Since her arrival from the U.S. in the early 1970s with her husband Roderick Barman (an historian who specializes in the history of Brazil), Jean Barman has been on a mission to come to a deeper understand of how and why B.C. is unique. Here Mark Forsythe responds to her latest book.

When the provincial government commissioned its sesquicentennial book, British Columbia: Spirit of the People (Harbour Publishing $49.95), publisher Howard White wasn't sure if Jean Barman would accept the job of writing the text, worrying it might be beneath her.

"I approached her timidly,"; he recalls, "but Jean surprised me. She loved the idea of a coffee-table book instead of a dense tome."; And so the task of cramming 150 years of history into only 25,000 words fell to the UBC-based author of The West Beyond the West, the province's most widely-read history of itself.

"I couldn't resist,"; she says, "This was an opportunity to take my understanding of British Columbia, pick out the main threads, and try to make them understandable for someone who might know next-to-nothing about our province.";

The 150th anniversary also gave Barman another chance to reflect on how much the year 1858 was "the defining moment"; in the creation of B.C. "It was the pivotal year,"; she says. "It was not only when the mainland became a colony, not only the year of the gold rush, but in many ways it's the year when British Columbia-with some certainty-did not end up sliding into American orbit, becoming another American state.";

Writing British Columbia: Spirit of the People also turned into a highly unusual experience for Barman for an unforeseen reason: Premier Gordon Campbell vetted the work.

"We asked the premier to read the text in the final stage,"; says Barman, "and he made some astute comments.";

The original layout had the book starting in Vancouver. Campbell suggested it would be too predictable to start with Vancouver. He successfully argued the north of the province should not be placed at the tail end of the book-so that's where Spirit of the People begins.

The premier also insisted more play be given to Surrey, now the province's second-largest city.

If White and Barman ever resented Campbell's micro-management, they're not saying, because they came to realize his instincts were good.
White will admit, however, that he found it easier to deal with the premier than some of the bureaucrats who advised on various themes. When Barman visited CBC's BC Almanac during the launch of British Columbia: Spirit of the People, she responded to a variety of topics.

On blacks being invited by Governor James Douglas to B.C. during the gold rush, she said: "They were upright citizens... Mifflin Gibbs was a member of the Victoria city council in the 1860s. He later became a significant player in American life after the American Civil War... There are many descendants to the present day who can probably trace their origins back to this group that Douglas invited north."; On why our history is unique: "I think British Columbia is one of those places on earth where we feel we don't need a lot of history,"; she says. "We have the environment, we have so much going on in the present day, that looking back is not always what comes to mind first.";

On bias within B.C. history, she said: "A lot of British Columbia history was written from a white perspective and from, dare I say it, a male perspective, and from a class-based perspective.";

Since I first met Jean Barman more than a dozen years ago, I've come to appreciate how much her writing brings us stories of forgotten British Columbians. Her books such as Maria Mahoi of the Islands, Stanley Park Secrets and The Remarkable Adventures of Portuguese Joe Silvey have all expressed her desire to understand our province's evolution from multiple points of view.

And Barman's powers of persuasion have been very influential for decades. She has prompted enough writing and history projects from others-myself included-to fill a book shelf.

We are in her debt. 978-1-55017-446-5

-review by Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC's BC Almanac.

[BCBW 2008] "History"