood. It was being ship within indigenous com- threatened by the new-fangled muntieis; and some activists notion of “urban renewal,” eschew biological families for which meant bulldozers to social networks. The folks at Chan and her neighbours. the Royal B.C. Museum have They formed a group (that in- therefore included a wide cluded lawyer Mike Harcourt, spectrum for The Language of later mayor of Vancouver and Family: Stories of Bonds and premier of B.C.) to fight the Belonging, edited by Michelle destruction of their neighbour- van der Merwe, publisher at hood. Surprisingly, the group PHOTO the Royal BC Museum. won, becoming the first city in CRY Twenty contributors from Canada to drop urban renewal. B.C. share their memories and Vancouver International HELENE perspectives on what Bhangra Celebra- “My fondest memories and feelings of closeness, of family, are conjured family means in es- tion founder, Mo up when I think of the many faces that were simply referred to as ‘auntie’ says, personal nar- Dhaliwal examines or ‘uncle’ when I was growing up.” — Mo Dhaliwal ratives and poems. the depth of “family “To make sense friends,” concluding, Owechemis of so many of the “I now consider my (Kate White, known objects in our col- family to be those as Kitty), with her lections, you have to who are there for me husband, Aaron D. start with the stories BEVERLY in time and spirit, White, and children of families,” writes those who are com- at Sooke, early 20th Jack Lohman, head CRAMP mon to me in bond if century. Kitty later of the Royal BC Museum, in not in blood, who are kindred filed a complaint the book’s introduction. in their hopes and dreams if against her husband Lohman describes a wed- not in lineage.” of “continued unkind- ding dress worn by a great- Lawyer Barbara Findlay, ness.” In 1924 Kitty made a gift to the aunt that might be exhib- describing herself as, “a fat Royal BC Museum ited not just because of the white 67-year-old cisgen- of four masks and historical qualities the item der lesbian with disabilities, a 200-year-old box represents; rather, the stories raised Christian and working that belonged to about the wearer are equally, class, the eldest of five, in Re- her grandfather. if not more important. gina,” found family in the gay “To preserve the dress and community. “We dykes used record its tales and anecdotes to offer each other the com- is to give us a very different mon wisdom: watch out for and very rich history, not so weddings and funerals. Places much of hemlines, but of the where family formations mat- things the legs beneath the ter.” This closeness was in hemlines got up to.” contrast to one of Findlay’s Lohman adds that when sisters who, when asked about donors to the museum de- the appointed guardian of her scribe what is important about only daughter, replied she had the object they are giving, chosen a neighbour—whom the record shows, “Not that she saw only occasionally— the object was so valuable in rather than Barbara and her price that it became an heir- lesbian partner. “When I ques- loom, but that it was valued tioned her choice she said she because humans cherished would never let her daughter it and wanted to preserve the be raised by us.” memories attached to it.” Other stories include au- ✫ thor Joy Kogawa’s account COAST SALISH ARTIST LUKE MAR- of her kinship to a cherry tree; ston describes his ancestors, Patrick Lane’s elegiac poem to especially his great-great- fathers and sons; and rancher grandfather Portuguese Joe and Lieutenant Governor of Silvey, a whaler, a Gastown B.C. Judith Guichon’s de- saloon keeper and the first scription of families changing person in B.C. to get a seine over time but how the love of PHOTO fishing license. the land unites them all. Portuguese Joe had trav- 9780772670526 SHERSTONE elled from the Azores of Portu- gal to Vancouver and married Beverly Cramp is associate SEAN twice to First Nations women. editor of BC BookWorld Unveiling Luke Marston’s bronze monument to Portuguese Joe Silvey, Stanley Park, 2015. 32 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 RELIGION Gimme that old time atheism The less people pray, the more churches get repurposed. RITISH COLUMBIA IS LESS limitations of organized Christianity religious than other in often godless B.C. for Infidels and provinces. Or, if the Damn Churches: Irreligion and you prefer, it is Religion in Settler British Colum- more irreligious. bia (UBC Press $95). In this study B For many citizens, of secularism, she asserts class and irreligion has been racial tensions fueled irreligion in a blessing in disguise. settler B.C. Since the 1980s, for instance, many “I tend to say I am studying irre- B.C. churches have been deconse- ligion, rather than secularism,” says crated, sold, and “repurposed” as art Marks, “because many of the people— galleries, museums, performance halls, mostly men—I refer to in the book can restaurants, and even pot shops. be defined as irreligious, but most are In The Secular Northwest: Reli- not entirely secular.” gion and Irreligion in Everyday The wide-ranging content includes Postwar Life (UBC Press $32.95), a spiritualist picnic in Victoria, a Tina Block offers a relatively un- Chinese temple, a well-known common analysis of secularism atheist journalist in the Koo- in postwar B.C. from the 1950s tenays named Lowery and to the 1970s. a