Daniel Francis

Reading the National Narrative

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March 10, 2017

The Vancouver Park Board has voted to stop displaying live cetaceans at the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, a real turning point in the history of the city.

Cetaceans have been part of the Aquarium...

March 7, 2017

The shortlist for the BC Book Prizes is out (see it here) and it highlights some pretty interesting history that was published in the province last year.

The list includes Gently to Nagasaki, Joy Kogawa's meditation on historical atrocity; Mark Leiren-Young's account of Moby Doll, The Killer Whale Who Changed the World; a history of the Gitxsan people, Mapping My Way Home, by longtime tribal leader Neil...

March 3, 2017

I have a couple of websites to recommend.

Lana Okerlund is a Vancouver book editor, writer and history buff who has begun blogging on the history of bookselling in BC at "A Most Agreeable Place." Apparently she set out to answer the question "What was the first bookseller in Vancouver?" and the result became this blog. (The answer to the question, by the way, is Seth Thorne Tilley who provided the pen, ink and paper for the city's first...

February 28, 2017

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The day after the Oscars the district of North Vancouver held its own awards night. The gowns were less formal but at least the awards went to the correct recipients, of which I was one.

The Community Heritage Awards are presented annually to recognize efforts to promote heritage conservation in the community. Last night most of the awards went to homeowners who had...

February 17, 2017

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Often when one is out walking in the city one encounters sites where history is buried not so far beneath the surface, sites of significance to First Nations people and therefore, usually, sites of injustice.

For example. I took this photograph last weekend on the False...

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