Steam Along the Boundary
Canadian Pacific, Great Northern and the Great Boundary Copper Boom
by Robert D. Turner and J. S. David Wilkie
Steam Along the Boundary brings to life one of the most fascinating eras of British Columbia's railway and mining history: the great copper boom that seized the Boundary District in the late 1890s and early 1900s. The rival Great Northern and Canadian Pacific railways, along with the fledgling Kettle River Valley Railway, were the major players in a fierce competition for the rich ores and copper wealth from the region.
After less than 25 years the boom was over, the mines depleted and the smelters gone, but the railways remained, carrying passengers, lumber, fruit, and settlers through the rugged and beautiful mountains.
Railway/History 224 pp 11 x 9
ISBN 10 1-55039-158-5, ISBN 13 978-1-55039-158-9 hardcover $49.95
300+ b/w and 27 colour photos 3 colour maps
Government House
The Ceremonial Home of All British Columbians
by Rosemary Neering
Photographs by Tony Owen
Government House: The Ceremonial Home of All British Columbians goes behind the scenes for a fascinating look at the past, present, and future of British Columbia's Government House.
In keeping with the House's new status, this book pays tribute to its long history and the role of its primary resident, the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia. Each former incarnation of the House is described as is the current magnificent building, from its hand-hewn-stone exterior, to the grandeur of its Great Hall, to the opulence of the Royal Suite. The world-class gardens, overseen in part by legions of volunteers, are also detailed and abundantly illustrated.
Art/Architecture 124 pp 10 x 11
ISBN 13 978-1-55039-159-6, ISBN 10 1-55039-159-3 hardcover $39.95
Full Colour
Chasing the Moon
by Penny Chamberlain
During the U.S. Prohibition of the 1920s, an illegal, one-way trade arosein alcohol. Canadian brews flowed south, and American dollars flowed north, creating fortunes that can still be seen in Canadian society today. Central to this trade were the rum-runners, their loaded boats speeding through dark waters, dodging pirates and the U.S. Coast Guard to bring their illegal cargo to thirsty Americans.
In Chasing the Moon, Penny Chamberlain drops young, courageous Kit feet-first into this dangerous world. With her mother in a tuberculosis sanatorium, Kit must spend the summer with her estranged father, whose mysterious nighttime activities and free-spending habits arouse her suspicions. Then a strange carnival boy enters the picture. He has an eerie way with a tarot deck that shakes Kit to the core. Still, something about him engages Kit, and, together, they embark on a headlong journey that will carry them from the dark waters south of Victoria to the "blind pigs" of Seattle. On the way, Kit will discover depths of insight she did not know she possessed, and will win for herself one of her dearest wishes.
JUVENILE FICTION, 256 pp, 5.25 x 7.75
ISBN 1-55039-157-7, paper, $9.95
Ages 8-13
Yetsa's Sweater
by Sylvia Olsen
Illustrated by Joan Larson
BC Bestseller
From the author of No Time To Say Goodbye, The Girl with a Baby, White Girl, and Just Ask Us comes a tender and joyful picture book, perfect for sharing. In Yetsa's Sweater, Sylvia Olsen takes a workaday chore and illuminates it with meaning, while Joan Larson takes Olsen's simple and loving words and fills them with radiant light.
On a fresh spring day, young Yetsa, her mother and her grandmother gather to prepare the sheep fleeces piled in Grandma's yard. As they clean, wash and dry the fleece, laughter and hard work connect the three generations. Through Yetsa's sensual experience of each task, the reader joins this family in an old but vibrant tradition: the creation of Cowichan sweaters. Each sweater is unique, and its design tells a story. In Yetsa's Sweater, that story is one of love, welcome and pride in a job well done.
ILLUSTRATED PICTUREBOOK, 40 pp, 8 x 10
ISBN 1-55039-155-0, paper, $19.95
Made to Measure
A History of Land Surveying in British Columbia
by Katherine Gordon
The settlement history of British Columbiathis rough and beautiful child of imperial ambitionis different from that of any other province in Canada. The work of land surveyors has been fundamental in that history. The story of their work is awe-inspiring.
