Fragments of Paradise: British Columbia's Wild and Wondrous Islands

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, Japan Foundation Fellow 1991-92, and the author of
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Home and As Though Life Mattered:
Leo Kennedy’s Story.

More often than not, books about British Columbia’s fabled West Coast
islands consist largely of the work of photographers, not writers. Not
so, here. Fragments of Paradise is more text than illustration, although
several dozen color photographs by such well-known Canadian
photographers as Graham Osborne, Russ Heinl, and Bob Herger and some
helpful maps add greatly to the reader’s pleasure.

Paul and Audrey Grescoe are professional writers who live on B.C.’s
Bowen Island near West Vancouver. In Fragments of Paradise they write
about the Gulf Islands, the Inside Passage Islands, and the Queen
Charlottes, focusing on the people as well as the terrain. Their
knowledge of and love for these islands infuse the text. The islands are
introduced as “the last sweet escape,” a blessed area where nature
is “embarrassingly munificent.” The islands’ beauty and moderate
weather have attracted painters, potters, weavers, musicians, writers,
and photographers, whose experiences contitute much of the text. The
chapter “Fragments of the Past” gives us something of the history
and economy of the region.

This attractive, chatty book offers light reading, some fine nature
photographs, and a pleasant introduction to an area about which many
Canadians from colder climes can only dream.