Blog
Geist at 35
It's been 35 years since Steve Osborne and Mary Schendlinger, partners in life and in literature, launched Geist onto the stormy seas of the Canadian magazine world. I doubt they gave much thought to the distant future -- just paying the printer for the next issue was challenge enough -- but given the precarity of literary publishing in this country they could hardly have expected that their Vancouver-based magazine would still be going strong three and a half decades later.
However improbable, such is the case and an enthusiastic crowd of Geist supporters was on hand last week to listen to Steve (now retired) reminisce about the olden days, to hear members of the next-gen read from the current issue, and to snag a piece of the celebratory cake.
For several years I was a member of the Geist editorial board and even wrote a books column for the mag so I have skin in the game. Nonetheless I have to say that the quality of writing published in Geist four times a year for 35 years makes its survival a major cultural achievement worth celebrating from coast to coast to coast.
When Gil Hewlett and I were writing our history of the orphan orcas Springer and Luna, Operation Orca, I first heard about the capture of the so-called Pedder Bay Five. These were five orcas held in a net pen by the aspiring whale entrepreneur Bob Wright in a bay near Victoria in 1970. It is a fascinating story with an unsolved mystery at its heart and it is now told, with panache, by the broadcaster/writer/musician Grant...
Last year marked the centenary of Emily Carr University of Art and Design. It opened its doors in 1925 as the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts and immediately became a key force shaping the cultural life of the city.
The British Columbia Review has published my brief take on the events surrounding the formation of the art school. May it thrive for another hundred years.
With the end of the 2024/25 lecture series, Michael Kluckner has retired as president of the Vancouver Historical Society after a decade at the helm.
A unique blend of visual artist and writer (his website is here), Michael shepherded the society through a difficult period (COVID) while maintaining membership, attracting younger members, taking the lectures online and acting as a...
Perhaps nothing signifies the importance of the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada's past than the fact that forty years ago a book publisher was willing to pay Peter Newman an advance of half a million dollars to write the company's history. I recall thinking when I read the news that it must be a misprint; Canadian writers did not get advances that humongous. But there was no mistake. Penguin Canada was gambling that readers understood the drama and the importance of the HBC story and would...
2025 has begun with news of terrible fires. In California, of course, where wildfires have claimed more than two dozen lives and destroyed thousands of homes. But in BC as well where a fire did so much damage to the community of Telegraph Cove on New Year's Eve.
For those who don't know, Telegraph Cove is a tiny village on the east coast of Vancouver Island north of Campbell River. Until...