FREE YOUR GUIDE TO BOOKS & AUTHORS DISTRIBUTED BY 700 OUTLETS IN BC Gardeners Eliza Gooderham and Peter Slevin in the Slocan Valley.. BCBOOKWORLD Mark Forsythe looks at home gardeners in THETHE WILDWILD GREENGREEN YONDERYONDERsee page 4 FIND MORE THAN Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 8500 JANE RULE B.C. AUTHORS www.abcbookworld.com SEE P. 21PULL-OUT VOL. 22 • NO. 1 SPRING 2008 HOCKEY MANIFESTO P. 11 • BILL DEVERELL P. 29 COVER ccording to the Grocery tures, salves and creams. She “feels sorry for children who never get to experience A Manufacturers of America, working with the earth.” some 70% of U.S. food already And if she could grow only one GM NO LONGER flower, it would be Calendula. “It is ed- contained genetically modified ible, medicinal, and incredibly hardy, and is the last flower to keep blooming traits by 2000. in the late fall.” ✍ Approximately 60% of the main U.S. crop—corn—is now genetically modi- Brenda Elder and her husband MEANS A CAR Gail, were transplants from Surrey drawn fied, and it’s mainly derived from pat- ented genes owned by one company, to the Slocan in search of self-sufficiency Monsanto. in 1972. This proved more daunting than Approximately 90% of the second- imagined, and Gail was forced to return biggest crop in the United States these to teaching. Brenda grew organic food days—soy—is genetically modified to be COMPANY for their family, and later developed a herbicide-resistant. Some 90% of that business around organic bedding plants. GM soy contains traits owned by Now each home garden Now retired from teaching, Gail is back Monsanto. in the fields every day, tending 13 varie- “Somehow, a can serve as an outpost for ties of organic potatoes. single corpora- The Elders consider their land part tion has managed safeguarding your health. of a larger ecosystem and, as a result, to use patent law large tracts remain wild for birds, tur- to gain de facto tles, deer and bears. “Naïve young pioneers from England “Those social structures, if one is a control of the na- ✍ and Scotland were lured to the valley by gardener, are inextricably intertwined tion’s two biggest Victoria Carleton and Steve MARK FORSYTHE enticing advertisements: “Grow apples with why, what, where and how we gar- crops,” writes Mounteer landed in the Slocan from and grow rich!” They found uncleared den,” says Gordon, “... that piece of land North Carolina farmer/researcher Tom Ohio and Oregon respectively. She spent land thick with towering trees and mos- that we have chosen to work with (or Philpott in Grist, “and managed to an- almost five years homesteading in the quitoes,” Gordon writes. which, in some cases, has chosen us) will nul the age-old right of seed-saving over Nass Valley in northwestern B.C, dis- Fruit trees abandoned so long ago still in some way influence who we are, our a broad swath of farm country. playing a gardening prowess that won bloom. Some Japanese families interned relationships, and the events in our lives, “Since the U.S. doesn’t require com- her a Harrowsmith gardening contest in in Slocan camps during WW II stayed each and every day.” panies to label GM ingredients, it’s im- 1985. After buying property in 1990, after the war. A wave of American Viet- ✍ possible to know how much of the U.S. they got to work creating their own gar- nam War resisters and Canadian back- The eight gardeners featured in The diet contains genes owned by Monsanto.” dens on forty acres. ✍ to-the-landers (some of whom formed Garden That You Are all come from some- Wilda’s Columbine is from her communes) added another layer of his- where else. Edda West is an immi- The situation is not quite so drastic grandmother’s seeds; and a rose bush tory. Or is that another layer of compost? grant from Estonia, by way of Toronto, in Canada, not yet, but each time some- from a neighbour honours that neigh- whose grandmother “imbued her with one piddles in their garden and grows bour’s deceased daughter. “It’s not just passion for the earth.” She gardens on an organic potato or carrot, it’s like the about a patch of dirt,” says Mounteer, ten riverside acres and plucks plants from little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the “it’s about people, about everyone they the wild, some for medicinal teas, tinc- dike. know and love.” The home garden isn’t merely a ✍ quaint diversion, or a laudable hobby, The Garden That You Are includes or a spiritual oasis. The home garden is sidebars on herbal medicinals, Japanese a battleground for healthy living and in- gardening, permaculture, the humble dependence—and that’s one of the rea- Eliza Gooderham potato (a food that kept the Irish alive for sons Katherine Gordon has and Peter Slevin centuries and became a campaign night- written The Garden That You Are are profiled by