Book Review

Title: Mirror With A Memory: A Nation's Story In Photographs

Author: Janice Weaver

Publisher: Tundra Books/Random House

Website: Tundra Books

Released: November 13^th, 2007

Pages: 160

ISBN - 10: 0887767478

ISBN-13: 978-0887767470

$29.99 CDN/$24.95 US

4 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

The old adage of a picture saying a thousand words appears to be the case for Mirror With A Memory: A Nation's Story In Photographs. I'm the type of person who would prefer the words, but after meandering my way through Mirror With A Memory, a photographic chronicle through Canadian history, I must admit a great appeal to a story being told through the lens of an eye.

Mirror With A Memory compiles pictures regarding Canadian history, important events, and memorable images from the onset of photography up to the turn of the last century. Author, Janice Weaver divides the book into seven sections: Canada in the beginning, Canada in times of trouble, Canada on the move, Canada at War, Canada in Crisis, Canada at Play and Canada Comes of Age. These broader segments allows an array of pictures, sometimes from very differing eras, that reveals a countries personality as opposed to a country simply within historical events. As the events took place, Weaver is showing Canadian reaction and evolution within the separate subdivisions of Mirror With A Memory.

The book shows natural disasters, images from both World Wars, the Great Depression, mass immigration, the defining impact of the CP Rail being built across Canada and political unrest. Weaver also manages to showcase Canada at its happiest times, predominantly knee deep in sports.  

Janice Weaver must have taken a great delight in compiling this book as her commentary on each picture is revealing and at times she points out aspects of the picture that one might miss when browsing the pages instead of studying them in detail. Many of my own memories of Canada were recalled as pictures of Terry Fox on his noble effort to marathon across Canada, Donovan Bailey's ecstatic reaction to winning the 100 metre at the 1996 Olympics, the rock slide known as ‘Frank's Slide' I had visited once, and possibly one of the strongest images from Canadian history - the 1990 standoff between a vacant looking young soldier facing off a masked Mowhawk protestor at the Kanesatake Reserve in Quebec over a golf course being built on top of an Indian burial ground. 

Weaver also acknowledges the power of photographs as misleading tools of propaganda. An image of a field of bones and skulls from a group of Crow Indians drying on a battlefield, with a white man sat ‘casually' amidst the bones with a rifle in his hands. The provoking image was taken by the engineers of the boundary commission and Weaver comments:   

‘In fact, though, these Crow warriors had been killed by a group of rival Blackfoot, and the picture was no evidence at all of the clashes between Natives and whites. As grim as it is, it's just one more record of the boundary commission's push across the prairies.'

Mirror With A Memory is a memoir of Canada, filled with amazing photos and historical information. It would make a great coffee table book, or gift for someone who enjoys history or photography, and this book would also be ideal for educating a visually inspired youth on Canada's past.