On her blog Miss 604, Rebecca Bollwitt posted this comment last month about The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver. Excerpt:
Checking in on my favourite website this morning I saw a small announcement at the top of the page: “The Chuck Davis History of Metropolitan Vancouver goes to press! Chuck Davis’s final gift to the people of Greater Vancouver, his History of Metropolitan Vancouver, has been completed and will appear in bookstores November 15, 2011.”
I’ve never been as excited to see a book go to press. Not even when my own book was being published did I have this feeling of anticipation and relief. Chuck Davis was and will always be a local hero of mine along with Major Matthews (who founded the Vancouver Archives), Author E. Pauline Johnson, and photographers like Leornard Frank.
Chuck put our city’s history online, year by year. He pored through newspaper archives, he wrote columns, and he published books like Vancouver Then & Now.
Our city lost Chuck Davis last November. I emailed back and forth with Chuck a few times over the last few years and our last exchange was about a month before his passing. I never got to meet him.
I also regret not having the funds to sponsor a chapter in his forthcoming book but I hope that over the years, through blogging about his research, I have helped out in some way.
Chuck was always gracious enough to let me know he read my blog posts about him and his material. I wrote, and continue to write them, out of admiration and respect for the tremendous amount of work he has put into documenting our history.
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