BC Books From Vancouver Island & the Coast

In 2007, Caroline Woodward was itching for a change. With an established career in book-selling and promotion, four books of her own and having raised a son with her husband, Jeff, she yearned for adventure and to re-ignite her passion for writing. Jeff was tired of piecing together low-paying part-time jobs and, with Caroline's encouragement, applied for a position as a relief lightkeeper on a remote North Pacific island. They endured lonely months of living apart, but the way of life rejuvenat …

Is there such a thing as British Columbia culture, and if so, is there anything special about it? This is the broad question Dr. Maria Tippett answers in this work with an assured "yes!" To prove her point she looks at the careers of eight ground-breaking cultural producers in the fields of painting, aboriginal art, architecture, writing, theatre and music. The eight creative figures profiled in Made in British Columbia are not just distinguished artists who made an enduring mark on Canadian cul …

The children of the Tsimshian village of Kitkatla love to play at being hunters, eager for their turn to join the grown-ups. But when they capture and mistreat a crow, the Chief of the Heavens, angered at their disrespect, brings down a powerful storm.

The rain floods the Earth and villagers have no choice but to abandon their homes and flee to their canoes. As the seas rise, the villagers tie themselves to the top of Anchor Mountain, where they pray for days on end and promise to teach their ch …

The name Farrell is synonymous with quality boats to those in the know up and down the British Columbia coast. Working in and around Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast, Barrie's father, Allen Farrell, was a much loved eccentric and noted wooden boat builder who created offshore sailing vessels from beachcombed lumber using only basic hand tools. Barrie built his first boat, an eight-foot rowboat, in his early teens using only an old hammer with one claw, a dull handsaw and a rusty block plane. …

Beginning in 1880, thousands of young, upper-class British men with few prospects were sent to the Canadian West to distance them from British society. Still supported by their families, thus earning them the title "remittance men," these men set out to continue their lives of leisure in this new land.

With education, respectable breeding and the belief "from birth that they were superior beings," the remittance men descended upon Western Canada with expectations of accomplishing something great …

Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, fear of Indigenous uprisings spread across the British Empire and nibbled at the edges of settler societies. Publicly admitting to this anxiety, however, would have gone counter to Victorian notions of racial superiority.

In Settler Anxiety at the Outposts of Empire Kenton Storey opens a window on this time by comparing newspaper coverage in the 1850s and 1860s in the colonies of New Zealand and Vancouver Island. Challenging the idea that there was a decli …

Globally, suicides account for a significant number of premature deaths every year. Traditional approaches to suicide research and prevention are not working for everyone, but why is this? And what can be done about it?

In Critical Suicidology, a team of international scholars, practitioners, and people directly affected by suicide argue that the field of suicidology has become too focused on the biomedical paradigm: a model that pathologizes distress and obscures the social, political, and hist …

The Royal Canadian Navy crews that sailed the Atlantic during the early Cold War held a contemptuous view of their West Coast brethren, likening the Pacific fleet to a “yacht club” where sailors enjoyed a life of leisurely service on a tranquil sea. As David Zimmerman reveals, nothing could be further from the truth. From the fleet’s postwar downsizing, through to its rapid expansion in the wake of the Korean War as Cold War fears gripped the nation, Maritime Command Pacific fought to hold …