Gilean Douglas

My copy was signed by Douglas as Grant Madison, her pen name, and it was sometimes jarring to read herself described in masculine terms. A review on Goodreads described her prose as "gushy", and that is a good descriptive word for the sometimes purple prose. One thing that annoyed me was I couldn't pin down the location in British Columbia. Online the Teal River is described as being near Duncan on Vancouver Island, but there are several references to the Selkirks and once to the Cascades. I imagined her location as being near the Coquihalla River close to Hope, as she once had a shack there. It should be noted the chapters were written for different publications so that could explain the discrepancies. But quibbles aside, mostly I admired the writer's pluck in surviving with few supports in the wilderness. My favourite chapter was "At Home in the Universe" with its descriptions of the joys of solitude. Another thing I admired was her commendable grasp of the properties of wild plants for cooking, healing, and shelter. Douglas was an environmentalist before the word existed and her non-conformity with the mores of her time a pleasure to contemplate.… (mehr)