Reviews
“Douglas Hamilton and Darlene Olesko have given us another great history…about 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 Biography
Douglas L. Hamilton was born in Washington DC, and received an MA in history from the University of California, Riverside. Inspired after a brief vacation to British Columbia in the early 1970s, he moved to Lasqueti Island where he built a squatter's shack made of driftwood on an isolated beach. Soon after, he became interested in writing history pieces for magazines, and his stories have appeared in PACIFIC YACHTING, RAINCOAST CHRONICLES, CANADIAN WEST and TRUE WEST. His book SOBERINGDILEMMA: A HISTORY OF PROHIBITION IN BRITISH COLUMBIA was published by Ronsdale Press in 2004. Hamilton now lives on his property on Lasqueti Island, with his partner, her harpsichord, three cows and a flock of chickens. 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 Island 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 labor on her sixteen acres.