Shelley O'Callaghan. HOW DEEP IS THE LAKE: A Century at Chilliwack Lake. Caitlin, 2017.
I have owned this copy for some time and decided to read it after reviewing the Caitlin catalogue. I don't think it lives up to the book blurb because I get no sense of awareness of the issue of land and Indigenous people. For example, the fear of and battle against expropriation, when what else was done to Indigenous land if not expropriated by the Crown? Did not they too feel the encroachment of all these uninvited neighbours, including American fishermen, church camps, and provincial prison camps? The opportunity to feel and express empathy seems lost. I also find the title poorly edited [missing ? and repeated word, "lake"] and not really indicative of what the book is about, which seems to be one family's attachment to a summer cottage grouping on the shores of Chilliwack Lake in the Cascade Mountains south of Chilliwack, BC. I was also confused by the switching between metric and feet measurements. The calculations of lake depth were done in feet while all other measurements seem to be in metric.
That said, I did finish reading it, for local history and geology and geography if nothing else. I have lived in this valley for over thirty years but I have never been to this lake. I did get that feeling of envy, of a family that holidays together, and couples that have the type of lifestyle that supports three weeks every summer getting away into the wilderness. That is not and has never been my experience. I was also looking for but had to go elsewhere to find out about the diverging course of the Chilliwack River, why it no longer runs through downtown Chilliwack, and for info about Sumas Lake, drained for land reclamation. If the grandfather worked for Water all his career, would he not have been aware of if not involved in the decision to divert the river, change watersheds, drain a lake, etc? I did learn in my research how Sumas Lake sometimes drained into the Nooksack and sometimes drained into the Fraser. Not Chilliwack Lake, but linked, because Chilliwack Lake water ended up in Sumas Lake. Many other changes over time, especially travel arrangements, are well documented.
