IN SKETCHING THE SCENES of first contact between the indigenous inhabitants of British Columbia and European explorers, George Woodcock underlines the "tragic separation" between them. Other writers have, of course, attempted to do the same but none has invested it with such poignancy and drama. There have been two previous full-dress histories of British Columbia: Margaret Ormsby`s British Columbia, published in the 1950s, and Martin Robins two-volume treatment in the `70s (The Rush for Spoils and The Pillars of Profit). The first, standard and conservative, is important basically because it was the first; the latter, while not cautious, is definitely circumscribed, being partisan and anti-capitalist. What both have in common is that neither considers the reality of the Native presence. In British Columbia: A History of the Province, Woodcock is the first popular historian to tell exactly who these people were who met the first intruders. In describing the rich ceremonial life of the tribes of the coast and comparing it with the habits of the European sailors, there is no necessity for the author to spell out which had the more sophisticated culture. Woodcock later describes what happened to the Natives once their land, their fisheries, and even their ceremonies were taken from them. He emphasizes that other than some small-scale treaty-making by Sir James Douglas in 1850, among Natives of Vancouver Island, and the few Peace River bands affected by the Government treaty of 1898, 11 no Indian in British Columbia has ever been included in a treaty since successive Provincial administrations have refused or neglected to recognize aboriginal title" Thus, the problems of 200 years ago resonate across the long decades. As for other aspects of white peoples politics in B.C., it seems that little has changed but the names. The current administration is merely part of an infamous tradition. In fact, the history of B.C. provincial politics sounds like a cacophonous litany of scandal. For the shenanigans of the Van der Zalm government there are, if you`ll excuse the pun, Prior examples. In 1903, the premier was one Edward G. Prior, who also owned an engineering firm. His government accepted bids for a bridge on the Cariboo Road and, as acting commissioner for Lands and Works, Prior saw all bids; after seeing them, he submitted his own undercutting bid and awarded his firm the contract. When challenged, the premier told a house committee it was no more wrong for a company owned by the premier to do business with the government than "a member who is a lawyer, or is Attorney General and his partner takes charge of looking after a Private Bill for anybody and lobbying it through the house" One would not be surprised to hear it put just that way today. Back then, however, the Lieutenant-Governor threw those rascals out of office, which indicates the progress British Columbia has made in 88 years. The history of B.C. is not merely a chronicle of contrasting forces and perspectives, but of contrasts within those forces and perspectives. When it is approached by a writer with a sense of drama combined with a crystalline clarity of style, the result is a rare thing indeed - an immensely satisfying historical panorama. Woodcock calls to mind some trail-blazer that Mackenzie or Thompson might have sent into the rugged terrain, completely confident he`d negotiate the peaks and pitfalls to bring back real goods. One can think of a couple of prominent Canadian writers of popular history who manipulate their material as if it were the ingredients for a TV mini-series, or who trot out one colourful character after another. There are enough interesting figures in B.C. history - such as Maguinna, Matthew Baille Begbie, Amor de Cosmos, John Robson, Billy Barker, and Genevieve Mussel - that Woodcock doesn`t need to push them onto stage in brackets that designate "colourful." Woodcock also handles people and issues with irreproachable fairness. He does not fail to mention, for instance, that Indian men from northern Vancouver Island needed no encouragement to bring boatloads of their women to Victoria to sell to sailors; or that whatever ill may be spoken of the early missionaries, it is also true that they won over many Natives by not viewing them as inferior. As well, the author reveals the role of labour unions in the provinces scandalous history of racism, and points out that in its early days under W.A.C. Bennett, the Socreds and not the CCF were the true populist party, opposing the vested interests. Through all of Woodcock`s work biography, literature, travel, or history there is a unifying theme, the opposition to any authority that would limit the freedom and imagination of men and women. Thus in this work Woodcock exposes the Philistines, the racist and the rapacious, white or Indian, boss or union. This theme is like a river, Heraclitus`s river, timeless and "ever renewed" even if "the water is never the same"