In Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples, renowned ethnobotanist Nancy J. Turner describes more than 100 plants traditionally harvested and eaten by coastal aboriginal groups. Each description contains botanical details and a colour photograph to help identify the plant, information on where to find it, and a discussion on traditional methods of har …

The Cold Panes of Surfaces is the moving second collection of poems from award-winning author Chris Banks.

Rooted in the pastoral tradition of Wordsworth, Frost and Wallace Stevens, The Cold Panes of Surfaces describes the Southern Ontario landscape of trains, lakes, moose and pine with unflinchingly sharp image and metaphor. In so doing, he brings …

In January 1944, Vice Admiral Percy Walker Nelles was fired from his position as head of the Royal Canadian Navy. Betrayed reveals the true story behind the dismissal: a divisive power struggle between two elite groups within the RCN pitted the navy’s regular officers against a small group of self-appointed spokesmen for the voluntary naval reser …

In Verdun, English and French speakers lived side by side. Through their home-front activities as much as through enlistment, they proved themselves partners in the prosecution of Canada’s war. Shared experiences and class similarities shaped responses based first and foremost in a sense of local identity. Fighting from Home paints a comprehensiv …

Longlisted for a ReLit Award (2007)

Alcuin Society Citation for Excellence in Design

The stories in Sugar Bush & Other Stories deal with gender relations, love, and sex in a frank way. Most of the pieces feature female protagonists who navigate their young adult years in some questionable ways. They make some ill-advised choices, which are driven by …

This updated and expanded landlord's rental kit includes 22 new forms, making this the complete landlord's kit. There are 12 unique rental contracts to suit new laws of each province and territory (except Quebec).

In Up-Coast, award-winning author Richard A. Rajala offers the first comprehensive history of the forest industry on British Columbia's central and north coast. He integrates social, political, and environmental themes to depict the relationship of coastal people and communities to the forest from the late 19th century to the present. The account b …

Artist, photographer, writer and explorer Mary Schaffer Warren overcame the limited expectations of women a century ago in order to follow her dreams. Born into a wealthy Pennsylvania Quaker family, Mary Sharpless was a precocious child who longed to experience the world beyond her sheltered home. An 1889 cross-Canada trip with her new husband, doc …

Wild Flowers is a collection of Emily Carr's delightfully evocative impressions of native flowers and shrubs. She wrote these short pieces later in life and they rekindled in her strong childhood memories and associations. She delights in the brightness of buttercups that "let Spring's secret out," muses over the hardiness of stonecrop ("How any pl …

In the middle of the most destructive conflict in human history, the Second World War, almost 40,000 Germans civilians and prisoners of war were detained in internment and work camps across Canada. Prisoners of the Home Front details the organization and day-to-day affairs of these internment camps and reveals the experience of their inmates. Auger …

Commander A.F.C. Layard, RN, wrote almost daily in his diary, in bold, neat script, from the time he entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1913 until his retirement in 1947. The pivotal 1943-45 years of this edited volume offer an extraordinarily full and honest chronicle, revealing Layard’s preoccupations, both with the daily details and with the …

BOOK TWO in the Canadian Battle Series

Stretching like an armour-toothed belt across Italy’s upper thigh, the Gothic Line was the most fortified and fiercely defended position the German army had yet thrown in the path of the advancing Allied forces. On August 25, 1944, it fell to I Canadian Corps to spearhead the famed Eighth Army’s major offe …

This book is the most comprehensive work on alders, birches, oaks, poplars, willows and other catkin-bearing plants in British Columbia. Dr. T.C. Brayshaw describes all 67 species?and many subspecies and varieties?each accompanied by a detailed line drawing and a distribution map. The book also includes diagnostic keys to the families, genera and s …

On October 22, 1921, the American fishing schooner Elsie, just arrived from Gloucester, Massachusetts, lined up in Halifax Harbour beside a new, untested schooner from Lunenburg, ready to race over a 40-mile ocean course. The Elsie's skipper had beaten a Canadian boat decisively the previous year to win the first International Fishermen's Cup race. …

Color guide for totem pole enthusiasts.Majestic spires, reminders of ages past, pierce the Northwest Coast forest. These totem poles, as well as ones now in parks and museums, are a medium through which modern day anthropologists can learn much about the past cultures of the great Northwest Coast Indian tribes. The carved figures on the totem poles …

The fourth and final book in the infamous Ways series of novels as conceptual art?a project by internationally renowned visual artist Rita McBride in collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art, Printed Matter, Inc., and Arsenal Pulp Press. The Ways pull together some of the world's leading artists, curators, and writers to write "chapter …

Betty Lowman was 22 years old in June 1937 when she climbed into her beloved red dugout canoe Bijaboji and set out on a journey from Puget Sound to Alaska. Traversing some of the most treacherous waters on earth, the journey would have been a risky act for an extreme adventurer in any era; for a young woman in the conservative 1930s, it was a ventu …

Self-doubt so plagued him that he suffered a nervous breakdown even before fighting his first combat action. But, by the end of the Second World War, Bert Hoffmeister had exorcised his anxieties, risen from Captain to Major-General, and won more awards than any Canadian officer in the war. Fighting from the invasion of Sicily in July 1943 to the fi …

Snails and slugs have a reputation as slimy, repulsive creatures that are nothing more than garden pests, but they are important components of the ecosystems they live in. In fact, most of the pest slugs and snails are introduced species that have come here with the plants we import for our gardens. Worldwide there are more species of snails and sl …

At nightfall on June 22, 1965, a soldier walked in from the outskirts of a small town in the Dominican Republic and reported that he had just shot and killed two policemen and an outspoken Canadian Catholic priest. It was the opening scene in a mystery that, forty years later, compels J.B. MacKinnon, a nephew of the murdered missionary, to investig …

In the same vein as Heartways and Futureways?the first two books in the Ways series?Crimeways is literature as conceptual art: a unique collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art, Printed Matter, Inc., and Arsenal. Crimeways is a faux mystery/crime "novel" in which each chapter is written by a different contributor, all of whom create …

Rodents are the world's most numerous and diverse group of mammals. British Columbia is home to 45 species, from the tiny western harvest mouse to the large and toothy beaver, and from the ubiquitous rats and squirrels to the endangered Vancouver Island marmot. Just seven species of lagomorphs inhabit BC: five rabbits and hares, and two pikas.

