Burning Water

First published in 1980 to high acclaim, Burning Water won a Governor General's Award for fiction that year. A rollicking chronicle of Captain Vancouver's search for the Northwest Passage, the book has over its career been mentioned in recommended lists of postmodern fiction, BC historical fiction, gay fiction and humour. This gives you some idea of the scope of what has been called Bowering's best novel.

"I have sometimes said, kidding but not really kidding," writes its author, "that I attended to the spirit of the west coast, and told the story about the rivals for our land as an instance in which the commanders decided to make love, not war."

As an accurate account of Vancouver's exploration of our coastline, Burning Water conveys the exact length99 feetof the explorer's ship, and contains citations from his journals. As a work of fanciful fiction, things usually thought to be impossible transpire, without compromising the realism of the text. Bowering recalls that his free hand with history particularly incensed the founder of the National Archives, who had written a biography of George Vancouver and complained in print that Burning Water differed too much from other, similar books in its field.

EXCERPT:

Chapter 1

WHATEVER IT WAS, the vision, came out of the far fog and sailed right into the sunny weather of the inlet. It was June 10, 1792.

It could have been June 20 for all the two men who watched from the shore could care. The shore was rocks and scrubby trees right to the high tide water line. The two men were Indians, and they knew enough to blend in with the rocks and trees, for the time being at least.

"It is the first time in my life that I have seen a vision," said the first Indian.

"A vision?" said the second Indian.

"The old folks told me about them. They said you went alone to the woods with no food for a week or two, and you would see visions. Well, maybe I have not been eating much lately."

The second Indian, who was about ten years older, a world-weary man with scars here and there, sighed.

"You have had no particular problem with eating," he said. "You eat more than I do, though I carry more than you do."

"I am still growing. Surely you would not deny me the nourishment I require to take my place as a full man of the tribe?"

These young ones could be pretty tiresome. Full man of the tribe. Talk talk talk. The second Indian looked over at his companion, who was now leaning back on a bare patch of striped granite, idly picking at his navel. And now he is seeing visions.

"I will make certain that I give you half of my fish tonight, before you start hinting for it this time. Meanwhile I might as well tell you about this vision you are seeing."

The first Indian looked up from his belly as if he had forgotten about the vision. He held his hand up, palm downward, sheltering his eyes as he gazed out over the silver water, where another vision or whatever had joined the first. When it got close enough it would be seen to be larger than the first one. The first Indian put his fishing gear down on a flat rock and climbed a little closer down to the water. Much farther and he would fall in and the second Indian would have to rescue him from drowning for the second time in a week. I am an artist, he had said the first time, what do I know about swimming? To which his lifeguard had replied: or about fishing?

"Okay, what do you see?"

"I see two immense and frighteningly beautiful birds upon the water."

"Birds?"

"Giant birds. They can only be spirits. Their huge shining wings are folded and at rest. I have heard many of the stories about bird visions, the one who cracks your head open and eats your brains ..."

"Hoxhok."

"And others who alight from the mountains and the skies and take away unsuspecting children and

Dettagli