Book recalls romance

uch as | hate to leave such a rich source of B.C.
lore, this is our last week exploring books
nominated for the prestigious Roderick Haig-

Brown Regional Prize.

And where does our trail bead
first? Well, apparently Northwest,
to E. Madge Mandy's true story ot
B.C. love and adventure, Our Trail
Led Northwest.

Now let's do some stage-setting
here. First, imagine a hauntingly
beautiful young woman setting out
in 1931 on a sea voyage of
discovery along B.C.'s Depres-
sion-era Coast. She is a teacher, in
fact a speech teacher, at an Amer-
ican college.

At Prince Rupert, a
distinguished-looking gentleman
executes a rather dramatic, last-
second embarcation, He is a gov-
ernment geologist, a learned man
and, though he would not
recognize the designation in that
distant period, he has just leapt
onto the Love Boat.

Dr. Joseph T. Mandy and Madge
Jones subsequently meet, share
shipboard meals and conversation,

MIKE
STEELE

book review

fall in love and, not long after-
wards, marry. And yet, romantic
as this absurdly is, it is but the
beginning of a greater saga as the
two are destined to share many
years of excitement, adventure
and wedded bliss in the B.C.
wilderness.

Our Trail Led Northwest is a
tribute, Madge Mandy recently
told me, to B.C. mining and was to
have been co-written with her
husband. His death prevented this
collaboration and so Our Trail Led
Northwest became at least in part
a tribute to an extraordinary
romance.

Our Trail Led Northwest (228
pp.; $15) was self-published by the
author and may be difficu!t to find.
However, Madge Mandy assured
me that she welcomes inquiries
addressed to her at 3880 Imperial,
Burnaby, B.C. It is, she said, ‘a
way to meet new friends.”’

It should also be said that Our
Trail Led Northwest has recently
been accepted by the National
Library of Canada for its perma-
nent collection of Canadiana.

wee

This next book puzzites me; well,
not the book as much as the mix-
ed reception it has received in
some quarters.

Wild & Free (Gordon Soules;
190 pp.; $14.95) is already a na-
tional bestseller as was its
predecessor, Wilderness Seasons.
Having read both, | would hazard

the guess that then popularity les
in the innocence at authors lan
and Sally Wilson.

You see, Sally and dan haven't
lost their sense of wonder im the
beauty and maynificence of
wildlite and wilderness, Their
childlike appreciation and awe are
instantly recognizable to anyone
else who teels the same way,

And perhaps that’s the problem.
The Wilsons’ books to date have
been about personal encounters,
nat issues. And some reviewers
demand issues-oriented books.

Personally, | feel that the
Wilsons’ true stories of one-on-one
(or two-on-two), intimate contacts
with wildlife are more powerful
inducements for wilderness
preservation than grim, fact-filled
treatises. Why? Because more
people will read the former than
the latter, motivated not by a
sense of duty but by interest.

In Wild & Free, lan and Sally run
into bear, caribou, and other
creatures great and small. Adven-
tures are numerous and frequently
hurmorous. Encounters with cach
are divided into chapters, chapters
are illustrated by Sally's fine line-
drawings and a section of color
photographs (known as a signature
in the trade) can be found just shy
of the middle of the book.

eae

Most of us have an opinion on
Native Land Claims; some, like
me, have several according to
whim, information on hand and
degree of sobriety. And, quite
frankly, | don’t know if reading
The Same As Yesterday will help
anyone define a position or make
the process more difficult.

The Same As Yesterday (Lillooet
Tribal Council; 341 pp.; $29.95 in
paperback) is a gut-wrenching ac-
count by the Lillooet people of the
plundering of their lands and
resources, written most convinc-
ingly by historian joanne Drake-
Terry.

The Same As Yesterday traces
what amounts to institutionalized
and government-sanctioned theft,
plain and simple. The documenta-
tion of how the Lillooet were
systematically cheated out of their
homes and means of livelihood is
incontrovertible. tt’s also in-
furiating because of the dilemma it
raises: how do we rectify a blatant
injustice perpetrated not only on
Lillooet territory but throughout
some 80 per cent of the province?

The Same As Yesterday fails to
offer solutions; what it does offer is
a poignant chronicle of an 80-year
struggle by a people painfully
aware of what they were losing
and what they had already lost, a
people dwindling through the et-
fects of politics and attitudes that
amounted to virtual genocide
through indifference and neglect.

COME AND HEAR
TREVOR & ANDREA FISHER

at Deep Cove / Seymour
CROSS-ROADS CONFERENCE

THEME: ““FORK IN THE ROAD’’
(is Christianity a viable option in the 1990's?)

Date: Friday night.Feb 23rd
to Saturday, Feb. 24th
St. Simon’s Church
1384 Deep Cove Road
(Just off Mt. Seymour Parkway)
For more info call 929-5350
(Free babysitting Saturday)

in the B.C. wilderness |:

29 - Wednesday. February 21, 1990 — North Shore News

until. at p. m.
this Friday Raat wd

Grand Court
9-11 p.m.

FREE: PARKING *

CUO 10 ne

Mon.-Wed.
Thurs.
Fri.

Hours:

$35 Marine Drive
North Vancouver
980-8561

Saturday
Sunday