prospector interviewed by Block also draws on forty CBC’s Imbert Orchard in the interviews that she conduct- 1960s named Jimmy White. ed in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Essentially, the further west Seattle, Olympia, and Port people came, the more they felt “I quit altogether. I never Angeles with individuals disinclined to honour the went inside none of the across, and even off, institutionalized val- the secularism spec- ues of eastern North damn churches after I get trum. America and Eu- ✫ Tina Block, rope. associate professor, Infidels: away from the East.” UVIC HISTORY PROF Thompson Rivers 978-0-7748-3344-8; Lynne Marks has University. Secular Northwest: Jimmy White, panning on the Wild Horse River, Fort Steele. also examined the 9780774831291 FOREWORD BY ELIZABETH MAY WHALE IN THE DOOR ĆĈĔĒĒĚēĎęĞĚēĎęĊĘęĔĕėĔęĊĈę ǯĘ ĔĜĊĔĚēĉ ĆĚđĎēĊĊĊđ …an account of the idealized lookout lifestyle made popular by Jack Kerouac LILY CHOW FERNIE AT WAR On all violet 1914-1919 Mockingbird Hill Rani Rivera poems BLOSSOMS Stories from IN THE GOLD the Fire Lookout MOUNTAINS CHINESE SETTLEMENTS IN THE FRASER CANYON-JMZ$IPX AND THE OKANAGAN WAYNE NORTON Mary Theresa Kelly 33 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 MEMOIR eventually embracing the West Coast with her older “mentor, collaborator lifestyle of Buddhism, Hinduism, medi- and best friend” included the Camino tation and massage, and together they de Santiago de Compostela in northern Talking the walk founded the Integrated Health Centre. Spain and the 88 Temples in Japan. His increasingly alternative beliefs and They had four marriage ceremonies Once upon a time there were peaceniks. practices led him to a deep and endur- around the world in 2010 prior to his ing marriage to Linda Ward, a doctor death on March 18, 2011 when she ETWEEN 1986 AND 2011, Youngs sometimes gained media at- of Traditional Chinese Medicine. They was 45. the aptly named tention while sharing his own stories stayed together until her death in 2007. Having walked “all the city streets Derek Walker of love and learning with people; but Thereafter, in his 60s, Youngs of Vancouver,” Carolyn Affleck Youngs Youngs devoted mostly he was solo and unheralded. walked with, and eventually married, has plans to walk across the country B much of his life First wed at age twenty in 1963 and Carolyn Affleck, a photographer who one day, as well as the length of Britain, to peace, leading separated in the early 1970s, he met has lovingly completed his collection of from John O’Groats to Land’s End. to his posthumous a yoga and Reiki teacher, Lani Kaito, stories and ideas. Her own pilgrimages 978-1-77302-273-4 book, Walking to Japan: A Memoir (Tellwell Talent $17.95), completed and co-written by his widow and co-walker “I’ve never enjoyed playing by others’ rules— Carolyn Affleck Youngs. Derek Walker Youngs was born religious rules, societal rules, political rules. in England on June 16, 1940, dur- They seem arbitrary and designed to stop people ing a World War II air raid. At age 45 Youngs participated in the 1986 Great from thinking for themselves, so I have had to Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament navigate through everyone else’s versions of across the U.S.A.—a naive but deter- mined, nine-month commitment to what’s right and my own way.” walk almost 6,000 kilometres from Los —Derek Walker Youngs Angeles to Washington D.C. to spread the message of global disarmament and a ban on nuclear weapons. He sub- sequently founded the Peace Walker Society, eventually walking more than 25,000 kilometres in 25 countries. Like the classic Fool in the Tarot pack, the Galiano Island-based healer (who later lived on the Sunshine Coast and in Victoria), walked “in trust and faith,” usually not knowing where he would sleep or find his next meal. He succeeded in walking across Canada in two stages, in 1988-1989, dur- ing which time he added the middle name Walker, as suggested by friends. “Judith Plant takes The Receiver us on a journey Sharon Thesen we’re not likely to forget. “The body is the receiver of all Her candour and bold that is; poetic imagination the questions deepen transmitter of the world.” our own search for Sharon Thesen is a three-time Governor relevance in a radically General’s Award finalist; this is her thirteenth book of poetry, and the first changing world.” since Oyama Pink Shale (2011). — Joanna Macy, author of Widening Circles: A Memoir Anarchy Explained CultureCulture GapGap to My Father TOWARDS A NEW WORLD IN THE YALAKOM VALLEY Francis Dupuis-Déri Judith Plant & Thomas Déri Through dialogue with his father, a Judith Plant’s memoir of the fleeting achievements and many radical anarchist university professor uncommon good times of Camelsfoot, a philosophical com- shares the history, theory, and deeply mune out back of beyond, glows with wisdom, complexity, humanistic and peaceful ideals of the and compassion. A noble read. revolutionary mode of thought that —Stephanie Mills, author of Epicurean Simplicity Louise Michel described as “Order and In Service of the Wild through harmony.” new star books incendiary poetry & prose since 1974 newstarbooks.com | [email protected] | @newstarbooks 34 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 MEMOIR “Ron Norman brings an insider’s eye and a skillful hand to the always quirky netherworld