Bamfield Posh

Bamfield Posh

Druehl, Louis

A war bride, Molly—aspiring singer and Jehovah’s Witness— and her young son are shipped off to Bamfield, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  Here, she will struggle through the hardships but enjoy the bounty of living off the land (and sea) midst immigrants, fishermen, Indians and misfits while keeping alive her dream of achieving ‘posh’, and navigating her tricky path to love.

 

Review:

The popular folk meaning for posh claims it is an acronym for port out, starboard home, describing the cooler cabins taken by most rich passengers travelling from Britain to India and back.

Perhaps this is legend, but there’s no denying posh is used to describe a person who fits in or behaves as if they belong to the upper classes.

A fresh start from England’s stifling class system is what 20-year-old shop girl and war bride Molly desires, when she marries the dashing, but flawed Canadian Sargeant, Mike Stanford.

Molly was one of the 48,000 Canadian war brides who traded a Europe of rationing and bombing for a better life in Canada. Or at least that is what she hoped for. What Molly got is a fisherman husband with a murky past who takes her to the remote West Coast village of Bamfield.

Imagine if you will, English writer Jane Austen and Canadian writer and environmentalist Farley Mowatt collaborating on a story, with a dash of sexual sizzle provided by Fear of Flying author Erica Jong. There was fear in the Bamfield of 1944, where nightly blackouts hid the West Coast town from possible bombing raids.

As writer Druehl writes, “It’s incredible how a tiny village of less than 200 can be so complex, so web-like, that everything impacts so many others.”

Sailors, fishers, telegraph operators, displaced persons, hippies, Indigenous people, and a few sexy neighbours make up the cast of characters.

The ebb and flow of life mirrors the inexorable tide that touches the shores of Bamfield before a 1963 road would connect it to the rest of the world.

Although the narrative sometimes stretches credulity, even for fiction, the story chugs away like a sturdy, reliable fishing boat that plies the coastal inlets of this sleepy backwater.

Author Druehl has been a Bamfield resident since the 1960s. He is Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University and an expert in kelp species. This story evolved after many chats with his neighbour Eileen Scott who experienced the London Blitz.

A rollicking good yarn, perfect for reading while waiting for a ferry.

—RM Davies, Pacific Yatching

 

Editions:

ISBN: 9781989467695 (Paperback). $23.95 CAD, $19.95 USD
Size: 5.5 x 7.75 inches
Pages: 352
Release date: March 2024

Available via your local bookstore, or Chapters-Indigo

ISBN: 9781989467718 (Ebook). $9.99 CAD, $7.99 USD (not yet published)

Media Related:

louisdruehl.net
bamfielder.ca
Canadian Kelp
Cedar, Salmon, and Weed

 

ISBN: 9781989467695
352 Pages
CDN/USD

Living in the coastal village of Bamfield, B.C., Canada, Louis Druehl is the editor of The New Bamfielder, and is best known for his passion for seaweeds. A professor of marine botany at Simon Fraser University for 36 years, Louis conducted kelp research at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, which he was instrumental in establishing in 1968. His immense contributions to kelp research earned him the honour of having a diatom genus and a kelp species named after him. The revised issue (with Bridgette Clarkson) of his best-selling book Pacific Seaweeds Updated and Expanded has won numerous awards.

A Professor Emeritus from SFU, he is continuing to support kelp research as well as harvesting and exporting seaweed products globally with his wife Rae Hopkins.

Louis turned to serious, non-scientific writing after his retirement in 2000. His first novel, Cedar, Salmon and Weed, has earned a place on BC Book’s Map of Literary Fiction.

Related products

by by Jeff Blackmore

Living in the coastal village of Bamfield, B.C., Canada, Louis Druehl is the editor of The New Bamfielder, and is best known for his passion for seaweeds. A professor of marine botany at Simon Fraser University for 36 years, Louis conducted kelp research at the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, which he was instrumental in establishing in 1968. His immense contributions to kelp research earned him the honour of having a diatom genus and a kelp species named after him. The revised issue (with Bridgette Clarkson) of his best-selling book Pacific Seaweeds Updated and Expanded has won numerous awards.

A Professor Emeritus from SFU, he is continuing to support kelp research as well as harvesting and exporting seaweed products globally with his wife Rae Hopkins.

Louis turned to serious, non-scientific writing after his retirement in 2000. His first novel, Cedar, Salmon and Weed, has earned a place on BC Book’s Map of Literary Fiction.