BC Books From Vancouver Island & the Coast

It's spring break, and 14-year-old Hannah Anderson is glad to be spending it with the "Coast-Is-Clear" program - a group committed to cleaning Pacific Rim National Park's beaches of debris leftover from the tragic Japanese tsunami of 2011. Soon after Hannah arrives on the west coast, Jack, her raven sidekick, finds a small object washed up in the surf: a strange glass ball marked with a glowing Japanese character. Immediately, unusual things start to happen, beginning with the arrival of the mys …

It’s spring break, and 14-year-old Hannah Anderson is spending it with the “Coast-Is-Clear” program, a group committed to cleaning Pacific Rim National Park Reserve’s beaches of debris that has drifted across the Pacific from the tragic Japanese tsunami of 2011. Soon after Hannah arrives, Jack, her raven sidekick, discovers something washed up in the surf: a luminous glass ball marked with a strange Japanese character. Immediately, unusual things start to happen, beginning with the arriv …

What would you do if you came face to face with a large yellow waxwing, wild turkey or weather loach? Who would you call if common wall lizards or giant hogweed crept into your back yard?

Alex Van Tol can help. In Aliens Among Us, she identifies more than 50 species of alien animals and plants that have established themselves in British Columbia. With the help of colour photographs and Mike Deas's illuminating illustrations, Van Tol exposes the invaders, then explains how they got here and what t …

In 1858, reports of gold found on the Fraser River spurred tens of thousands of people?mostly men?to rush into the territory we now call British Columbia. They came with visions of fortune in their eyes. The lucky ones struck it rich, but most left penniless or died trying for the motherlode. Some stayed behind and helped build the colony and the province of British Columbia.

The Whaling People live along the west coast of Vancouver Island and Cape Flattery in Washington. They comprise more than 20 First Nations, including the Nuu-chah-nulth, Ditidaht, Pacheedaht and Makah. These socially related people enjoyed a highly organized, tradition-based culture for centuries before Europeans arrived. As whaling societies, they had a unique relationship with the sea. In The Whaling People, Eugene Arima and Alan Hoover give an intimate account of the traditional ways in which …

In her third ethnobotany handbook, Nancy Turner focuses on the plants that provided heat, shelter, transportation, clothing, tools, nets, ropes, containers—all the necessities of life for First Peoples. She describes more than 100 of these plants, their various uses and their importance in the material cultures of First Nations in British Columbia and adjacent lands in Washington, Alberta, Alaska and Montana. She also shows how First Peoples have used plant materials to make decorations, scent …

Trees and Shrubs of British Columbia is the definitive guide to all native and naturalized woody plants in the province. T. Christopher Brayshaw describes almost 300 species of trees and shrubs, as well as many subspecies and varieties. His beautifully detailed illustrations of leaves, flowers, fruits and woody parts are arranged to show the distinguishing traits in similar species. Diagnostic keys, comparative diagrams and a selection of colour photographs help make identification easy.

When Phyllis Webb published Wilson’s Bowl in 1980, Northrop Frye hailed it as “a landmark in Canadian literature”: landmark, an event that marks a turning point in something (in this case, Canadian literature); and an instantly recognized feature of a landscape (in this case, the landscape of Canadian poetry). Wilson’s Bowl was Webb’s fifth volume of poetry. Three more followed and then she fell silent, turning from literature to abstract painting.

Peacock Blue compiles in a single vol …