Raincoast Chronicles 18: Stories and History of the British Columbia Coast

Geoff Cragg is a tenured instructor in the Faculty of General Studies at
the University of Calgary.

The most recent edition of Raincoast Chronicles is devoted to the
maritime heritage of the B.C. coast. Like preceding volumes, the book is
concerned with unofficial history, frequently narrative or anecdotal in
form. The theme of maritime heritage provides a general link between the
selections, whose topics include homesteading on the remote northern
coast of Vancouver Island, the development of the self-tipping lumber
barge, a confrontation between a tax collector and a gypo logger, and
life in the fishing town of Namu in the 1930s. The links between some of
the selections are more specific. For example, Douglas Hamilton’s
analysis of the shelling of the Estevan Point lighthouse in 1942 can be
read in conjunction with both Vickie Jensen’s account of West Coast
shipbuilding in World War II and Hal Dahlie’s description of his
sojourn at a remote lighthouse in 1941. The voices and experiences that
underlie the official histories are wonderfully captured in this
excellent collection.