Raincoast Chronicles 15: Stories and History of the BC Coast

Agnes C. Farrell is an elementary-school teacher in Richmond, B.C.

Like it predecessors, this edition of the Raincoast Chronicles is a
collection of essays about life on Canada’s West Coast. Most of the
articles present brief pictures of a particular time and place in B.C.
history. These are not scholarly essays full of dates and maps, and
burdened by footnotes, but rather informal reminiscences by or about
ordinary people. Photographs and reproduced paintings provide a visual
record of the people and places described in the essays.

In “Saturna,” Barry Brower introduces us to Dave and Flo Jack, who
live at the north end of Saturna Island. Their story would never be
found in a history book, but from it the reader learns much about life
in the Gulf Islands. “Grizzlies and Sasquatches” are tales told by
Clayton Mack, who was renowned as a guide in hunting circles. These
stories are written as he would have told them to his hunting companions
around a campfire. Like all good storytellers, he mixes fact with
exaggeration to tell his stories, but his underlying respect for the
environment is evident throughout.

This volume lacks the poetry and book reviews that were an important
part of earlier editions. Only Sheryl Salloum includes a short
bibliography after her report, “The By-Gone Days of Dollarton.”
Though this edition lacks some of the richness of earlier Chronicles, it
provides much insight into the lives of those who inhabited B.C. in the
first half of this century.