of BC politics.” — , two-time winner of the stephen leacock memorial medal for humour Tidings of “Slouching Towards Innocence discomfort & Joy commences at a rip-roaring pace and maintains it BY PATRICIA E . ROY As a scientist he carefully recorded the throughout. When progress of radiation disease and the HE LIBRARIAN WHO PRO- treatments applied, but still wrote that it comes to British vided the Cata- atomic energy could also be used for Columbia politics, loguing in Publi- the betterment of humanity. That leads is cation information to Kogawa’s debates with her friends, the consummate T gave Joy Koga- the anti-nuclear power sociologist insider—and it wa’s Gently to Metta Spencer and the physicist Erich Nagasaki: A Spiri- Voght who supported the peaceful use shows. This sharply- tual Pilgrimage, an Exploration Both of nuclear energy. observed novel Communal and Intensely Personal The book then jumps back to Japan, radiates authenticity (Caitlin Press $24.95) a call number to Kyoto. While there, accompanying her on each and every in the 800s in Dewey Decimal system. adored and elderly father who was on a That would shelve it with literature. speaking tour, Kogawa finally confronted page. Fans of Yes, Prime Given Kogawa’s fine reputation as a him with what she had long known, that Minister and House of writer of fiction and as a poet, this is an although “a visionary and charismatic Cards will especially understandable choice especially since priest,” he was a paedophile. Telling respond to a singular some of the prose reads like poetry and him, and later telling the world through comic vision that’s both Kogawa explains how she created the her writing, provided her with a release, isbn: 978-1-988098-37-1 | $19.95 characters in her much-praised novel, a mercy. Nevertheless, even after his satirical and deeply human.” Obasan (1981), her subsequent reflec- death she continued to wonder “how my — , tions on its messages, and the origins blithe light-hearted father could be the books and arts writer, of her novel, The Rain Ascends (1995). epitome of evil.” victoria times colonist This book, however, is much more Kogawa’s memoir also reveals ten- than a literary exegesis. Many other sions within the Japanese Canadian call numbers are plausible. A case community as some would not forgive could be made for putting it in the 100s her father and opposed the turning of for it deals with the the family’s pre-war now or never publishing psychological effects home in Vancouver’s nonpublishing.com of having a paedo- Marpole district into phile as a father. It an artists’ residence could sit in the 200s since it would also, in- beside other books directly, honour him. about religion for the Kogawa was not book has Biblical al- the only descendant lusions, references to to be troubled by the Christian feast days, actions of an ances- and a discussion of is- tor. Two granddaugh- sues within the Angli- ters of Howard Green, can Church in which one of the B.C. Mem- Kogawa’s father was bers of Parliament an ordained minister. who called for the Another possibil- Joy Kogawa’ removal of the Japa- ity would be the 300s nese Canadians from since there is much about Japanese the province, came to Kogawa when Canadians, particularly during the members of the Japanese Canadian time of their forced removal from the community successfully campaigned coast in 1942, the loss of their prop- against naming a new federal building erty, and the aftermath. As Kogawa ex- in Vancouver after Green. presses it, “We were tossed as pearls in Kogawa was shocked to discover a broken necklace and as scraps for the that her friend Stuart Philpott was the dogs of labour, a few here, a few there, son of Elmore Philpott, a Vancouver over the vast Canadian landscape.” journalist who, in 1942, also wanted One could even consider putting the Japanese removed from the coast. the book in the 500 or 600s, where its Despite the efforts of Green’s grand- discussions of atomic energy could be daughters to point out his many related to medicine or technology. Had virtues, and of Philpott to explain the I been the cataloguer, I would have as- context of the time in which his father signed 921 to it, the number for auto- wrote, Kogawa could not extend mercy biography for, though episodic and in- until the descendants admitted that complete, this is very much a memoir. their ancestors were racists. The subtitle accurately describes the Kogawa and her brother publicly subject and theme. Running through admitted the “heinous sexual attacks” the book, beginning with the prelude, of their father, but the rage against is the theme of Mercy. him continued and Kogawa remained Why Nagasaki? Nagasaki was the “the daughter of a paedophile.” Yet, in second Japanese city to suffer from a closing poem, Kogawa suggests the the atomic bomb. Ironically, as Kogawa Goddess of Mercy listens. emphasizes, it was “the pre-eminent Gently to Nagasaki is an intensely spot of Christendom in East Asia,” yet personal story and a tantalizing one. Christians dropped the bomb. “Some- One hopes that Joy Kogawa will write where in Nagasaki in August [1945], is a full autobiography that will clearly be God seeking mercy from us.” catalogued as a “921.” 