BC Books From the North Coast
Created by ABPBC on May 21, 2015
He Moved A Mountain
Dr. Frank Arthur Calder of BC’s Nisga’a First Nation was the first indigenous person to be elected to any Canadian governing body. For twenty-six years he served as an MLA in the legislature of British Columbia. He was the driving force behind Canada’s decision to grant recognition of indigenous land title to First Nations people throughout the country. He accomplished this goal by guiding the controversial request through a series of court cases, finally to the Supreme Court of Canada, ac …
The Last Wild Wolves
For seventeen years, Ian McAllister has lived on the rugged north coast of British Columbia, one of the last places on the planet where wolves live relatively undisturbed by humans. The Last Wild Wolves describes his experiences over that period following two packs of wolves, one in the extreme outer coastal islands and another farther inland in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest.
The behavior of these animals -- which depend on the vast old-growth forest and its gifts -- is documented in wor …
The Porcupine Hunter and Other Stories
Henry W. Tate (d. 1914) was a Tsimshian informant to ethnographer Franz Boas. Tate first wrote these stories in English before giving Boas the Tsimshian equivalent during the decade of 1903-1913. Boas published the stories in the much-consulted classic of ethnology, Tsimshian Mythology, in 1916. Through Ralph Maud’s selection of the best of Tate’s original stories, we can see the actual creative writer behind Boas’ revised texts, now preserved much closer to the way Tate originally intende …
Transmission Difficulties
It has been well known since Marius Barbeau’s review of the first edition of Franz Boas’s Tsimshian Mythology in 1917, that something was seriously amiss with Boas’s alleged “translations” of the stories gathered by his chief Tsimshian informant, Henry Tate. But what, exactly, was it that Boas was doing with Tate’s stories? It is this question that Ralph Maud sets out to address in Transmission Difficulties.
Boas’s original misrepresentations of the more than 2,000 pages of material …
The Sacred Headwaters
In a rugged knot of mountains in northern British Columbia lies a spectacular valley known to the First Nations as the Sacred Headwaters. There, three of Canada's most important salmon rivers—the Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nass—are born in close proximity. Now, against the wishes of all First Nations, the British Columbia government has opened the Sacred Headwaters to industrial development. Imperial Metals proposes an open-pit copper and gold mine, called the Red Chris mine, and Royal Dut …
The Big Snapper
Eddie loves going fishing with Granddad and listening to his tall tales about the big snapper. Eddie believes if they catch such a fish, it might change his family's fortune.
Ten-year-old Eddie lives with his mom and grandparents in a small cabin on the Queen Charlotte Islands. A year earlier, Eddie's dad took the ferry to the mainland and never returned...
Mom decides to turn their cabin into a bed and breakfast. Some of the guests appreciate island life, but many do not. When Granddad falls ill …
Eddie is adjusting to his own hat when he gets a hit. A bit of a tug and a moment of slack, and then the fish strikes again. In a matter of seconds the line is taut. Eddie allows a little more line to peel off. He doesn't pull too hard, or too fast—in fact, the fish quickly uses up the extra line he gives it, and it's all he can do to hold on to it. "Granddad, you'd better wake up."
A Story as Sharp as a Knife
A seminal collection of Haida myths and legends; now in a gorgeous new package.
The linguist and ethnographer John Swanton took dictation from the last great Haida-speaking storytellers, poets and historians from the fall of 1900 through the summer of 1901. Together they created a great treasury of Haida oral literature in written form.
Having worked for many years with these century-old manuscripts, linguist and poet Robert Bringhurst brings both rigorous scholarship and a literary voice to the …
Northern British Columbia Canoe Trips
This second volume of the guidebook series Northern British Columbia Canoe Trips describes in detail 7 spectacular northern BC paddling routes over 11 phenomenal rivers, and is designed to provide canoeists with all the information they require to plan a river trip appropriate to their skill level and special interests. Each route includes: a summary of the main attractions; where to start and finish along the river; trip length in days and kilometres; required maps; suggestions about when to go …
