British Columbia: A History of the Province

by George Woodcock

The one constant factor in this long narrative, not only in terms of physical geography but also in cultural, ethnic and political ways, of the province on the Pacific, known as British Columbia, is its distinctiveness.

Hardcover

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Woodcock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved with his parents to England at an early age, attending Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow and Morley College. Though his family was quite poor, Woodcock had the opportunity to go to Oxford University on a partial scholarship; however, he turned down the chance because he would have had to become a member of the clergy.Instead, he took a job as a clerk at the Great Western Railway and it was there that he first became interested in anarchism (specifically libertarian socialism). He was to remain an anarchist for the rest of his life, writing several books on the subject.

It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley and became good friends with George Orwell despite ideological disagreements. Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit (1966), a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.

Woodcock spent World War II working on a farm, as a conscientious objector. At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, he was a founder of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. Following the war, he returned to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1955, he took a post in the English department of the University of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this time he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as the works on anarchism for which he is best known.

Towards the end of his life, Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans. He travelled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. He and his wife Inge also established Canada India Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations exemplify Woodcock's ideal of voluntary cooperation between peoples across national boundaries.

George and Inge also established a program to support professional Canadian writers. The Woodcock Fund, which began in 1989, provides financial assistance to writers in mid-book-project who face an unforeseen financial need that threatens the completion of their book. The Fund is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, and poetry. The Woodcocks helped create an endowment for the program in excess of two million dollars. The Woodcock Fund program is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has distributed $887,273 to 180 Canadian writers, as of March 2012.

Reviews

[Thomas J · Rating 4 out of 5]

well I finished it a couple of months ago so I don't actually remember much. It was thorough, and dealt quite a bit with the political history which is OK since that's mainly the interesting part. Woodcock is apparently a famous Canadian anarchist - which is probably like being a famous Libyan ice hockey player. I can't say that any kind of anarchical attitude was prevalent in the book - maybe a bit toward the end. Let's see - what do I remember of BC history? Well, several premiers in succession in around 1890 died in office, one from slamming the door of a horse drawn London taxi on his finger.

The BC election of 1952 was the only Canadian one I'm aware of to use a ranked ballot, and it brought WAC Bennett and the Social Credit party to power for 36 of the subsequent 39 years.

Oh, and there were a lot of worries about the influx of American gold miners to the Cariboo gold rush of the 1860s. Fairly easy read if you're interested in the province,