2022 Winner:
Not On My Watch: How a Renegade Whale Biologist Took on Governments and Industry to Save Wild Salmon (Random House) by Alexandra Morton
SHORTLISTED TITLES
• Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity (Douglas & McIntyre) by Darrel J. McLeod
• Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (Vintage) by Suzanne Simard
• Solidarity: Canada’s Unknown Revolution of 1983 (Ronsdale Press) by David Spaner
• “Indian” in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power (HarperCollins) by Jody Wilson-Raybould
2021 Winner:
Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician
(Ronsdale Press) by Geoff Mynett
SHORTLISTED TITLES
• On the Cusp of Contact: Gender, Space, and Race in the Colonization of B.C. (Harbour) by Jean Barman
• Still: Love, Loss, and Motherhood (Greystone) by Emma Hansen
• Overdose: Heartbreak and Hope in Canada’s Opioid Crisis (Viking) by Benjamin Perrin
• Coding Democracy: How Hackers are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism (MIT) by Maureen Webb
2020 Winner:
Passion & Persistence: Fifty Years of the Sierra Club
in British Columbia (Harbour) by Diane Pinch
SHORTLISTED TITLES
• 1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg Strike (Between the Lines) by The Graphic History Collective & David Lester • At the Bridge: James Teit and an Anthropology of Belonging (UBC Press) by Wendy Wickwire • Song of the Earth: The Life of Alfred Joseph (Creekstone Press) by Ross Hoffman with Alfred Joseph • The Forbidden Purple City (Goose Lane) by Philip Huynh
2019 Winner
Rod Mickleburgh for On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement (Harbour $44.95).
2018 Winner
Travis Lupick, a journalist who has lived on the Downtown Eastside for years, won the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness for Fighting for Space: How a Group of Drug Users Transformed One City’s Struggle with Addiction (Arsenal Pulp Press). The book documents how a coterie of courageous Vancouverites helped destitute drug users get basic housing, clean needles, and a supervised injection site, the latter a first in North America. Lupick has written for the Georgia Straight, Toronto Star and Al Jazeera. Shortlisted for this year’s award were: Gary Geddes for Medicine Unbundled: A Journey through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care (Heritage House); David Suzuki and Ian Hanington for Just Cool It! The Climate Crisis and What We Can Do (Greystone).
2017 Winner
Wade Davis: Wade Davis Photographs (D&M)
Shortlist: Stephen Collis: My Blockadia (Talonbooks); Eric Jamieson: The Native Voice: The Story of How Maisie Hurley and Canada’s First Aboriginal Newspaper Changed a Nation (Caitlin)
Andrew MacLeod
2016 Winner
Andrew MacLeod: A Better Place on Earth: The Search for Fairness in Super Unequal British Columbia (Harbour 2015).
Shortlist: David Boyd: The Optimistic Environmentalist: Progressing Toward a Greener Future (ECW); Larry Gambone: No Regrets (Edmonton: Black Cat Books); Chris and Josh Hergesheimer: The Flour Peddler (Caitlin); Carrie Saxifrage: The Big Swim: Coming Ashore in a World Adrift (New Society); David Suzuki: Letters to My Grandchildren (Greystone).
2015 Winner
Shelley Wright: Our Ice is Vanishing / Sikuvat Nunguliqtuq: A History of Inuit, Newcomers, and Climate Change (McGill-Queen’s)
Shortlist: Michael Buckley: Meltdown in Tibet: China’s Reckless Destruction of Ecosystems from the Highlands of Tibet to the Deltas of Asia; Ann Rogers and John Hill: Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security
Bev Sellars
2014 Winner
Bev Sellars: They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School (Talonbooks).
Shortlist: Adrienne Fitzpatrick: The Earth Remembers Everything; Gillian Wigmore: Dirt of Ages
2013 Winner
Joel Bakan: Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Targets Children
Shortlist: Michael Christie: The Beggar’s Garden; Howard White: A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Bill White, Labour Leader, Historian, Shipyard Worker, Raconteur
2012 Winner
The Ryga Prize was not presented in 2012
Richard Wagamese
2011 Winner
Richard Wagamese: One Story One Song
Shortlist: Gabor Gasztonyi: A Room in the City: Photographs of Gabor Gasztonyi; Sylvia Olsen: Working with Wool: A Coast Salish Legacy and the Cowichan Sweater; Benjamin Perrin: Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking; John Vaillant: The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
2010 Winner
Larry Campbell, Neil Boyd and Lori Culbert: A Thousand Dreams: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the Fight for its Future
Shortlist: Elizabeth Bachinsky: God of Missed Connections; Kevin Loring: Where the Blood Mixes
2009 Winner
Steven Galloway: The Cellist of Sarajevo
Shortlist: Brian Dedora: A Slice of Voice at the Edge of Hearing; JoAnn Dionne: Little Emperors: A Year with the Future of China; Manjit Virk: Reena: A Father’s Story
Leila Nadir
2008 Winner
Leilah Nadir: The Orange Trees of Baghdad
Shortlist: Gary Geddes: Falsework; Ernest Hekkanen: Of a Fire Beyond the Hills
2007 Winner
Harold Rhenisch: The Wolves at Evelyn
Shortlist: Daniel Francis: Red Light Neon: A History of Vancouver’s Sex Trade; Lynne Van Luven: Nobody’s Mother: Life Without Kids
2006 Winner
Leslie Robertson and Dara Culhane: In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver
Shortlist: Jean Barman: Stanley Park’s Secret: The Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Ranch, and Brockton Point; Michael Kluckner: Vanishing British Columbia
2005 Winner
Robert Hunter: The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An Environmental Odyssey
Shortlist: Stephen Hume and Alexandra Morton: A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming; Roy Miki: Redress: Inside the Japanese Canadian Call for Justice
Maggie Devries
2004 Winner
Maggie De Vries: Missing Sarah
Shortlist: Marie Clements: Burning Vision; Matt Hern: Field Day: Getting Society Out of School; Patricia E. Roy: The Oriental Question: Consolidating a White Man’s Province, 1914-41
