Selena Couture's Against the Current and Into the Light: Performing History and Land in Coast Salish Territories and Vancouver's Stanley Park (McGill-Queen's $32.95) challenges traditional historical narratives of the lands of Stanley Park in Vancouver. She examines, for instance, the writings and actions of Vancouver's first (self-elected) archivist, J.S. Matthews, and places them alongside the political interventions of the Native Brotherhood of B.C. and the contemporary performances of Indigenous women in Vancouver. In a province called British Columbia, she critiques how histories of place were created and how they might be understood differently in the light of Indigenous resurgence and decolonization. In essence, white settlers are bad; First Nations are good. In a walking tour of Stanley Park, the statue of Harry Jerome is not mentioned. It doesn't fit the dichotomy. Couture wrote the book as an assistant professor of drama at the University of Alberta. 978-0-7735-5921-9.

See also, Daisy Couture.

[BCBW 2019]