978-1-987915-15-0 While she had no direct connec- tion with the city until a visit in 2010, Patricia E. Roy is professor emeritus earlier she had been impressed by the of history at UVic. Her latest book is story of Dr. Takashi Nagai, a Christian Boundless Optimism: Richard Mc- radiologist who, though injured and Bride’s British Columbia (UBC Press, ailing, tended to victims of the bomb. 2012). 35 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 since 1990 FRESH from the FORGE! [email protected] | www.anvilpress.com SUSTENANCE: Writers from BC and Beyond on RECENT RELEASES: the Subject of Food edited and with a Foreword by Rachel Rose THREE PLEASURES by Terry Watada Sustenance: Writers from BC and Beyond on the Subject of Food brings to the table some of Canada’s best contemporary writers, celebrating all that is unique about The Three Pleasures is an intimate and passionate novel Vancouver’s literary and culinary scene. Sustenance is also a community response concerning an unsightly and painful period in Canada’s to the needs of new arrivals or low-income families in our city. Writers will be history. donating their honoraria to the Farmers Market Nutrition Coupon Program. “Terry Watada’s literary tour de force, The Three Pleasures, $25 | 256 pgs. | 978-1-77214-101-6 | Poetry/Essay | October lifts the Japanese Canadian internment experience beyond passive victimization by giving life to a host of historical THE LEAST YOU CAN DO IS BE MAGNIFICENT: figures—heroes, villains and tragic characters—in a Selected and New Writings fascinating yet little-known resistance movement within the camps. An absolute page-turner and worthy read.” by Steve Venright | Compiled & with an Afterword by Alessandro Porco —Jim Wong-Chu, Director, literASIAN Festival The Least You Can Do Is Be Magnificent: Selected & New Writings is a generous gather- $24 | 332 pgs. | 978-1-77214-095-8 | Novel | Available Now! ing of Venright’s most enduring and extraordinary poems. LONG RIDE YELLOW “Steve Venright’s work is, in turns, luminous, passionate, surreal, and absurd. ... by Martin West His writing sandblasts our needless veneers and reveals something more authentic The debut novel from the author of Cretacea & Other Stories — something, ultimately, more human.” — Stevie Howell, author of Sharps from the Badlands, Long Ride Yellow explores the limits of “This beautiful, inviting book is immensely readable and brimful with a totally sexual desire. Nonni is a dominatrix who likes to push the unique, liberated humour.” — Gregory Betts, author of Avant-Garde Canadian boundaries; she is also easily bored. Her disdain for all that Literature: The Early Manifestations is conventional and “vanilla” launches her on a journey of $20 | 192 pages | 978-1-77214-102-3 | Poetry | November personal discovery. $20 | 256 pgs. | 978-1-77214-094-1 | Novel | Available Now! ATTACK OF THE LONELY HEARTS YOU ARE NOT NEEDED NOW by Mark Wagstaff by Annette Lapointe th winner of the 39 annual 3-day novel writing contest You Are Not Needed Now is a brilliant new collection of In Attack of the Lonely Hearts, each character is broken in their own forlorn way. stories from Giller-nominated author Annette Lapointe. A master of the dark and witty one-liner, Wagstaff manages to spin a hilarious Often set within the small towns of the Canadian prairies, and off-kilter story about what can happen when lonely hearts discover they’re the stories in You Are Not Needed Now dissect and examine attached to even lonelier bodies. the illusion of appearances, the myth of normalcy, and the allure of artifice. $16 | 112 pgs. | 978-1-77214-103-0 | Novel | September $20 | 232 pgs. | 978-1-77214-093-4 | Stories | Available Now! 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V8T 1A3 (just off Cook Street) • Tel: 1-250-384-0905 $20 Hand sorted for premium quality • Full selection of exotic teas • B.C. honey and Belgian chocolates • Mail orders welcome $20 $18 ISBN: 9781926763439 ISBN: 9781926763385 ISBN: 9781926763415 ISBN: 9781926763378 www.yokascoffee.com WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA ★ WWW.LIBROSLIBERTAD.CA 36 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 LET DOWN YOUR HAIR: PRIZES A SPECULATIVE WRITING CONTEST $1000 GRAND DEADLINE: Jordan Abel wins Griffin PRIZE 11/20/2017 He is fully aware his books are not easily accessible. F YOU’RE INTO POETRY, THE described as a Nisga’a conceptual big news this side writer. He reportedly did not come of the Rockies is into human contact with other Nisga’a that 320 guests people until age twenty-two. watched Ontar- It has been suggested that Abel’s io-raised Jordan books are meant to be analysed as EVENTMAGAZINE.CA I Abel of Vancouver, much as, or more than, enjoyed. He win the Canadian Grif- is fully aware his books are not easily fin Prize in June for Injun (Talonbooks). accessible. And he got to take Abel holds a home... 65 grand. B.A. from the Uni- he heard snatches of comment It’s not a typo. versity of Alberta There were 617 going up from the river bank and an M.F.A. submissions over- from UBC. While all this year from all them injuns is people first completing his 39 countries for and besides for this buckskin Ph.D. at SFU, his two categories (in- studies have fo- ternational and why we even shoot at them cussed on “digital Canadian). humanities” and and seems like a sign of warm Abel’s third indigenous poet- book of poetry, In- dead as a horse friendship ics. jun, has been de- Abel’s first and time to pedal their eyes scribed in Griffin book, The Place Prize materials as to lean out and say the truth3 of Scraps (Talon- a long poem about books, 2013), won race and racism all you injuns is just white keys the Dorothy Live- which “destabi- say Poetry Prize. —from Injun by Jordan Abel lizes the colonial It was followed image of the In- by Un/inhabited dian, both in the public domain and (Talonbooks/Project Space Press) in the western genre as a whole.” 