by Ed.
July 29, 2025
Recently, a friend and comrade, who at one point, long ago, used the name ‘Yarrow’ among others, died after a lengthy struggle with cancer in our mutual hometown of Metro Vancouver, within Coast Salish territories.
She was a socialist and a supporter of Indigenous sovereignty, here in the Americas, in Palestine, and in her ancestors’ homeland of Ireland, all the more so since on one side she came from a Protestant Scots-Irish family in Northern Ireland. She was happy to be able to attain Irish citizenship via her family ties and she supported Irish republican unification against British imperialism. She was a fierce supporter also of women’s liberation, particularly anti-colonial women’s liberation. She loved plants and non-human animals, and sharing that love with others.
She was not shy in saying that she had come up in the anarchist and environmentalist scenes in British Columbia, though since then she had self-identified as a socialist for quite some time rather than more specifically as an anarchist.
In the past, she was active in the Spartacus Books collective and the Purple Thistle centre in Vancouver, and published more than one legendary, agitational zine, specifically the pamphlets, ‘When Women Attack!’ and ‘This Time We Fight Back!’
More recently, as a researcher she wrote the important book, ‘The Life and Accomplishments of Dr. Grand Chief Rose Charlie: Founder and President of the Indian Homemakers’ Association and Lifelong Advocate for the Rights of Indigenous Women’, which was published by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, who she worked for. She’s also said to have been one of the many contributors to the film ‘Yintah’ on the Wetʼsuwetʼen struggle in northern BC, as well as to the struggle more generally, though she remained humble about her involvement in these types of projects.
We were not particularly close friends but I did consider myself lucky to still know her and stay in touch with her over the course of two decades. We had some enjoyable times in recent years walking her dog Holly around New Brighton park on the East Vancouver waterfront and attending the musical, ‘Starwalker’, centered on a two-spirit Anishinaabe drag queen.
She will be remembered by her family and friends for her warmth, kindness, strength and humour, and our world is much worse off having lost her too soon, though her spirit of joy and resistance lives on among those who were most affected by her.
A mug Yarrow had made for herself
The Pointlessness of Linguistic Reformism
by Yarrow/Jenn, from ‘When Women Attack!‘
While many feminists in the last few decades have opted to use alternate spellings of the word woman (womyn) and (wimmin) or human (humyn,) I generally don’t although I do completely understand the logic behind it. It challenges patriarchy by removing the concept of man as the defining character of humanity, and the concept of woman as being a modification of man. It has been an important consideration towards the development of feminist thought.
I prefer not to partake in linguistic games because I recognize that the entire English language (and pretty much every other civilized language) is inherently patriarchal (not to mention anthropocentric) and if I was to alter the spelling of a handful of words I should also go ahead and discard the English language altogether, as it cannot be adequately revised.
Since I have more pressing concerns than inventing an entire language (and sharing it with everyone so that what I say can be understood,) I will have to make due with what I have, while keeping in mind and struggling with the immense limitations of the only language I am fluent in. I regret the inadequacy of this colonial language but unfortunately I’ve not been offered much more.