Made to Measure paints an engaging, vivid portrait of surveyors and their influence on British Columbia, linked inextricably to both past and future settlement of this remarkable province.
HISTORY 320 pp 6.5 x 9.5
ISBN 1-55039-153-4 hardcover $34.95
maps 100 b/w photos
Tabasco the Saucy Raccoon
by Lyn Hancock
At three weeks, Tabasco is a tiny, helpless ball of fluff. Already, the little raccoon's life is unusual: tucked into Lyn's pocket or tote bag, Tabasco accompanies Lyn on a cross-country tour, making friends every step of the way. By the time they get home, Tabasco is ready to explore the worldinch by exciting, fragrant, tactile inch. Nothing is safe from Tabasco's clever paws. Dogs run and horses stand still when Tabasco comes to call. For some, the raccoon's like her namesake: a little goes a long, long way. But children flock from all around to play with Lyn's busy, talkative friend.
Juvenile 186 pp 5.25 x 7.75
ISBN 1-55039-156-9 paper $12.95
Tenderfoot Trail
Greenhorns in the Cariboo
by Olive Spencer Loggins
Originally released in 1983, this classic is back in print.
In 1926, the B.C. Government had a plan: 160 acres of land in exchange for hard work. For Olive Spencer Loggins, who was six months pregnant, and husband Arthur, heading for the Cariboo and leaving the great depression behind in Vancouver was a dream come true. They traded urban soup lines for the thin gruel of their first winter in the north. The greenhorns learned fast. Their Indian neighbours taught them to fish, their community danced them through the night, and they all valued work before money. This is a true story of the Canadian West, complete with bandits, hard-working women, and renegade moose.
History 176 pp 6 x 9
ISBN 0-919203-44-2 paper $18.95
drawings
Just Ask Us
A Conversation with First Nations Teenage Moms
by Sylvia Olsen
Teen moms are nothing new. For as long as anyone can remember, families, communities, and governments have been grappling with the poverty and lack of life opportunities faced by these parents and their children.
Just Ask Us takes a comprehensive, first-hand look at First Nations teen mothers, offering ways to counteract the intractable cycle of poverty and turn reserve communities into places of hope for the next generation. Olsen explores issues of teenage sexuality and relationships, birth control, abortion, and violence. She examines aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultural attitudes and practices and how they affect the lives of young moms and their children. Her book weaves the threads of these young mothers' lives together with colours of desperation, enthusiasm, impossibility, and hope.
FIRST NATIONS NON-FICTION 160 pp 6 x 9
ISBN 1-55039-152-6 paper $19.95
Bookmarks and advance reading copies available
Second Watch is based on true details of Finnish immigrant culture and the sinking of the great Empress of Ireland. Over the eight years that this Canadian Pacific steamship sailed the Atlantic Ocean, it transported more than 117,000 passengers to Canada. The sinking of the Empress on May 29, 1914, remains Canada's worst maritime disaster during peacetime. Of 1,477 passengers and crew on board, 1,012 were lost more passengers than in the sinking of the Titanic. Yet the Empress of Ireland and its fate remain little known to most Canadians.
JUVENILE HISTORICAL FICTION 208 pp 5Ό x 7Ύ map and archival photos
ISBN 1-55039-151-8 paper $9.95
Ages 8-13
The Geography of Memory
Recovering Stories of a Landscape's First People
by Eileen Delehanty Pearkes
The Sinixt, or "Arrow Lakes Indians," are the original inhabitants of the Upper Columbia Basin. Decimated by disease, displaced by settlement, and devastated by the dams that flooded their village and burial sites and eliminated ocean salmon from their territory, they were as a final insult declared "extinct" by the Canadian government in 1956. Yet they have steadfastly maintained close cultural and spiritual ties to their homeland.
