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The Encyclopedia of British Columbia

by Daniel Francis, ed.

The product of more than 10 years of work and almost a million dollars of funding, The Encyclopedia of British Columbia (EBC) arrives with a high level of expectation that editor Daniel Francis has managed to live up to.

The EBC is a pleasure both to look at and to use. The 800-plus pages are uncluttered, well-spaced, and margined to keep eye strain to a minimum. The slightly glossy stock sets off the text well, and headers and cross-references are clear and distinct. Suggestions for further reading are present both within the body of the EBC and in a separate section at the end. Colour photographs and maps are dynamic and welcoming – this is an encyclopedia equally suited for serious use and for casual browsing, and it rewards both.

Entries range from early Premier Amor De Cosmos to premier basketballer Steve Nash, from the wilds of Long Beach to the historical heart of Vancouver’s Gastown. Lengthier sections, written by area specialists including Richard Cannings and Harbour publisher Howard White, include thorough but succinct summaries of history, literature, geography, and the First Nations. The EBC provides both a compelling overview of the province and a wealth of minutiae to satisfy the most trivia-minded.

There are some small complaints to be made. Some of the photographs miss the standard of care set by the written entries (a 1998 publicity photograph of Bachman Turner Overdrive is used, for example – some 20 years after namesake Randy Bachman had left the group), and are occasionally confusing (a photograph of protesting Sons of Freedom Doukhobors is marked “Agassiz, 1962” – neither the town nor the incident is mentioned even in passing within the text). There are, of course, certain omissions (early-1980s radical activists the Squamish Five, for example), but in a volume covering such a far-reaching subject, there are bound to be.

The complaints are trifling, and hardly detract from the Encyclopedia’s success. If it is not quite essential, it is rewarding.

 

Reviewer: Robert Wiersema

Publisher: Harbour Publishing

DETAILS

Price: $99.99

Page Count: 800 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 1-55017-200-X

Released: Sept.

Issue Date: 2000-11

Categories: Reference