When I first picked up the book Haunting British Columbia: Ghostly Tales from the Past by Mike McCardell I was instantly captivated by the use of humour McCardell incorporates into his writing. The book starts off with the introduction of our narrator, who is the ghost of a real engineer from the 1860s. The story follows the narrator through historical events that shaped and created BC, and, more importantly for us, Victoria.
McCardell has a passion for history and it’s obvious from the start, when he states that schools ruin the subject. One of the first quotes that caught my eye was “King Whatever, and War Whatever. How about a story? Just tell a story,” and McCardell does just that. He tells a story that mentions Houdini, Rudolph, and James Douglas all within the span of 200 pages and somehow constructs it to all flow together.
This book makes you feel as though you are sitting by a campfire with a new friend that has infinite experiences with the past, and they are revealing to you all the details of how the land that is now your home came to be. The objective of the book is to enlighten its readers on British Columbia’s history in a fun and entertaining way, which it achieves with its comical doodles of stick figures and witty jokes from the ghostly narrator.
As delightful as the book was, I found that at times McCardell would repeat the same word multiple times throughout the sentences in an effort to produce a comedic effect. However, it didn’t work: I found it took me out of the story and made it hard for me to become engrossed in it again.
Despite this shortcoming, reading this book was an educating journey. I learned numerous interesting facts, like that the east part of Union Street in Vancouver, Adanac, is actually an anagram of “Canada.” The name came to be because, in the 1800s, a woman named Mary no longer wanted to live with the reputation of Union Street.
McCardell does an amazing job of including particular details that hook the reader in and stay in the crevices of their mind. The book concludes with an honourable mention of the rain that often likes to grace our coast—it’s a peaceful ending to a compelling journey. The witty jokes and unique writing style really made this book a hit; it’s an ideal read for someone seeking to learn a bit more about our province.