Darril Fosty now runs Dominion Books in Ashcroft, where he combines his love of history, sports, and writing
It’s only 60 miles from Kamloops to Ashcroft, but Darril Fosty’s journey from the former to the latter took him 35 years.
That journey took him several thousand miles, to Washington State and then the eastern United States, where he lived for many years, and through several different careers. He has been a journalist and sports reporter, and worked for an Internet security start-up. He never forgot his days growing up in Kamloops, however, where his family moved when he was in Grade One.
“I used to go to Bob’s PX on Victoria Street, which had books and candy and soda and knick-knacks. My brother would buy books, mostly on World War II, and to me as a kid it was the greatest place to go. It left its mark on me.”
His father was also a history buff, watching documentaries on TV, and Fosty says his dad and brother’s interest in the subject started rubbing off on him from an early age. “I get my love of history from them.”
Add to that a lifelong love of sports, and the result was Fosty’s first book, Splendid is the Sun: The 5,000 Year History of Hockey, co-written with his brother George and published in 2003. It was followed in 2004 by Black Ice: The Lost History of the Colored Hockey League of the Maritimes 1895-1925, also written with George. A documentary short film called Black Ice, which Fosty wrote, produced, and directed, won the award for Best Documentary Short at the 2008 Roxbury Film Festival in Boston.
Where Brave Men Fall: The Battle of Dieppe and the Allied Espionage War Against Hitler, 1939-1942 was written by both brothers and published in 2013. It pointed a finger at major news organizations in Britain and America that might have leaked information to the Germans prior to the disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe in August 1942.
More controversy followed with the publication (in 2022) of Nais-Myth: Basketball’s Stolen Legacy, in which the brothers (along with Brion Carroll) produced evidence to show that basketball was not invented by Canadian James Naismith in 1891, but had instead been invented by a 16-year-old first generation Austrian-American boy in the small New York village of Herkimer in 1890, and had been played in small communities in New York’s Mohawk Valley for a year before Naismith’s “invention” of the game.
“Everything we write about is very little-known,” says Fosty. “What we’re looking for is unknown aspects of things. We were asked to write the Naismith book off a photo. Only four people had ever written about the Black hockey league. We get our starting point and then go down avenues, looking for everything we can possibly find.”
He laughs. “We’ve been very successful creating a limited brand.”
He admits that while both he and George are strong on research and recall, storytelling can be a challenge. “I’m not a natural wordsmith, so it’s a question of ‘How do you make it palatable?’ What I counter that with is unknown and compelling history, remarkable true stories.”
He also acknowledges that he’s caught some breaks. “One was from a Black intern working at ESPN. The documentary on Black Ice really opened some doors. And we’ve been lucky to be covered by major media outlets. People ask ‘How do you become a writer?’ It’s just luck. You catch somebody’s eye.”
Fosty is currently working on a book about the Underground Railroad, which will serve as a loose prequel to Black Ice because of the connection between the railroad and Nova Scotia. He’s doing this work from Dominion Books, which he opened on Railway Avenue in Ashcroft in February. The store has more than 2,000 nostly new books, with a large selection of books about local and B.C. history, as well as a good collection of sports memorabilia of all types.
Opening a bookstore was a natural step for him, because he missed the bookstores he was familiar with in Boston and New York, and because of that early influence of going to Bob’s PX in Kamloops.
“The whole store is based on two things: Bob’s PX, and what I like to see,” he says. “It’s a comfortable space to write in, and has a throwback feel to it.
“And I thought ‘No one will start a bookstore here, so I’ll do it.’ I wanted to add something to the town, and it’s turned into a part-time job. It’s not meant to be a primary source of income; it’s more of a passion.”
He’s had a chance to learn what sort of books locals want, and says there is a big demand for Westerns and for Western Canadian history, two areas he’s continuing to expand. “I can’t keep Canadian histories in stock. I started with 2,000 books in order to fill the space, and ended up with too much of some things, not enough of others, so I want to get the right mix.”
The idea with Dominion Books, he says, is for it to be a very Canadian-oriented thing. He notes that it doesn’t come as naturally for Canadians to celebrate Canada as it does for Americans to celebrate their country.
“I want the store to become more Canadian with authors, more Canadian books, and things like the hockey cards tie in with that. And I’m happy I named it what I did. Canadians have realized who we are again. It’s easy to forget about our own history.”
He looks around the shop. “I’m living the dream in some ways. I feel back home again in this area. I’ve lived in the States, and am an American citizen, but you don’t give up who you are, and it’s nice to reconnect with people you knew from first grade.”
And while he admits to missing the bright lights of New York City, he feels he’s become “part of the neighbourhood” in Ashcroft. “My day now is writing in here, talking to people, writing again. I know so many people now, and it’s a stage of life, an experience, so you take it for what it is.”
Dominion Books is located at 415 Railway Avenue, Ashcroft and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays.