Index
Results (506)
Review
Tsimshian Treasures: The Remarkable Journey of the Dundas Collection
In October 1863, the Reverend Robert J. Dundas of Scotland travelled up the coast from Victoria to Old Metlakatla, near Prince Rupert. There, he acquired seventy-seven “ceremonial objects” from the Anglican evangelical lay minister William...
BC Studies no. 159 Autumn 2008 | Page(s) 150-2
Review
The Cowichan Valley: Duncan, Chemainus, Ladysmtih and Region
We become travellers in our own land when we read Georgina Montgomery’s story and marvel at Kevin Oke’s photographs in The Cowichan Valley. The last word goes to Rick Pipes of Merridale Ciderworks, who comments:...
BC Studies no. 170 Summer 2011 | Page(s) 180-181
Review
The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915
This sophisticated and engaging book has much to offer a number of scholarly areas, including Canadian history, gender studies, and political and legal studies. Working from a massive bedrock of diverse primary materials, Sarah Carter...
BC Studies no. 160 Winter 2008-2009 | Page(s) 125-127
Review
Simon Fraser: In Search of Modern British Columbia
This book is not the traditional academic, well-documented research dissertation on the life of Simon Fraser. As Steven Hume states at the beginning, there was no intention of making this a “conventional biography.” This text...
BC Studies no. 160 Winter 2008-2009 | Page(s) 123-125
Review
Surveying Central British Columbia: A Photojournal of Frank Swannell, 1920-28
In Surveying Central British Columbia, Jay Sherwood offers us the second instalment of the exploits of provincial surveyor Frank Swannell, who spent nine seasons creating and connecting a survey network in the Upper Nechako country...
BC Studies no. 164 Winter 2009-2010 | Page(s) 131-132
Review
Reena: A Father’s Story
There will be few people in British Columbia who are unfamiliar with Reena Virk’s name. In Reena: A Father’s Story, Manjit Virk tries to give what, in his view, is a more accurate depiction of...
BC Studies no. 161 Spring 2009 | Page(s) 144-5
Review
Evergreen Playland: A Road Trip through British Columbia
Evergreen Playland is the dvd version of the movie of the same name that was part of the exhibition “Free Spirits: Stories of You, Me and BC,” held at the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) in...
BC Studies no. 162 Summer 2009 | Page(s) 203-5
Review
Cascadia: The Elusive Utopia – Exploring the Spirit of the Pacific Northwest
Fourteen individually authored chapters (and several supplements) reflect on a shared and bifurcated bioregion and, in the process, assemble the varied ways in which the designation “Cascadia” has been applied. Among the surprises in the...
BC Studies no. 164 Winter 2009-2010 | Page(s) 117-118
Review
Vancouver Noir: 1930-1960
In the August 1946 issue of the French cinema studies journal, L’écran française, French critic Nino Frank used the term “film noir” to describe a new generation of American crime films only recently allowed into...
BC Studies no. 175 Autumn 2012 | Page(s) 143-44
Review
Lillian Alling: The Journey Home
In 1929, Lillian Alling reached the coast of Alaska on her way to Siberia. Her three-year walk across North America began in New York City and ended at Cape Wales where her footsteps disappeared after...
BC Studies no. 176 Winter 2012-2013 | Page(s) 175-6
Review
The Good Hope Cannery: Life and Death at a Salmon Cannery
Until post-war technology allowed for the centralization of salmon canning, the industry relied on numerous canneries located close to the fishing grounds. More than 200 canneries were scattered along the BC coast, and apart from...
BC Studies no. 176 Winter 2012-2013 | Page(s) 170-1
Review
The Library Book: a History of Service to British Columbia
Accepting the challenge to produce, within a fixed deadline, a comprehensive overview of the evolution of libraries in British Columbia must have been daunting. Works of this sort are most often destined to grow old,...
BC Studies no. 176 Winter 2012-2013 | Page(s) 165-6
Review
Review
Return to Northern British Columbia: A Photojournal of Frank Swannell, 1929-39
This is the third and final instalment in Jay Sherwood’s series about the work of provincial land surveyor Frank Swannell. It describes Swannell’s activities during the 1930s, including several seasons spent in areas of northern...
BC Studies no. 175 Autumn 2012 | Page(s) 135-36
Review
A Wilder West: Rodeo in Western Canada
This is a book about people in small towns in the west, and the rodeos that have provided ways to negotiate their complex social, economic, and cultural relationships with each other and with the animals...
BC Studies no. 180 Winter 2013-2014 | Page(s) 189-191
Review
Gardens Aflame: Garry Oak Meadows of BC’s South Coast
The Garry oak meadows of southern Vancouver Island are among the rarest ecosystems in Canada. In Gardens Aflame, Maleea Acker takes on the ambitious goal of relating the history and ecology of Garry oak meadows,...
BC Studies no. 179 Autumn 2013 | Page(s) 215-216
Review
Murder in the Chilcotin
Author Roy Innes can be forgiven for his less than stellar accuracy in depicting the Cariboo Chilcotin in his recent crime novel, Murder in the Chilcotin. His story-telling prowess, captivating story line, and intriguing plot...
BC Studies no. 177 Spring 2013 | Page(s) 177-78
Review
The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture (2nd Edition)
Twenty years after its initial publication, The Imaginary Indian: The Image of the Indian in Canadian Culture remains a relevant read. Featuring a new preface and afterword, this second edition of Daniel Francis’s important popular...
BC Studies no. 177 Spring 2013 | Page(s) 172-73
Review
Stranger on a Strange Island: From Main Street to Mayne Island
Grant Buday’s slim tome about his transition to life on Mayne Island in the new millennium is my favourite among the small pile of good books about life on the inland sea that I’ve reviewed...
BC Studies no. 177 Spring 2013 | Page(s) 196-97
Review
Urbanizing Frontiers: Indigenous Peoples and Settlers in 19th-Century Pacific Rim Cities
Colonists seldom embarked alone to new continents, and so the act of “settling” was often the act of creating a “settlement.” Penelope Edmonds’s Urbanizing Frontiers reminds us that the interface between settler and...
BC Studies no. 172 Winter 2011-2012 | Page(s) 130-31
Review
Chinese Community Leadership: Case Study of Victoria in Canada
I am particularly interested in this volume, having been born in Vancouver’s Chinatown in 1938 and having a father who was treasurer of a district association. He was a shirt tailor, and I remember in...
BC Studies no. 169 Spring 2011 | Page(s) 158-161
Review
Images from the Likeness House
At the start of Images from the Likeness House, Dan Savard tells us why the photographs he presents of Aboriginal people are important. Put succinctly, it is because of their past and continuing influence on...
BC Studies no. 172 Winter 2011-2012 | Page(s) 127-8
Review
A Walk with the Rainy Sisters: In Praise of British Columbia’s Places
Following in the footsteps of Roderick Haig Brown’s Measure of the Year, Stephen Hume has chosen to tell many tales, some celebratory and some cautionary, to the rhythm of a passing year. Like Grant Lawrence’s...
BC Studies no. 174 Summer 2012 | Page(s) 131-2
Review
Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and other stories from Desolation Sound
This is a book of stories, mostly frothy, engaging, and well told. It’s also a sort of not-quite postmodern coming-of-age tale that is much enhanced by Grant Lawrence’s mixing of his own stories with those...