2014. “By narrowing the web search to the CBC Books named Abel one of 12 word Injun as it appears in the 10,000- Young Writers to Watch in 2015. page source text of pulp westerns, For The Place of Scraps, Abel re- and by re-appropriating the ‘erasure’ visited and re-examined the role of imposed by settler colonialism, Abel early-twentieth century ethnographer reclaims erasure, and pastiche to Marius Barbeau whose Pacific North- chisel a path through west studies included Abel’s ancestral privileged, colonial Nisga’a Nation. histories...” For Abel’s second poetry project, ✫ Un/inhabited, he constructed the JORDAN ABEL WRITES book’s source text by compiling 91 on issues for complete western novels found on the Indigenous peo- website Project Gutenberg, an archive ples, both con- of public domain works. temporary and Using the Ctrl-F function, he then historical. searched the document in its totality The son of a ‘set- for words that related to the political tler’ mother, he and social aspects of land, terri- has been tory and ownership. Each search query represented a study in context. This collection included a text by independent curator Kathleen Rit- ter—the first piece of scholarship on Abel’s work. About Un/inhab- ited, Abel told the Over 5000 copies sold! podcast Can’t Lit, “It is an unreadable Now into its fourth printing, The Salmon Recipes doesn’t book, for sure… I give a political argument—it gives an experience. don’t think that it demands you It was created by a hundred people who mirror their coastal read all of it,” he communities; about half First Nations people, fishermen, said, “… I’m al- artists, longshoremen, mothers, teachers, leaders… ways surprised that people try to Visually through their photos, sensually through family read it from front recipes, and emotionally through their stories these to back.” volunteers recreate the deep pleasure and nourishment born from connection to the ocean. Former editor of PRISM international $23.99 • ISBN 0-9917090-044 and Geist, Distributed by Heritage Group Distribution in Canada and New Society Jordan Abel is Publishing in the USA. It can be found in little gift shops, museums and book on the editorial stores along the coast from Puget Sound through Vancouver Island, board of Poetry is Sunshine Coast, Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii and up into Alaska. Dead magazine. 37 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 SUMMER New from University of Toronto Press Canada’s Odyssey A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests by Peter H. Russell In Canada’s Odyssey, renowned scholar Peter H. Russell provides an expansive, accessible account of Canadian history from the pre- Confederation period to the present day. Otters at Savary Island dock. Linocut by Gary Sim, The Summer Book Not everyone goes brain-dead in the heat Something’s Got to Give Balancing Work, Childcare and Eldercare Editor Mona Fertig has gathered by Linda Duxbury and Christopher Higgins poignant summer stories, all previously Something’s Got to Give provides practical advice to managers and policy-makers about unpublished, from B.C. writers. how to mitigate the effects of employee work- life conflict, retain talent, and improve employee BY HOWARD STEWART Not all recollections are happy ones, engagement and productivity. especially if, like Des Kennedy, you DITOR MONA FERTIG were a redhead prone to sunburn or has put together stuck in torrid urban stews like Toronto a masterpiece col- or New York City. lection of finely Or if, like Jane Eaton Hamilton’s E crafted and evoca- young friend at the lake, you just tive reminders of couldn’t shake that nagging fear of why summer is such bull sharks. a special season in The Summer Book: Some summer experiences, like Making a Global City A Treasury of Warm Tales, Timeless Claudia Cornwall’s canoe journey How One Toronto School Embraced Diversity Memories and Meditations on Nature around Desolation Sound, are powerful by Robert Vipond by 24 BC writers (Mother Tongue Pub- and deliberate antidotes to other things Making a Global City celebrates one of the lishing $24.95). Fertig describes The that we need to put behind us. world’s most multicultural cities and shows Summer Book as “my counterweight, The charming artwork of Peter how education plays a vital role in shaping and a small feather on the scale against Haase, Briony Penn, and Gary Sim integrating immigrants in liberal democracies. the madness and angst in the world.” interspersed among the writing is also But it’s not all sweetness and light. a valuable complement to it—though I I had to put The Summer Book down at would have liked to see the colours in times, not because of the quality of the Penn’s glorious watercolours. writing, which was mostly exceptional, These stories, linocuts and water- but because of emotions stirred by the colours—all produced and edited with authors’ poignant ruminations on their consummate care—are for reading summers. in the hammock in the summer and The contributors have found so leaving on the bedside table when the many ways to get inside the intensity winter rains return. 