In a quest for understanding, Eileen Delehanty Pearkes set out to find the lost story behind the Sinixt First Nation. With the help of contemporary Sinixt people, Pearkes travelled, researched, and interviewed her way through a course of discovery. Her personal account is imbued with a deep respect for the land and its First Peoples.
FIRST NATIONS HISTORY 96 pp 6 x 9 colour maps, colour and b/w photos and illustrations
ISBN 0-9731222-0-X paper $19.95
Trapline Outlaw
by David Ricardo Williams
Back in print!
This is a true story of a fascinating episode in the frontier history of Canada. Simon Peter Gunanoot, a prosperous trapper, rancher and merchant of Hazelton, British Columbia was accused of the cold-blooded murder of two men in 1906. He fled into the rugged wilderness of northern British Columbia with his wife and children, his mother and father, and with Peter Himadam, his brother-in-law, also accused of murder, and his wife. Gunanoot and Himadam were outlaws for 13 years and were never caught. Gunanoot surrendered in 1919, stood trial and was acquitted. During his exile, he had changed in the public eye from a common criminal to a folk hero.
HISTORY 200 pp 6 x 9
ISBN 0-919203-98-1 paper $19.95
Trouble on Tarragon Island
by Nikki Tate
Heather Blake is horrified when her grandmother gets involved with the Ladies of the Forest, a radical group of protesters willing to do just about anything to save a stand of old-growth trees from the loggers' chainsaws. When the Ladies make a calendar, semi-nude photos of Granny and her friends hang on just about every fridge on Tarragon Island. Things get even worse when protesters get arrested and tempers flare. Without question, there's a crisis in the Tarragon Woods, and the solutions are far from clear-cut.
JUVENILE FICTION 216 pp 5.25 x 7.75
ISBN 1-55039-154-2 paper $9.95
ages 8-13
I never thought about being white. I didn't have to. I was transparent--no colour at all. I hung out, was a good enough student and no one paid any special attention to me at all. Then I became a white girl.
Until she was fourteen, Josie was pretty ordinary. Then her Mom meets Martin, "a real ponytail Indian," and before long, Josie finds herself living on a reserve outside town, with a new stepfather, a new stepbrother, and a new name--"Blondie." In town, white was the ambient noise, the no-colour background. On the reserve, she's White, and most seem to see her only for her blond hair and blue eyes.
Teen Fiction 200 pp 5Ό x 7Ύ
ISBN 1-55039-147-X paper $9.95
Ages 12+
The Secret Pony
by Julie White
Kirsty's got a secret--a big, four-legged secret . . .
When they moved out to the country after the divorce, Mom promised Kirsty a pony of her own. Then Lancelot practically drops in her lap, and Kirsty empties her money box to buy him. He's skinny and starved and only half trained for riding. But he's hers, all hers, and Kirsty is overwhelmed with joy.
Juvenile Fiction 160 pp 5Ό x 7Ύ
ISBN 1-55039-148-8 paper $7.95
Ages 8 - 12
The Pacific Princesses
An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway's Princess Fleet on the Northwest Coast
by Robert D. Turner
The Pacific Princesses were the finest and most elegant coastal steamships on the Northwest Coast of North America. For over one hundred years, the Princesses and their predecessors provided the communication links, the routes to market and often the only means of travel along the rugged, glaciercarved Pacific coast. These famous steamships, still remembered with affection and fondness, were household names all along the coast.
With over 300 photographs and illustrations, drawings, maps, timetables, a full bibliography and index. Beautifully designed and printed, and of the same high quality as its companion volume, The Pacific Empresses, The Pacific Princesses is an essential addition to any history or ship-lover's library.
Nautical 252 pp 8½ x 11
ISBN 0-91946204-9 hardcover $49.95
ISBN 1-55039-150-X softcover $39.95
The Pacific Empresses
An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific's Trans-Pacific Ocean Liners
by Robert D. Turner
From Vancouver and Victoria on the west coast of British Columbia, across the North Pacific by the great circle route that skirts the Aleutian Islands, to Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and the Philippines; this was the realm of the Pacific Empresses. For fifty years these beautiful ocean liners provided a fast link with the Orient. The Empresses brough tea, silk, spices and produce from the Orient and returned with Canadian cargoes.
