The history of two Vancouver waterfront communities on the fringe, Surrey’s Bridgeview and the North Shore’s Maplewood Mudflats are recounted in the new book by Jean Walton, Mudflat Dreaming: Waterfront Battles and the Squatters Who Fought Them in 1970s Vancouver (New Star Books, 2018), which she discusses with Joseph Planta.

Mudflat Dreaming: Waterfront Battles and the Squatters Who Fought Them in 1970s Vancouver by Jean Walton (New Star Books, 2018). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Mudflat Dreaming: Waterfront Battles and the Squatters Who Fought Them in 1970s Vancouver

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more fascinating books out now is Mudflat Dreaming: Waterfront Battles and the Squatters Who Fought Them in 1970s Vancouver. Its author Jean Walton joins me now. She came up to Canada as a child, living in Surrey with her family. She talks about what that part of the world was like, especially the neighbourhood of Bridgeview on the southern banks of the Fraser River, as well as Maplewood Mudflats on the North Shore. These were communities of float houses and shacks on stilts, and lacked basic amenities. A great way that Jean looks at the past is through film, in particular two National Film Board documentaries, as well as Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Jean Walton is a professor at the University of Rhode Island, teaching courses on literature of World War I, activist documentary, seventies pop cultural films, and feminist theory. Her website is at web.uri.edu/english/meet/jean-walton. This new book is published by New Star Books. It is the 23rd in the Transmontanus series of books about the north-western margins of the continent. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Jean Walton; Professor Walton, good morning.

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