One of Powell River’s most accomplished historians has been included in a freshly pressed anthology of BC history. The book’s editors chose Dr. J Michael Thoms’ 2002 essay A Place Called Pennask for the work.
“I’m thrilled to be in the company of Richard Mackie, Cole Harris and Jean Barman,” said Thoms. “This is the big leagues.”
Thoms, who received his doctorate in history from University of British Columbia, has taught history, first nations studies and criminology at Vancouver Island University since 2003. He is also involved in federal courts for aboriginal issues.
Home Truths: Highlights from BC History, co-edited by Richard Mackie and Graeme Wynn, features 11 articles drawn from some of the most distinguished historians, geographers and writers to publish work in the scholarly journal BC Studies. Mackie and Wynn are editors of the journal. The 416-page anthology is published by Harbour Publishing, an independent publishing company with over 600 titles on British Columbian history, culture, wildlife and environment. The company is based out of Madeira Park on the Lower Sunshine Coast.
In the winter of 2011 Howard White, owner of Harbour Publishing, contacted Mackie and Wynn to see if they would be interested in helping him publish the anthology.
These articles cover a broad array of subjects from exploring life in a logging camp to fly fishing and colonialism on Pennask Lake to race relations in Victoria’s Chinatown. The truths uncovered are often unpleasant but undeniable realities that have become part of BC’s historical tapestry. Human geography has profoundly influenced the evolution of the province, particularly our understanding of home, said Mackie.
The theme of home winds its way through stories of dispossession and attempting to recreate the old in the new.
There’s been a lot of writing about BC history, and a lot of it has been in hard-to-find books, said Mackie. “Home Truths is a vehicle for showcasing the very best writing in BC history.”
Thoms did not expect that so much of his academic career would be examining the connections between sport fishing and colonialism.
“This was an aboriginal home for 10,000 years before the settlers came,” he said. “There has been a more or less complete erasure of aboriginal place names and while there’s an awareness of the depth of aboriginal presence here, it hasn’t sunk in everywhere yet.”
While casting a fly on the lake seems very benign and gentile, he said, in effect a fish caught by a foreign sport fisher is worth a lot more money than what that same fish is worth in a commercial or an aboriginal fishery.
“It’s a struggle of who gets what fish and who has preferential rights when we have a limited sustainable yield,” he said. “Allocating that is highly politicized and the sport fisherman are the ones who usually triumph.”
Thoms will be available to sign books and talk about the work at Breakwater Books and Coffee, 6812 Alberni Street, from 10 am to 12:30 pm, Saturday, January 12.
