Daniel Marshall has won the 2019 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize, awarded to an outstanding scholarly book on British Columbia by a Canadian author. Claiming the Land: British Columbia and the Making of a New El Dorado (Ronsdale Press) examines the geopolitical landscape of the 1858 Fraser River Valley gold rush.
The 1858 Fraser River gold rush was the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall examines an incredibly chaotic period of BC history as well as the cultural and political forces at play.
Dr. Daniel Marshall is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Victoria. He is also the author of Those Who Fell from the Sky: A History of the Cowichan Peoples, which received a BC2000 Millennium Award. As the Special Advisor on Gold Rushes to the Royal BC Museum, he acted as Chief Curator for the museum’s “Gold Rush: El Dorado in British Columbia” exhibit in 2015 that also travelled to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. Marshall’s Cornish ancestors arrived in the Pacific province in 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush.
The other titles shortlisted for the Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize are:
- Incorporating Culture: How Indigenous People are Reshaping the Northwest Coast Art Industry by Solen Roth (UBC Press)
- Don’t Never Tell
Nobody Nothin’ No How: the Real Story of West Coast Rum Running, by Rick James (Harbour Publishing)
The Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize for Outstanding Book on British Columbia, sponsored by UBC Library and the Pacific BookWorld News Society, recognizes the best scholarly book published by a Canadian author on a BC subject. The book prize was established in memory of Basil Stuart-Stubbs, a bibliophile, scholar, and librarian who passed away in 2012.
The $2,500 Basil Stuart-Stubbs Prize will be presented in April.