978-1-896949-61-1 An Exceptional Law of feelings and memories of the glorious Section 98 and the Emergency State, 1919-1936 high sun months when we finally get Denman Island’s Howard Stewart’s by Dennis G.Molinaro an opportunity to slow down enough to forthcoming book is “Views of the Sal- An Exceptional Law highlights how the emergency notice the ravens and eagles, the bees ish Sea: One Hundred and Fifty Years law used to repress labour activism during the First and dragonflies, the frogs and alligator of Change around the Strait of Georgia” World War became normalized with the creation lizards, etc. (Harbour Publishing). of Section 98 of the Criminal Code, following the Winnipeg General Strike. utppublishing.com Des Kennedy, Hornby Island 38 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 BIOGRAPHY Media Whore: A Shockingly Simple Guide to Becoming Your Own Kick-Ass Publicist A new Rielty by Daniel Shehori with Steven Shehori • “The Shehori’s have the innate ability to understand “The ideals that Louis Riel fought for—ideals of what it takes to promote, produce and develop a ca- inclusiveness and equality—are now the very same values on which we base our country’s identity.” reer in the entertainment biz.” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 2016 — Andrew Alexander, CEO The Second City N RECEIVING THE GEORGE Gabriel Dumont • “Now the secret is out. Dan- Ryga Award for and Louis Riel’s he- iel tells all in this book and I Social Awareness roic struggle to bring can assure you it’s worth its this year for Ab- democracy and har- promotional weight in gold to mony back to our O original Rights buy a copy.” Claims and the Northwest.” Making and Remak- ✫ — Richard Ouzounian, Writer, ing of History (McGill-Queen’s), Indige- THE MÉTIS IN WHAT director and quarter-century nous land claims expert Arthur J. Ray, David Doyle is now viewed as veteran of CBC, TVO, Variety noted that Canada has been exceptional Manitoba had had and The Toronto Star among so-called modern nations by ac- their own system of Indigenous govern- cording official recognition to its Métis ment in 1872 before it was crushed by • “Daniel knows the right media population as a distinct people. the administration of Prime Minister outlets to get the best expo- The real and mythological status of John A. MacDonald, making way for sure for what you are trying to Métis leader Louis Riel, the foremost CPR expansion. promote. He’s my go to guy.” Over the past thirty-plus years, Robin Hood figure in Canadian history, — Jay “Christian” Reso, Two time WWE World is partly why this is so. Doyle, secretary of the Friends of Louis After battles with government Riel Society, has helped to uncover and Champion troops, Louis Riel was tried for treason collect important evidence that has $19.95 | Paperback | 144 pages in Regina and hanged—but he’s still surfaced since Riel’s controversial trial revered as a folk hero. and execution. Every schoolchild should learn Now Doyle is off on a book tour to The GiveBack Economy: Social Responsibility about him; and yet most Canadians Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Ham- Practices for Business and Nonprofit know precious little. That’s why David ilton prior to returning to Regina and Doyle has spent decades as a public Winnipeg in October to mark the 50th by Peter Miller & Carla Langhorst advocate for Riel’s reputation, resulting anniversary of John Coulter’s play The in Louis Riel: Let Justice Be Done Trial of Louis Riel. • 64% of customers prefer to (Ronsdale $24.95). On Louis Riel Day (February 20, buy from socially responsible In July, David Doyle performed in 2018), the Friends of Louis Riel Society John Coulter’s play The Trial of Louis will hold a national commemorative companies, this represents a Riel in Regina, then he went to Bato- calling for exoneration and recognition huge opportunity! che, Saskatchewan, to present his own of Riel as Canada’s Indigenous (Métis) • Social Innovation, Social creative monologue “An Inquiry into the Father of Confederation. Enterprise, and Social Respon- Career of Louis Riel.” It has taken more than a century Louis Riel requested that an inquiry since Louis Riel was executed for this sibility apply to small, medium should occur during his trial for high nation to begin to widely accept what and large businesses and this treason. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sector is growing. A former First Nations school prin- has stated (above). • Learn the ropes of social cipal and Canadian Plains Research 978-1-55380-496-3 Fellow, David Doyle has answered ✫ enterprise and understand Louis Riel’s request and provided Riel MICHAEL BARNHOLDEN’S DISCOVERY the social impact & benefit on the opportunity to defend himself of a previously unknown business in this new economy. in this imagined re-enactment of text by Louis Riel—a poem the trial. written in the Regina jail $22.95 | Paperback | 176 pages Riel, the main political just before his execu- spokesperson for Canada’s tion—has led to Flat Wil- Métis nation in 1885 had no low Creek: The Poems Declutter Your Data: Take Charge of Your Data way to defend himself and of Louis Riel, 1878–1883 and Organize Your Digital Life the cause of his Métis people (Talon $19.95) which in- by Angela Crocker before a handpicked magistrate cludes the 481-line epic and six Anglo-Canadian jurors. “To Sir John A.” and other Riel even had to defend him- poems written when Riel • Almost everyone today has self from his own lawyers whose lived the traditional life of some degree of excess data defence was “not guilty by reason a Métis buffalo hunter and (emails, files, databases, of insanity.” developed his concept of a photos, music library). On August 1, 1885, Louis Riel “New Nation” for the Métis was found guilty of high treason p e o p l e . 