2006 Vancouver Book Award Finalists
Author & Title Information
Jean Barman
Stanley Park’s Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch and Brockton Point
James P. Delgado
Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime History of Greater Vancouver
Derek Hayes
Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley
Abraham J. Rogatnick, Ian M. Thom, and Adele Weder
B.C. Binning
The four shortlisted titles were chosen by an independent jury that included bookseller Rod Clarke; University of B.C. English professor Glenn Deer; and Laurie Roggeman, former president of the Friends of the Vancouver Public Library. This jury also selected the winning entry.
Note: authors listed in alphabetical order
Jean Barmen
Stanley Park’s Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch and Brockton Point
Harbour Publishing:
www.harbourpublishing.com 
Jury Comments: This thoroughly-researched and convincingly-delivered analysis of the suppressed history of First Nations and Kanakan occupation of Stanley Park explodes the myth that it was once a pristine wilderness.
The Book: Working in collaboration with descendants of the families who once lived in the park area, historian Jean Barman skilfully weaves together the families’ oral histories with hundreds of archival documents, Vancouver Parks Board records and court proceedings to reveal a troubling, yet deeply important facet of BC’s history.
This investigation of the history of Stanley Park unseats the assumption that the park was a pristine wilderness when it was first created in 1888. In truth, much of the park had been logged and it was home to a number of settlements. Aboriginal people lived at the villages of Whoi Whoi, now Lumberman’s Arch, and nearby Chaythoos. Some of the immigrant Hawaiians earlier employed in the fur trade took jobs at the lumber mills that dotted Burrard Inlet from the 1860s and settled at "Kanaka Ranch," just outside the park’s southeast boundary. Only in 1958 was the last of the many families forced out of their homes and the park returned to its supposed pristine character.
Jean Barman is an historian in the Department of Educational Studies at UBC. She has written many scholarly and bestselling books including The Remarkable Adventures of Portuguese Joe Silvey and the definitive West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia. Stanley Park’s Secret was shortlisted for the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Book Prize and the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in 2006. Barman’s long-time impassioned pursuit to understand and uncover the history of Western Canada has earned her a position as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Barman lives in Vancouver with her husband, historian Roderick Barman.
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James P. Delgado
Waterfront: The Illustrated Maritime History of Greater Vancouver
Stanton Atkins & Dosil:
www.s-a-d-publishers.ca
Jury Comments: This elegant and deliciously illustrated book provides a comprehensive history of local maritime history, geography, industry and culture.
The Book: The sea and a mighty river dominate Greater Vancouver. Dramatic stories abound along its waterfront - of this place, its people, ships and events that shaped a city, a region and a nation. Waterfront is a magnificently illustrated, authoritative and lively tour of the dynamic ebb and flow between the water, the surrounding land and, above all, the people who strove and dreamed along the waterfront.
James P. Delgado is the Executive Director of the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and for fifteen years headed the Vancouver Maritime Museum. He is a journalist and co-host of the documentary TV series The Sea Hunters. Recently, he published Racers and Rovers: 100 Years of the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club and Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks. In 2006, Waterfront received the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award at the BC Book Prizes. James is currently travelling extensively with his new position, but maintains a home base in Vancouver.
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Derek Hayes
Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley
Douglas & McIntyre:
www.douglas-mcintyre.com
Jury Comments: This complex and strikingly-designed resource, with design and layout by the author, presents an abundance of data, historical maps and photos that engage and satisfy.
The Book: Gathered together in a single volume for the first time, here are the maps and other graphics that bring the history of Vancouver and its region, the Lower Fraser Valley, compellingly to life. More than 370 original maps chart the region’s development, beginning with the years of discovery and exploration. They depict its days as a fledgling colonial outpost, its appearance on the world scene after the arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway, through to its emergence as a post-war Pacific metropolis. Included are many fascinating plans for schemes that never got off the drawing board.
Derek Hayes is the author of nine titles who has devoted years to historical research and the study of maps. Prior to writing his series of critically acclaimed, award-winning historical atlases, he trained as a geographer at the UK’s University of Hull and at UBC and worked for a time as a planner in the City of Vancouver Planning Department. His Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest received the Bill Duthie Booksellers Choice Award in 2000 at the BC Book Prizes and the Historical Atlas of Canada won the Canadian Author’s Association Lela Common Award for Canadian History. Historical Atlas of Vancouver and the Lower Fraser Valley won the Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for Historical Writing.
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Abraham J. Rogatnick, Ian M. Thom, and Adele Weder
B.C. Binning
Douglas & McIntyre:
www.douglas-mcintyre.com
Jury Comments: This biography of the mid-century modernist artist, architectural innovator and arts educator proves Binning’s deep-seated influence throughout Vancouver’s cultural community.
The Book: B.C. Binning is a celebration of the life and work of Bertram Charles Binning, one of Canada’s foremost artists, architectural innovators and arts educators-a seminal figure in the flourishing of the arts and culture in Vancouver and British Columbia. The three separate essays by Rogatnick, Thom and Weder as well as superb reproductions of Binning’s drawings and paintings, and of his original Modernist (now a historic site) home are brought together in this excellent and stylish biography.
Abraham J. Rogatnick is a friend and colleague of with B.C. Binning who worked closely with him around the Festivals of the Contemporary Arts.
Ian M. Thom is the Senior Curator-Historical at the Vancouver Art Gallery who has curated exhibitions that include Binning’s drawings and watercolours. The editor or author of numerous books and catalogues, Thom has published widely on British Columbia art history, including studies of E.J. Hughes, Jack Shadbolt, Gordon Smith and Takao Tanabe.
Adele Weder is an architectural writer and cultural journalist. A contributing editor of HAzure magazine and former editor of HInsite magazine, she writes for design journals across North America and recently completed a Masters Thesis on the Binning House.
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