Columbia Reviews

Given that this three-ring-bound copy was printed from the PDF files released to the public, you would be far better off ordering the report from the Government Printing Office (www.gpo.gov, stock number 033-000-01260-8). Not only is it cheaper that way (only $46.00), but you get an actual printed and bound report along with the CD-ROM that came with it.

Disapointing for us Jeep drivers who think a Backroad is off the beaten track and NOT paved! These may seem like backroads if one is from LA or NY but these are really (allmost) all paved main highways here in Canada. For RV tourists only.

On my recent trip to Alaska, I've tried many travel guides and planners, free or not. But this has to be one of the worst. It ranks below even the Milepost, which is itself pretty bad.

As with the Milepost, this book provides information which may be had free of charge from many other sources. To make matters worse, community descriptions are incomplete or perfunctory.

Avoid it.

I purchased this book, brand new, online for the purpose of obtaining the knowledge I needed to take a DANTES test. I found that the book consisted of the writings of philosophers and not narration of the philosopher's beliefs. The anicient writings are incredibly difficult to decipher. I ended up having to locate another source from a library and tossing this book into the dumpster! If I had not gotten the secondary source of information I would have been lost during the test.

This book was written during the "restraint" era in British Columbia (the early 1980s), when the provincial government was forced to cut back in public expenditures because of a weak economy. Thus it is very much a period piece.

Garr's diatribe against Bennett is a very partisan rant that is highly representative of those forces who were against what the Socreds were doing to restrain spending. The movement fancied itself as "Solidarity", a slightly pretentious take on what happened a few years earlier in Poland to what was going on in BC. The book was obviuously a rush job as it is no more than 190 pages, printed in a bold type and shows little to no research and comes with a bibliography that consists of about eight books and a few articles.

If I am not mistaken, Garr was a columnist for the Vancouver Sun at the time which helps to explainn the journalistic flavour to the book. Apart from that, it is also a very spiteful book , which caused this reader to lose a little respect for the author. The constant jabs at Bill Bennett not being his own man (his father governed the province for 20 years and was believed by those - such as Garr - to exert a high degree of control over his son until his death in '79), becomes a little tiring.

Anyway, I am hard pressed to recomend this book if anybody is seriously thinking about reading it. You won't be getting much use out of this one!

Of all the British Columbia travel guides, one of them has to be the least useful. In my opinion, this is the one. The credentials of the authors seem solid enough and coverage is broad (Alberta is also included), but beyond that there's little good to say. It's the shortest of the major guides, is of poor quality (the binding fell apart almost immediately on my copy), and the information is superficial and now very outdated. I guess I should have known better before buying by looking at the cover: the picture of Moraine Lake has been inverted, reflecting both back-to-front mountains and the lack of care that's gone into this book.