9781772011760 • If you’ve got data overload, and sentenced to hang by the ✫ you need a digital cleanse - neck until dead. SONG OF BATOCHE BY MAIA CARON this book will show you how. Upon being sentenced, Riel (Ronsdale $18.95) is an his- • Save time, increase efficiency, decried his trial and pleaded for torical novel that reimagines an Inquiry into the Career of Louis the North-West resistance and have a happier relation- Riel. of 1885 through the ship with your information. He died wait- experiences of • Learn the strategies and tech- ing and praying the Métis wom- niques to take back control of for his inquiry so, en of Batoche. your digital life! in Doyle’s book, 978-1-55380-499-4 Riel is allowed to speak in his own Louis Riel by $14.95 | Paperback + Download Kit | 144 pages defence. Miguel Joyal “My new book (1996), Mani- reveals the im- toba legisla- moral and ille- tive building www.self-counsel.com gal tactics of the Canadian gov- 1-800-663-3007 ernment,” says David Doyle, “and 39 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 THE ORMSBY REVIEW Message From The Fuller (#59), and the architecture of Victoria (#74). Ormsby Editor’s Desk. Works in women’s history and gen- BY RICHARD MACKIE der studies include women’s political activism since 1945 (#91), an anthology T HAS BEEN A YEAR SINCE I of writing from Room Magazine (#130), took my RRR (Rich- the changing conceptions of fatherhood ard’s Rolodex of between 1971 and 2015 (#104), intra- Reviewers) and gender identities (#99), and biographies parted company of twelve women (mentioned elsewhere I with BC Studies to here). launch The Ormsby With the four-year rolling window of Review. the Great War centennial of 1914-1918, I started soliciting and editing re- we have featured stories on the lives views within hours of agreeing to Alan of two soldiers, Richard Grant (#127) Twigg’s plan to more than double the and John Nash (#39), books on the number of serious book reviews in B.C. impact of the war on border Canada- The response to our pilot project U.S. relations (#143), on the wartime has been immensely gratifying. We’ve experiences of men and women from reviewed books from every major B.C. Langley (#105), and on the Yukon in publisher as well as many smaller B.C. the Great War (#149). presses, plus publishers in the rest of Books with contemporary relevance Canada. include Canada’s media collapse (#66), In eleven months, we’ve published the sinking of the Queen of the North 101 book reviews and 19 essays, with (#84), the debate on marijuana (#142), 64 more reviews in progress. forest sustainability (#69), the global We even published a book: Alice climate crisis (#102), and the Site C Ravenhill: Never Say Die, by Mary Dam (#85). Leah de Zwart, a 50,000-word biog- We’ve also reviewed books about raphy of Alice Ravenhill (1859-1954), the North West Company (#73), the the Anglo-Canadian Indigenous rights British Empire and Commonwealth activist, in our fledgling The Ormsby Games of 1954 (#88), the Columbia Review Press (ORP). River Treaty (#122), Expo 67 (#133), not Our 184 contributors live in every to mention books about marine birds region of the province from Fort St. (#125), a killer whale (#26), salmon John and Fort Langley to Cranbrook and estuaries (#113), utopias (#139), and Williams Lake, to Nanaimo and Na- dystopias (#132), climbing in the Rocky noose Bay and to the smaller towns and Mountains (#58), the plucky struggles islands of the B.C. coast, including Bella of Pacific Theatre (#148), the poetry Coola, Cobble Hill, Salt Spring, Den- of Naomi Wakan (#136), the fiction man, Hornby, Galiano, and Gabriola. The Gang of 184 of Eden Robinson (#138), and young The books we review reflect a broad The Gang of 184 adult books by Darren Groth (#120) range of provincial interests. If you visit and Nikki Tate (#133). The Ormsby Review page on BCBook- The Ormsby Review is now the province’s ✫ Look.com, you’ll find: leading oracle for serious book reviews. MY WORK OVER FORTY YEARS AS AN We have reviewed local, regional, archaeologist, historian, geographer, and community histories of Protection and teacher of writing has led me to Island (#31), Tod Inlet (#36), Courtenay Richard Mackie at work at the Prado Café, Commercial Drive, Vancouver many corners of B.C. where I made (#33), North Vancouver (#107), Squa- friends and contacts whose time and mish (#72), Chilliwack Lake (#144), Louis Oppenheim (#42), Wolfgang and depopulation (#103, #106), and In- good will I have leaned on in my ca- Nelson (#77), the Liard Basin (#60), the Paalen (#95), George Skippon (#123), digenous self-government (#72). Books pacity as editor. Alan Twigg’s network Chilcotin (#94 & #151), and