“I got to really know Larry when he came to talk to Masters in Publishing students at SFU in orientation week a number of years ago,” says Scott Steedman, Senior Lecturer. “Larry kept us all spellbound with his stories of Musqueam and Chinese Vancouver, and of growing up here, grappling with his identity and trying to build a life in a system that excluded him at every turn.”

Larry returned to speak to our students a number of times over the years. Scott remembers he and John Maxwell, Associate Professor, took him for lunch at a nearby diner after one of those orientation sessions where Larry shared his compelling lived experience with our students. “We talked about writing down his extraordinary life story, which eventually became this book.”

When Larry Grant talks about reconciliation, he uses the verb reconciling, an ongoing, unfinished process we’re all going through, Indigenous and settler, immigrant and Canadian-born. “I have been reconciling my whole life, with my inner self,” Larry explains. “To not belong was forced upon me by the colonial society that surrounded me. But reconciling with myself is part of all that.”

It’s taken most of Larry’s long life for his extraordinary heritage to be appreciated. He was born in a hop field outside Vancouver in 1936, the son of a Musqueam cultural leader and an immigrant from a village in Guangdong, China. In 1940, when the Indian agent discovered that their mother had married a non-status man, Larry and his two siblings were stripped of their status. With one stroke of the pen, they were disenfranchised—no longer recognized as Indigenous. 

Through his own journey, Larry recognized the embedded value that the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ language has to self-identity, kinship, culture, territory, and history prior to European contact. These days he is helping revitalize hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and co-teaches an introductory hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ course through UBC.  

Scott first met Larry at UBC 10 years ago, when he interviewed him for a story about hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ street signs on campus.  “In the years since, I’ve watched Larry be lauded, including receiving an honorary Doctor of Laws from SFU in October 2023. And in working together, we’ve become friends and allies, and now co-authors.”

The book, Reconciling, is a series of conversations between Larry Grant and writer Scott Steedman as they visit pivotal geographical places together, including the Musqueam reserve, Chinatown, the site of the Mission residential school, the Vancouver docks and the University of British Columbia.

“Working on this book," Scott recalls, "we walked the streets of Chinatown and Strathcona and went on road trips up and down the river. I learned so much about my home city, from a very different, very grounded perspective.”

Larry’s life echoes the barely known story of Vancouver and spans key events of the last two centuries, including Chinese immigration and the Head Tax, the ravages of residential school and now Indigenous revival and the accompanying change in worldview.

Through this book, Larry tells us the story of his life, including his thoughts on reconciliation and the path forward for First Nations and Canada.

Our congratulations to Larry Grant and Scott Steedman for Reconciling: A Lifelong Struggle to Belong being a 2026 finalist for a BC and Yukon Book Prize — nominated for their Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize to recognize the author(s) of the book that contributes most to the enjoyment and understanding of British Columbia and Yukon. Winners will be announced September 19, 2026.