The first Empresses came to the Pacific in 1891, providing a fast, reliable steamship service connecting the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway with the Orient. The ships were the beautiful clipper-bowed Empresses of India, China and Japan. Later, as steamship design advanced and the service grew, the larger, record-breaking Empress of Russia and Empress of Asia joined the fleet. The Empresses consistently broke speed records for the North Pacific and set standards of service and reliability few steamship lines could match.
Nautical 200 pp 8½ x 11
ISBN 0-919462-61-8 hardcover $49.95
ISBN 1-55039-149-6 softcover $39.95
The Vancouver Voyages of the Barque Pamir
by Richard E. Wells
One of the few sailing ships to survive in ocean trade into the first decades of the twentieth century, the barque Pamir was the last of a once great fleet of German square riggers. After an extensive refit, the Pamir was operated by the Union Steamship company of New Zealand; it appeared in Vancouver in June 1945 with a cargo of tallow in exchange for wheat. The story of the ship's three Vancouver voyages will appear to all those interested in maritime history, seamanship and the breathtaking grandeur of the square riggers, graceful ghosts of the high seas.
Nautical 137 pp 8Ύ x 7Ύ
ISBN 1-55039-128-7 paper $19.95
The Slocan
Portrait of a Valley
by Katherine Gordon
The Slocan Valley, in the heart of the southern interior of British Columbia, is a slender blue-gold arc of water, pastures, and trees nestled between the Selkirk and Monashee Mountains. Although barely 120 years old in terms of European settlement, the valley has been the amphitheatre in which much of British Columbia's and Canada's most dramatic history has played out.
This larger history is peppered with intriguing miscellany: the Greyhound Bus Company had its humble origins in nearby Nelson; David Suzuki was interned at Lemon Creek as a child; Sandon (permanent population of five) has the oldest continuously running hydroelectric plant in North America, still servicing the valley.
The Slocan: Portrait of a Valley links the region and its people to the broader history of B.C. and Canada, and opens a window on the culture and lifestyles in the area today. It paints an engaging, vivid portrait of a living valley and tells the compelling stories of its people.
History 260 pp 6½ x 9½
ISBN 1-55039-145-3 paper $24.95
No Numbered Runways
Floatplane Pioneers of the West Coast
by Jack Schofield
Their aircraft brought the miners, the loggers, and the fishermen, prospectors, preachers, prostitutes, misfits, and visionaries into the myriad inlets and waterways of Canada's unforgiving West Coast. These were the floatplane pilot entrepreneurs who created a succession of coastal airlines dating from the 1920s to the present day.
Jack Schofield's No Numbered Runways recounts the exciting stories of early and latter-day pilots whose floatplanes tracked the British Columbia coast. Often without benefit of charts, weather reports, radio, or navigational aids and, indeed, always without numbered runways, these ingenious aviators shaped the history of commercial flying on Canada's West Coast. This is a companion volume to Flights of a Coast Dog published by Douglas & McIntyre 1999.
Aviation History 148 pp 8Ό x 8Ό
ISBN 1-55039-146-1 hardcover $29.95
Plants of Haida Gwaii
by Nancy Turner
Haida Gwaii is the traditional name for that beautiful group of islands, sometimes called the Queen Charlottes, off the northern mainland coast of British Columbia. For thousands of years these islands have been the home of the Haida. Plants of Haida Gwaii, written with the cooperation and collaboration of the Haida, is a detailed and insightful record of the uses and importance to the Haida of over 150 species of native plants. Moreover, it explains the knowledge and understanding that enabled the Haida to use the resources of their islands, sustainably from one generation to the next for thousands of years. Beautifully illustrated with over 200 colour and black & white photographs and illustrations, this book is at once beautiful and informative, captivating and thought provoking.
Ethnobotany 256 pp 6½ x 9½
ISBN 1-55039-144-5 hardcover $38.95