the B.C. and Aloha Wanderwell (#35). concerning Métis identity include those of contacts is also deep and province- grasslands (#79), as well as books on Our many Indigenous topics include by Gerry St. Germain (#62) and Cath- wide. We are enormously grateful to Chinese immigration and settlement ethnographies of the Dane-zaa (#20), erine Richardson (Kinewesquao) (#96). everyone who has helped TOR (as we to B.C. (#109) and the long-term im- WSÁNEĆ (Saanich) (#135), and Git Artists covered include Emily Carr sometimes call it) launch our avalanche pact of the removal and internment of lax m’oon (Kitkatla or Gitxaala) (#92) (#95), Mary Filer (#54), Pnina Granirer of support for books by, from and about Japanese-Canadians in 1942 (#140). peoples; biographies of Indigenous (#145), Fenwick Lansdowne (#81) El- British Columbians—without a drop of Biographies include those of Mike leaders Noel Annance (#141), Mazie len Neel (Ka’kasolas) (#117), Wolfgang public funding. Agostini (#24), John Bowen-Colthurst Baker (#72), Ellen Neel (Ka’kasolas) Paalen (#95), Bill Reid (#110), and We are thankful in particular to (#63), Cornelius Burke (#21), Emily (#117), Nukwa (Hannah) Oshamôt Jeffrey Rubinoff (#129). Photography Gwen Bird (SFU Library), Graduate Carr (#95), Nellie Cashman (#118), Oppenheim (#42), Bev Sellars (#38), is represented by Wade Davis (#’s 51 Liberal Studies program (SFU) and Ujjal Dosanjh (#47), Mary Filer (#54), Charlie Yahey (#20), as well as books & 80), Greg Girard (#137), and Fred Yosef Wosk. The future is bright if our Pnina Granirer (#145), James Legge on the Truth & Reconciliation Commis- Herzog (#128). Architectural history is hard-won progress receives provincial (#134), Donna Macdonald (#77), Althea sion (#46), Indigenous health care and represented by works on Vancouver’s support for staffing and a stand-alone Moody (#29), Harvey Murphy (#19), genocide (#114), smallpox epidemics Art Deco (#119), the architect Thomas website. CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Seven prize categories for fiction, poetry, children’s, illustrated, non-fiction, regional, and booksellers’ choice. Submission deadline is December 1, 2017. 34th annual April 2018 Nominations are also open for the lifetime achievement award, The Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. Submission deadline is January 31, 2018. For submission details visit www.bcbookprizes.ca 40 BC BOOKWORLD AUTUMN 2017 BOOKSELLERS • EVENTS An Independent Bookstore in Vancouver for 46 years! DIE WISE MAKING MEANING STEPHEN JENKINSON SAT, NOV 18 I 10AM-4PM at UBC ASIAN CENTRE Tickets & info: banyen.com 3608 West 4th Ave. Vancouver, BC 604-732-7912 banyen.com First Nations Libraries Ltd. We have a huge inventory of FIRST NATIONS titles, plus Advertise your bookstore, virtually every local history written in B.C. events, author readings, special sales, and online deals in BC BookWorld and Vancouver This business is now FOR SALE. Rare Book, The major focus of this business is to reach 100,000 readers. provide books and archival materials to Photograph & Western Canadian First Nations and • university, college and regional Paper Show libraries as well as the public. [email protected] Please visit me at 1818 Quebec St. (by appointment only), October 7 & 8, 2017 Vancouver, near Main, 604-736-4011 near the Olympic Village. Heritage Hall Text or email for an appointment (15th & Main, Vancouver) [email protected] Details: vrbppshow.ca community-minded but globally connected We are proud to be nominated for a Libris award for Bookseller of the Year! O penOpen year-round year-round with with over over 25,00025,000 titles titles plus plus great a great selection selection of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. of Canadian authors, used books, art supplies, and gifts. 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(Luhombero, Tanzania) Vancouver BC PLEASE ACCEPT MY SMALL DONATION TO Inexpressible maintain Luhombero brothers and Subscribe to BOOKWORLD sisters in East Africa. I CAN’T TELL YOU HOW HONOURED AND I visited East Africa with my brother To receive the next 4 issues by mail, surprised I was to open BC BookWorld when we were both in our teens. My send a cheque for $25 to: and see Joan Givner’s full-page review father was helping to set up a cancer BC BookWorld Subscriptions, of my book. It was beyond my expecta- clinic in Nairobi, Kenya. We travelled 3516 West 13th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V6R 2S3 tions! I don’t know how I can ever thank around Kenya and Tanzania. The pano- or pay via PayPal • www.bcbookworld.com you for this. ply of stars, grace of giraffes, magnifi- Pnina Granirer cence of elephants, astonishing array Vancouver of beautiful birds, and the connection Name...... with people made it a singularly memo- Apt / Box#...... Moved to action rable experience. Daphne Osaba Street...... I WAS SO MOVED BY THE PHOTOGRAPH Vancouver and article about Luhombero in the City...... Summer issue of BC BookWorld that Send letters/emails to: BC BookWorld, Prov...... Postal Code...... I mailed a cheque for $100 this after- 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R noon to you. Thank you for connecting 2S3 or [email protected]. Letters may such a worthy and do-able cause to the be edited for clarity & length. 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