History Books From BC

What is real reconciliation? This collection of essays from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors from across Canada welcomes readers into a timely, healing conversation—one we've longed for but, before now, have had a hard time approaching.

These reflective and personal pieces come from journalists, writers, academics, visual artists, filmmakers, city planners, and lawyers, all of whom share their personal light-bulb moments regarding when and how they grappled with the harsh reality …

“Perhaps the definitive guidebook to Haida Gwaii.”—Globe and Mail

Haida Gwaii, ancestral home of the Haida Nation, was once as inaccessible and mysterious as it was beautiful. The tight cluster of islands off British Columbia’s northwest coast remained virtually untouchable for millennia, allowing its people to develop a distinct and exceptional cultural identity that was revered across the region. Today, Haida Gwaii—a name that means “islands of the people” in the Haida language� …

Imagine you're one of India's most decorated athletes, a country of more than a billion people. You were largely responsible for your homeland's first Olympic gold medal as an independent nation after a violent, murderous Partition, yet you walk the streets anonymously, and your contributions have been all but forgotten. What if your statistics, awards, and accolades spoke for themselves, but no one was speaking for you?

In November of 2014, Canadian journalist Patrick Blennerhassett set out for …

George Bowering was born in Penticton, where his great-grandfather Willis Brinson lived, and Bowering has never been all that far from the Okanagan Valley in his heart and imagination. Early in the twenty-first century, he was made a permanent citizen of Oliver. Bowering has family up and down the Valley, and he goes there as often as he can. He has been asked during his many visits to Okanagan bookstores over the years to publish a collection of his writing about the Valley.

Writing the Okanagan …

The Comox Valley on Vancouver Island is home to a spectacular watershed, the culmination of snowcap and glacier-fed rivers that flow into the Courtenay River and out onto one of the richest estuaries on the West Coast. Along with the long history of K'ómoks First Nation inhabitation, the community of Courtenay and the surrounding regions have been settled by a variety of people from different cultures and nations. The watershed geography encapsulates these groups' diverse relationships with the …

Billy Proctor, resident legend of Echo Bay, BC, recounts almost a century's worth of experience with this collection of stories, memories and local knowledge of the central BC coast region around Blackfish Sound. Situated in the beautiful Broughton Archipelago between northern Vancouver Island and the mainland coast, this region boasts a history and culture as engaging as its stunning locale--and nobody tells its story quite like Proctor.

A lifelong fisherman, trapper, logger and, in later life, …

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 …

Where Mountains Meet the Sea commemorates the 125th anniversary of the District of North Vancouver's incorporation as a municipality. Combining hundreds of illustrations with the personal accounts of residents and a lively text, the book presents the story of North Vancouver in all its colour and complexity.

Instead of a conventional chronological narrative, Where Mountains Meet the Sea divides the story of North Vancouver's development into three major parts: 1) the origins of the community, it …