Gardens Aflame
- Maleea Acker
- Publication date: 2012-06-29
Accustomed to the dark, dripping stands of Douglas–fir, spruce and hemlock that blanketed the Hudson's Bay Company outposts on the remote western coast of the "new World", the first Europeans were surely startled to see the wide–open landscapes of the Garry oak meadows they encountered on Southern Vancouver Island ––– landscapes that might have reminded any explorers who had ventured into the African savannahs of what they had seen there.
Though slow in comprehending what they had stumbled upon, the Europeans immediately recognized the deep, rich deposits of black soil that extended many feet below the surface, and James Douglas chose the site as the ideal location for the HBC's new fort, and settlement.
What the newcomers failed to appreciate is that these meadows were not the work of nature alone, but of the Coast Salish peoples who had been living in these parts for millennia. With the establishment of the fort of Victoria began an encroachment on these Garry oak meadows, built up over centuries if not millennia, a process that continues today.
In Gardens Aflame, Victoria writer and environmentalist Maleea Acker tells us about this unique and vanishing ecosystem, and the people who have made it their life's work to save the Garry oak and the environment ––– including the human environment ––– it depends on.
Acker tells us about the Garry oak species and its unique habits and requirements, including its unusual summer dormancy period, when all the surrounding plants are coursing with life. We learn something about the scientists, arborists, and Garry oak–loving volunteers who have dedicated themselves to this tree; and about Theophrastus, Humboldt, and their other forebears who are still reshaping our notions of nature and humans' place in it.
And in the course of Acker's story, we see her fall under the spell of the strange beauty woven by these magnificent trees, and the ecosystems they tower over ––– until, in the final act, she decides to turn her own backyard into her own version of a Garry oak savannah, defying City Hall and the neighbours, and bringing to a head in 2011 all the issues raised 150 years ago when Europeans first saw the open meadows of Southern Vancouver Island.
IKMQ
- Roger Farr
- Publication date: 2012-04-27
Roger Farr's IKMQ consists of sixty–four brief passages ––– stories, descrptions, instructions, scenarios, formulae ––– each involving the characters represented by the letters I, K, M and Q. Various clues, suggested by the rules of grammar and syntax, hint at connections and continuities, and at narrative peaking out from behind the screen of action.
But never mind the theory ––– enjoy the ride, as I, K, M and Q convert houses to commercial grow–ops, manufacture crystal meth,go all in on the flop, get up early to catch chinook, plan, build and sell subdivisions, conduct meetings according to Roberts, plot a prison break, score an all–important goal, get the door for the pizza delivery boy, and get on with transforming the world through their revolutionary action.
Rebel Life
- Mark Leier
- Publication date: 2012-08-25
Extensively revised throughout and including a chapter of new material, Rebel Life chronicles the life of labour organizer, revolutionary, anarchist and labour spy Robert Gosden. Mark Leier's revisions incorporate new information about Gosden's career that has come to light since the first edition was published in 1999.
Canada's west coast was rife with upheaval in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At the centre of the turmoil is Robert Gosden, migrant labourer turned radical activist
Sturgeon Reach
- Terry Glavin, Ben Parfitt
- Publication date: 2012-05-26
Sturgeon Reach is the name some have given to a stretch of the Fraser River between Hope and Pitt Meadows, where its flow slows, and it deposits the gravel it's been carrying out of the province's interior. Its story is one of rocks and stones, from its geological origins, from the mythic beginnings of human settlement, and from the arrival of Simon Fraser through to the onslaught dykes and roads and bridges and foundations that today threatens the river's essential nature.
Sturgeon Reach hosts an incredible array of life, from giant black cottonwoods to a creature that dates from the age of dinosaurs –– the remarkable white sturgeon. This stretch of river is the spawning ground for major salmon runs. And for millennia, it has also been the home of the Sto:lo Indians.
How can we now live well along a river that has a ceaseless desire to overflow its banks and set its own course? How can we allow the life that the river's character fosters to persist in the face of overwhelming development? In the 20th book in the Transmontanus series, Terry Glavin and Ben Parfitt explore Sturgeon Reach
The Shiva
- Michael Tregebov
- Publication date: 2012-06-01
Failures in business and marriage tip poor Mooney into a spell in a psychiatric ward. But he has the great fortune of befriending an Indian seer, one of his pals from the casino where Mooney hangs out, who promises to put Mooney's life back together.
Dennis is no ordinary Indian seer. For one thing, he's a rez Indian, from right around Winnipeg, just like Mooney. For another, he's a stock picker, and what he sees coming, in the spring of 2008, is the sub–prime mortgage meltdown. So he puts together a consortium of himself, Mooney, and a bunch of Mooney's pals from the world of North End Winnipeg, to pool their savings in a short–selling scheme to cash in on the coming crash.
But the so–called "Eisenteeth syndicate" isn't just betting against the market. Mooney and his pals are betting against Mooney's brother Dave: crude, ignorant, maddeningly successful, whose oafish touch turns every business venture into gold. Did we mention their mother has something to say about all this?
Like Michael Tregebov's debut novel The Briss, which was a finalist for the Commonwealth First Novel Award (Canada–Caribbean Region), The Shiva is a fast–paced character–driven novel.
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