One of Canada’s leading maritime historians will be speaking in Sechelt on Oct. 24, at 8 p.m., at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre (corner of Medusa and Trail). Victoria-based Barry Gough is the author of 18 books, on subjects as varied as the Falkland Islands and the War of 1812. His specialty, however, is the 18th and 19th-century history of the B.C. coast and Pacific Northwest.
A natural storyteller, Gough brings the frontier’s players and lesser characters to vivid and authentic life. Books such as Fortune’s a River and Gunboat Frontier are engrossing accounts of nautical adventure and cultural conflict, as well as being major historical studies. He was praised recently in Victoria Times Colonist as “engaging and effective; in Gough’s hands history cannot be boring.”
Gough has received numerous awards, including the Clio Prize, the Roderick Haig-Brown Prize, the Writers Trust of Canada Non-Fiction Prize, the Keith Matthews Award and the Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing. His most recent works are Juan de Fuca’s Strait: Voyages in the Waterway of Forgotten Dreams and The Elusive Mr. Pond: The Soldier, Fur Trader and Explorer Who Opened the Northwest.
Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Free admission (donations appreciated). Sponsored by the Sunshine Coast Arts Council, with generous assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts.
