Overview
Lasqueti Island has a rowdy and divided reputation. Between the 1970s and early 80s, the island attracted a flood of counter-culture seekers -- communards, hippies, utopians, revolutionaries and other exotic characters looking for an alternative lifestyle. Today many perceive it as a romantic fantasy: an existence of bucolic peace, surrounded by isolation and wild nature, a great place to bring up children and a grand place to grow old. Yet many others would disagree, believing these islanders to be inbred hermits, unfettered by social niceties or the rule of the law. Many consider them troglodytes who hide out from authorities, grow or brew drugs and vandalise what they can for pure amusement. Regardless of its reputation, Lasqueti Island is one of the least populated and least known of Canada's Gulf Islands. This book explores both its eccentric days and its political accomplishments. The Islanders' efforts to convince BC Hydro to re-route the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir powerline around, rather than over, the island was an outstanding accomplishment, changing the way BC Hydro managed its power delivery into rural areas. These stories are a unique collection of unusual tales, hippy communes, curious characters and, whether perceived as good or bad, an irreplaceable era in British Columbia's history.
Full Product Details
Author: Douglas Hamilton ,
Darlene Kay Olesko
Publisher: Caitlin Press
Imprint: Caitlin Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.50cm
, Height: 1.70cm
, Length: 22.50cm
Weight: 0.392kg
ISBN: 9781927575529
ISBN 10: 1927575524
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 July 2022
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
Douglas Hamilton and Darlene Olesko have given us another great historyabout the exceptional collection of gifted, idealistic, stoic, and profoundly eccentric refugees, drifters, misfits, and outlaws who washed up in the middle of the Strait of Georgia, on Lasqueti Island, in these years. BC Studies
Author Information
Darlene K. Olesko was born in Portland, Oregon, but was drawn to Lasqueti Island during the back to the land movement in 1971. She has many creative outlets, including music, writing, painting and building stuff. Darlene represented Lasqueti with an article and map in Islands in the Salish Sea and co-authored and illustrated the first Lasqueti Island cookbook. She continues to live on Lasqueti Island at the very end of Spinster Flats Road (where the ditch is washed out) and enjoys her grandsons company, snow sports, travelling, kayaking, biking and endless manual labour on her sixteen acres.
