A Staircase for All Souls: The British Columbia Suite

Don Precosky teaches English at the College of New Caledonia and is the
co-editor of Four Realities: Poets of Northern B.C.

A Staircase for All Souls is George McWhirter’s homage to British
Columbia, his home since the mid-1960s. In it, Canada’s westernmost
province takes on mythic/archetypal traits. In various poems B.C. is
depicted as a haven, a garden with Edenic overtones, and a place of
resurrection. In the background (and in McWhirter’s past) there lurks
the bad old place, Ireland, with its Fenians and Orangemen. It would
seem that the only serious drawback to the country is its politicians:
“behind them / They leave / This despicable trail of dirt” (“A
Sound Observation”); they are not unlike the slugs one finds in
one’s garden.

Nature is always a point of reference in the poems. It is the site of
small personal epiphanies (it provides the setting in which they become
possible), and it is the source of the great cycle of the seasons that
seems to govern many of the activities chronicled in the book. One piece
stands out from all the rest. “Notes Toward the Disappearance of a
Canadian Family on the Gulf Islands” is made up of McWhirter’s
memories and observations of his family life spread over several years
at their summer place on the Gulf Islands. An excellent evocation of
family life, love, change, and loss, it is a major accomplishment and an
important addition to the Canadian canon.