Three coastal authors have won the BC and Yukon Book Prizes this year, including one from the Comox Valley.
The prizes, which were established in 1985, celebrate the achievements of British Columbia and Yukon writers, illustrators and publishers. This year, the awards were given to Ian Kennedy, Jess Housty ('Cúagilákv), and Darrel J. McLeod.
Kennedy is the author of several books about B.C. history, including Sunny Sandy Savary, Tofino and Clayoquot Sound and The Best Loved Boat: The Princess Maquinna, for which he received this year's award. Kennedy worked for years as one of Canada's few rugby journalists, and has written for numerous magazines worldwide. Kennedy currently lives in Comox.
His book, The Best Loved Boat: The Princess Maquinna, received the Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize. It recounts the story of a beloved boat known as “Old Faithful,” that transported Indigenous people, settlers, missionaries, loggers, cannery workers, prospectors and travellers along Vancouver Island’s perilous west coast, stopping at up to forty ports of call over its seven-day run. The Princess Maquinna was a vital lifeline before roads made the area accessible. With rich detail, Kennedy brings the history of this cherished vessel to life, depicting a time when this remote part of British Columbia thrived with mines, canneries, and forgotten settlements.
Housty ('Cúagilákv) is a parent, writer and grassroots activist. They are a Haíɫzaqv (Heiltsuk) and mixed settler poet living in their unceded ancestral territory in Bella Bella. 'Cúagilákv serves their community as an herbalist and land-based educator, and works in the non-profit and philanthropic sectors.
Their book of poems, Crushed Wild Mint, won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award. The book is a collection of poems embodying land love and ancestral wisdom, deeply rooted in the poet’s motherland and their experience as a parent, herbalist and careful observer of the patterns and power of their territory.
Housty navigates the realms of the natural and supernatural, examining transformation and the effort our bodies exert—supported by mountains, oceans, ancestors, and the grief and love that accompany connection. Through their exploration of history, rituals, emotions, and resilience, we are encouraged to contemplate our place in the world, urging a re-evaluation of our ties to local and distant communities.
Finally, McLeod was posthumously awarded the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for his novel, A Season in Chezgh’un. The novel is a provocative debut novel infused with the contradictory triumph and pain of finding conventional success in a world that feels alien. It follows the protagonist, James, to Northern B.C., where he takes solace in the richness of the Dakelh culture—the indomitable spirit of the people and the splendour of nature—all the while fighting to keep his self destructive side from sabotaging his life.
McLeod was Cree from Treaty 8 Territory in Northern Alberta. He worked as an educator and was a chief negotiator of land claims for the federal government. He was the executive director of education and international affairs with the Assembly of First Nations before embarking on a writing career.
He is the author of two highly-lauded memoirs: Mamaskatch, winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Nonfiction, shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize, longlisted for Canada Reads; followed by Peyakow, shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature, the Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes and the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
McLeod made his home in Sooke, before his death in August 2024.
