About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
Long before vacationers discovered BC’s Sunshine Coast, the Sliammon, a Coast Salish people, called the region home. Elsie Paul is one of the last surviving mother-tongue speakers of the Sliammon language. In this remarkable book, she collaborates with a scholar, Paige Raibmon, and her granddaughter, Harmony Johnson, to tell her life story and the history of her people, in her own words and storytelling style.
Raised by her grandparents, who took her on their seasonal travels, Paul spent most of her childhood learning Sliammon ways, stories, and legends. Her adult life unfolded against a backdrop of colonialism and racism. As Paul worked to sustain a healthy marriage, raise a large family, cope with tremendous grief and loss, and develop a career and give back to community, she drew strength from Sliammon teachings, which live on in the pages of Written as I Remember It.
Contributor Notes
Elsie Paul, a Sliammon elder, has spent her life and career in service to others. In recognition of a lifetime of effort dedicated to supporting First Nations well-being, she received an honorary doctorate degree from Vancouver Island University in 2010. Paige Raibmon is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia. Harmony Johnson is Elsie Paul’s granddaughter. She holds a BA from Simon Fraser University and has served in a number of policy and executive roles in BC First Nations organizations.
Awards
- Winner, Aboriginal History Book Prize, Canadian Historical Association
- Commended, BCHF Historical Writing Awards, British Columbia Historical Federation
- Winner, Armitage-Jameson Book Prize, Coalition for Western Women’s History
Editorial Reviews
Written As I Remember It is warm and honest, partly a memoir; part ethnography; part Farmer’s Almanac. It draws on a Sliammon Elder’s oral history of a skilled and prosperous people who lived and died here long before they built a company town and named it for an English surgeon…[it] captures a vanished world that survived for 10,000 years, and was just as worthy as mill towns with telephones.
— Blacklock's Reporter
Paul moves fluidly between these different affects in her narration, as any gifted storyteller and scholar might.
— Native American and Indigenous Studies Journal
A strong, independently minded woman, the first to sit on the Sliammon First Nation’s Council, Elsie Paul has had an inspirational presence in her family and in her community. This charming book should be warmly embraced by all those who seek to comprehend the teachings that guided this Sliammon woman’s life in the twentieth century.
— BC Studies
