History Books From BC

The time is the early 1980s. Judith Plant and her new partner, Kip, are ready for a change. Inspired by the charismatic Fred Brown, their communications professor at Simon Fraser University, they join a commune in a remote valley near the Yalakom River, deep in BC's Coast Mountains. Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley tells the story of that sojourn. The challenges and privations, the joys and adventures of rural communal living, form the backdrop to the human drama the author …

An insightful look at the first mayor of Nanaimo, BC, drawing heavily on his prolific and insightful written observations.

Mark Bate, elected Nanaimo’s first mayor in 1875, was a renaissance man. He loved music, writing, literature, the outdoors, community affairs, and of course politics. Bate served as mayor for sixteen terms—most by acclamation. He retired three times, returning to office after being persuaded to serve again.

Historian Jan Peterson skillfully weaves Bate’s own writing—in …

The fascinating and heartbreaking account of the first publicly exhibited captive killer whale — a story that forever changed the way we see orcas and sparked the movement to save them

Killer whales had always been seen as bloodthirsty sea monsters. That all changed when a young killer whale was captured off the west coast of North America and displayed to the public in 1964. Moby Doll — as the whale became known — was an instant celebrity, drawing 20,000 visitors on the one and only day he wa …

Winner, George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature
Finalist, Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize (BC Book Prizes)
Finalist, Vancouver Book Award

North America is in the grips of a drug epidemic. While deaths across the continent soar, Travis Lupick's Fighting for Space explains the concept of harm reduction as a crucial component of a city's response to the drug crisis.

It tells the story of a grassroots group of addicts in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside who waged a political street fight …

BC Book Prize finalist

Few Vancouver nightspots evoke such a fabled history as the Penthouse Nightclub. The after-hours watering hole for the famous and infamous, the Penthouse was opened in 1947 by brothers Joe, Ross, Mickey, and Jimmy Filippone and soon became the place to see and be seen in Vancouver in the 1950s and '60s. Acts like Sammy Davis Jr, Nat King Cole, and Duke Ellington regularly performed on the Penthouse stage, and the venue was one of the few in town not only to welcome African …

First in new photobook series geared to surveying buffs from prolific author and historian, Jay Sherwood. In 1917 Canada commemorated its 50th anniversary against the backdrop of World War I. Although the war effort was the main focus of the federal and provincial governments, some important projects continued. The Alberta-BC boundary survey, which had started in 1913 during an economic boom in western Canada, continued to receive funding throughout the war. It was quintessentially a Canadian pr …

A vibrant look back through a century of student life, achievement, and activism at UBC.

“Sheldon Goldfarb’s skillful and lively storytelling makes this a valuable contribution to social history and a memoir to be enjoyed by all who lived it.”—from the foreword by Kim Campbell

From Pierre Berton to Kim Campbell, Debbie Brill, and Justin Trudeau, the University of British Columbia has accepted some impressive students into its fold over the past century. Yet, the story of UBC’s student bo …

A passionate and powerful collection of photographs that proves that, for better or worse, Vancouver knows how to make its voice heard.

Vancouver has long been a city on edge. From the 1907 anti-Asian race riots to the Amchitka protests, from Doukhobor demonstrations to the Stanley Cup riots, Vancouver has a long and rich history of making its opinions and passions known, and in some cases, felt. In City on Edge, Kate Bird presents striking images of the moments when the city stood up, took to th …