Author
VANCOUVER IS ASHES
THE GREAT FIRE OF 1886
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On the morning of June 13, 1886, a rogue wind fanned the flames of a small clearing fire-and within five hours, the newly incorporated city of Vancouver, British Columbia, had been reduced to smoldering ash. Vancouver is Ashes: The Great Fire of 1886 is the first detailed exploration of what happened on that pivotal, yet seldom revisited day in the history of Canada's third-largest city. Lisa Anne Smith tells the story with numerous archival photographs. She uses eye-witness accounts to describe flames sweeping down wooden sidewalks "faster than a man could run," houses that were constructed of freshly milled lumber, which virtually exploded in the onslaught, as well as hair-breadth escapes of Vancouver citizens from all walks of life. She records how two businessmen lying face-down in a patch of gravel bid each other goodbye, while a young married couple cling to a makeshift raft, and a mother and her children cower in fear beneath a stable blanket in a shallow ditch. Strange, often unlikely stories emerge in the aftermath, such as the pile of ice discovered amidst the burned out wreckage and the near-miraculous survival of a downtown hotel. Ramifications of the catastrophe that continued into the days, months and years following are examined, resulting in some surprisingly positive, as well as negative conclusions. Part proceeds from sales of Vancouver is Ashes are being donated to the Vancouver Firefighters' Charitable Society.
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Hear Lisa talk about the book on "thecommentary.ca" podcast here.
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Reviews:
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"An engaging page turner. This is how history should be written." - John Atkin
"This is wonderful! To feel like you were there during the fire, read this. I mean it. READ THIS BOOK."
- Mike McCardell, author of Haunting Vancouver
"An inspired, evocative weave of survivors' terrifying first-hand accounts, meticulous research and powerfully vivid prose. It's the Vancouver history book we have all been waiting for."
- James Johnstone, Vancouver historian
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“As hot as its subject, author-historian Lisa Anne Smith’s Vancouver Is Ashes deserves its cover-slug promise of ‘engaging page turner.’” —Vancouver Sun
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“There are many accounts extant of the Great Fire. . .None provide so excellent and unsettling a blow-by-blow narrative as this one. . .Smith does first-rate work threading together scraps of singed evidence into individual tales and then binding them into a singular civic experience.”
—John Douglas Belshaw, BC Studies
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Publisher: Ronsdale Press; Illustrated edition (April 30 2014)
2nd edition, 2024
Language: English
Paperback: 200 pages
ISBN-10: 1553803205
ISBN-13: 978-1553803201
Item weight: 386 g​