Daniel Francis

Reading the National Narrative

January 2018

January 30, 2018

Last week I gave a presentation on the history of North Vancouver to the Vancouver Historical Society, based on my book Where Mountains Meet the Sea. The VHS filmed that talk and has uploaded it to YouTube where you can watch it here.

Note that the VHS now makes all of its monthly talks available online. Just scroll down the links and you'll find some very interesting stuff.

January 22, 2018

I recently had the pleasure of hearing archaeologist Bob Muckle talk about the work he and his Capilano University students have been doing excavating an old Japanese logging camp in the valley of the Seymour River (not the camp pictured below but one not far away). A summary of Bob's work appeared in BC Studies a year ago and may be found here.

I had no appreciation of how extensive Japanese logging...

January 10, 2018

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A couple of upcoming speaking engagements to tell you about.

First of all, on Thursday, January 25, at the regular meeting of the Vancouver Historical Society, I'll be showing images of and talking about the history of North Vancouver. That's at the...

January 5, 2018

A few weeks ago I recorded an interview with Vancouver CBC radio host Sheryl MacKay for her local weekend show North by Northwest. The occasion for our chat was my recent visit to Ottawa to receive this year's Pierre Berton Award.

The interview, which aired on the Saturday morning before New Years, was a pretty wide-ranging one. You can listen to the podcast here. Our conversation begins at 1 hour 19 mins.

 

January 3, 2018

It is a horrible time of year for book readers. First of all the countless lists of "best books "of the year gone by, published in all the respectable periodicals. All those great books you'll never read. It drives you crazy. Perhaps just a few, you say to yourself, as you scribble down your own, abbreviated listicle of titles. But no sooner do you have a manageable selection than the same periodicals start publishing their rosters of "most promising" books expected out in the coming year,...