mare for Dan Quayle), biodynamics (the (Sono Nis $28.95). Katherine Gordon land as a living whole) and even the ben- The title tumbled out of a conversa- efits of swallow boxes (think mosquitoes). tion she had with her Slocan Valley Gordon also offers tips on tools, build- neighbour Brenda Elder who has ing up the soil and composting; a garden been working the soil and coaxing reading list; and a smattering of recipes. plants along for 30 years. With its mixture of practical advice and “You know, you work with your inspirational personalities, The Garden garden, your land, and what it is That You Are just might kick a few makes the garden and who you non-gardeners out the back door to are,” she said. get a start on some local food pro- ✍ duction of their own, or else make The Slocan Valley in eastern more people want to move to the B.C. is a fertile trough with a mod- Slocan Valley. erate climate and long, warm sum- The photographs by Rod mers. Gordon describes it as “The Currie and Quinton garden hard by heaven.” Gordon capture the Slocan Aboriginal people thrived in this 100- in the sweetest light. All that km-long valley for thousands of years; time spent outdoors serves Europeans arrived in the 1890s with these gardeners well: they’re all dreams of striking it rich in veins of sil- sun-baked, remarkably fit, and ver at places like New Denver, Slocan vibrant, content to be up to City and Sandon (now a ghost town). their elbows in compost. Next came the masters of self-suffi- 1-55039-160-7 ciency, Russian Doukhobors fleeing per- Mark Forsythe is the well-read & secution; then came the British invasion. well-travelled host of CBC Almanac. Publication Mail Agreement #40010086 Contributors: Grant Shilling, Mark Forsythe, Ayla Harker, SPRING Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: BC BookWorld, Joan Givner, Louise Donnelly, Hannah Main-van der Kamp, 2008 3516 W. 13th Ave., Vancouver, BC V6R 2S3 Heather Ramsay, Cherie Thiessen, Shane McCune. Writing not otherwise credited is by staff. Produced with the sponsorship of Pacific BookWorld News We acknowledge Photographers: Barry Peterson, Laura Sawchuk. the assistance of BC Issue, Society. Publications Mail Registration No. 7800. BOOKWORLD Proofreaders: Wendy Atkinson, Betty Twigg. Canada Council and the Vol. 22, No. 1 BC BookWorld ISSN: 1701-5405 Design: Get-to-the-Point Graphics. Deliveries: Ken Reid Province of British Columbia, through the Publisher/ Writer: Alan Twigg Advertising & editorial: BC BookWorld, 3516 W. 13th Ave., Ministry of Community, Vancouver, B.C., V6R 2S3. Tel/Fax: 604-736-4011 • Email: All BC BookWorld reviews are posted online at Aboriginal, and Editor/Production: David Lester available on request. Annual subscription: $19.08 www.abcbookworld.com Women’s Services. 4 BC BOOKWORLD SPRING 2008 TRENDS SPOT THE IMPOSTER: which is real? ELVIS NEVER LEAVES Madonna (1) Madonna (2) THEBUILDING Photographer to the would-be stars, Brian Howell explores the ethos of pathos in Fame Us or a while it looked as if the Niftiest Title of the Year Award was going to go to Eau Canada, a book from UBC Press about Canada’s water supply. Then along came Brian Howell’s cleverly titled Fame Us (Arsenal $21.95), a photo Jack Nicholson (3) Jack Nicholson (4) study of celebrity impersonators. FBrian Howell’s quest to create a photo gallery of look-a-like “tribute artists” was sparked by his unplanned encounter with an Elvis impersonator at a Sunday gospel meeting in the Fraser Valley Bible Belt in 2002. Having previously published One Ring Circus, a photo study of the small-time pro wrestling circuit in the Pacific Northwest, Howell instinctively moved from one fan- tasy world to the next. By the time he attended a real-life wedding between a Shania Twain imper- sonator and an Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabe in 2004, Howell was hooked. Technically, there’s little that is noteworthy about Howell’s pictures. It’s his non- judgemental approach to the subcultures of pro wrestling and showbiz impersonators that makes his work both appealing and beguiling. In his introduction to Fame Us: Celebrity Impersonators and the Cult(ure) of Fame, Stephen Osborne suggests Elvis was the catalyst for the burgeoning of the Hilary Clinton (5) Hilary Clinton (6) look-a-like subculture. “Until the death of Elvis,” he writes, “an impersonator was a deceiver, a con-man or fraud artist (as the newspapers like to say), or a character in a drama; but now impersonators are legitimate entertainers in their own right.” Many of the images in Fame Us are derived from Howell’s attendance at the Celeb- rity Impersonators Convention at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas—where the dealers are celebrity impersonators—as well as a reciprocal annual convention in Florida.