British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas
By Derek Hayes
Douglas and McIntyre, 368 pp., $59.95
It's impossible to truly appreciate history without understanding geography. Derek Hayes knows that more than just about anyone else. This is, after all, his 13th book with the words "historical atlas" in the title.
He started his streak in 1999, with his Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. The Times Colonist review of that book said it was "not only a masterpiece, [but] a labour of love."
Hayes has never stopped pursuing that passion. Since his first book on B.C., he has been busy, producing geography-based histories of California, Washington, Oregon, Toronto, the Arctic, the north Pacific Ocean and more. Hayes has covered a lot of territory.
British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas brings him back to this province, where his journey began. Its reach extends from the 1500s to the Olympics, with more than 900 maps drawn from a seemingly limitless list of sources.
Hayes has organized much of the book in roughly chronological order, which makes sense; it's easier to understand the history that way. He also travels through the province, city by city and region by region, taking the story of our geographic history down to the local level.
British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas is much more than a simple collection of maps. Hayes tells us what the maps were designed to show, how they reflected the times, and why they were drawn. He even points out errors and assumptions that, once made, were repeated by several other mapmakers.
The maps in this atlas include First Nations diagrams, fur trade routes, mining maps, maps from promotional brochures and more. They help explain the tussle over geography that resulted in the Pig War. There is even a Russian military map showing Victoria and the Saanich Peninsula.
Other maps were drawn by cartographers from China, Germany, England, the United States and more. All of these mapmakers brought their own perspective, and help us better understand the province we call home.
Five maps and two bird's-eye views - popular in the days before airplanes, when only people in balloons could see the city from above - help trace the development of Victoria between 1859 and 1905.
This is not just a revised edition of his original B.C. historical atlas. Only 33 of the maps from the first book have been reproduced here. Beyond that, this atlas has four times the number of maps in the 1999 book.
Most of the maps here have been reproduced in full colour. That makes British Columbia: A New Historical Atlas an absolute joy to browse and to read.
The 900 maps, along with copies of hundreds of old photographs and documents, make this book an invaluable reference work for anyone interested in B.C. history. There has never been a book like this - never a geographic history of the province as comprehensive as what Hayes has compiled.
This is no mere collection of old maps - this book helps to bring B.C.'s history to life.
One complaint? Some of the maps could have been larger. But that would have meant more pages would have been needed, which would have pushed the price higher.
As it is, it's a bargain - as well as being a superb visual guide to the history of our province.
Derek Hayes will speak about this book at a meeting of the Friends of the B.C. Archives at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18. Admission for non-members is $5.
Dave Obee is the editor-in-chief of the Times Colonist, and author of The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia.