Most …

Educational material about the probability of bigfoot and the current best guesses as to its habits and its place in the natural world. Michael Rugg is the curator of the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, whose purpose is to educate the public about the probability of bigfoot. Rugg has been collecting information and artefacts and studying unclassified bip …

Futureways is a unique collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art, Printed Matter, Inc., and Arsenal Pulp Press. Futureways is a faux science fiction "novel"; each chapter is written by a different contributor, all of whom create fantastic stories that simultaneously work within and outside the genre.

Futureways is the story of an art …

The House That Hijack Built explores the possibilities of meaning production when language is pushed to its limits of “logical” or normative semantic patterns. If “to hijack” is “to steal in transit,” this text focuses on how language, with its idioms and ideologies, is appropriated—hijacked and transported—to unknown destinations i …

"I wish I wasn't a twin." Twelve-year-old Jolene is determined to find independence from her brother, Michael, during a family trip to research the Halifax explosion of 1917 for her father's Museum of Disasters. When her grandfather finds a time crease into the past, Jolene discovers a new friend and the importance of family and loyalty in a world …

The first comprehensive study of naval operations involving North American squadrons in Nova Scotia waters, Frigates and Foremasts offers a masterful analysis of the motives behind the deployment of Royal Navy vessels between 1745 and 1815, and the navy’s role on the Western Atlantic.

Interweaving historical analysis with vivid descriptions of piv …

Thirty-five years after the publication of his first book, Peter Trower has brought together his finest poems for the beautiful, thorough and definitive volume Haunted Hills and Hanging Valleys.

From whistle punk to smelter worker to faller to crane operator, Trower worked up and down the West Coast for 22 years collecting the stories and soaking in …

Heartways, a collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art, Printed Matter Inc, and Arsenal Pulp Press, is an extraordinary faux romance compilation that deconstructs art, literature, sex, and desire in one fell swoop. Constructed as a "novel," each chapter is written by a different contributor, all of whom create romantic tableaux that …

In the mid 1840s, 50 years after first contact with Europeans, the Songhees people amalgamated on a reserve across the harbour from the newly built Fort Victoria. Grant Keddie tells the story of the old Songhees Reserve through the eyes of outsiders, expressed in newspaper reports and private journals, and depicted in sketches, paintings and photog …

The shared use of wild animals has helped to determine social relations between Native peoples and newcomers. In later settlement periods, controversy about subsistence hunting and campaigns of local conservation associations drew lines between groups in communities, particularly Native peoples, immigrants, farmers, and urban dwellers. In addition …

The years between 1922 and 1961, often referred to as the “Dark Ages of Northwest Coast art,” have largely been ignored by art historians, and dismissed as a period of artistic decline. Tales of Ghosts compellingly reclaims this era, arguing that it was instead a critical period during which the art played an important role in public discourses …

Drawing on previously classified government records, Richter reveals that Canadian defence officials independently came to strategic understandings of the most critical issues of the nuclear age regarding the use of force in resolving disputes. Canadian appreciation of deterrence, arms control, and strategic stability differed conceptually from the …

The Halifax Explosion of 1917 is a defining event in the Canadian consciousness, yet it has never been the subject of a sustained analytical history. Astonishingly, until now no one has consulted the large federal government archives that contain first-hand accounts of the disaster and the response of national authorities. Canada's recently establi …

Peter Macnair and Alan Hoover recount the history of Haida argillite carving since it began in the early 1800s, and they describe more than 200 examples from the extensive collection of the Royal BC Museum. Argillite is a dense, black shale mined from a quarry on Haida Gwaii, reserved for the exclusive use of Haida carvers. Argillite works are uniq …

"Sometimes it's good to take a risk." Twelve-year-old Jolene knows that her grandfather's words are true, but she's not a risk-taker like her twin brother. Frustrated, Jolene convinces herself that it would be easier to take risks if she were a boy. Her grandfather disagrees, but then her father thinks her grandfather might be as crazy as his old s …

On a school trip to the museum, Matthew has an eerie meeting with Peter Glimmer, who was imprisoned in his own portrait by his uncle, the villainous alchemist, Nicolaas van der Leyden. Peter Glimmer entrusts Matthew with recovering from the past the one thing that can save the world. Encountering magic, mayhem and murder, Matthew ends up in a despe …

Has your silver lost its lustre? Have your photos faded? Has the family quilt come undone?

Fear not. In this entertaining and easy-to-read book, Colleen Wilson will help you keep your most precious household possessions in pristine condition.

This is a refreshing historical document about identity and education in a Native community in the time of residential schools. Anthony Walsh arrived at the Inkameep Day School in 1932 and started teaching. He had little experience in education but encouraged the children to explore their Aboriginal identity through art and drama.Anthony Walsh's ed …

Nancy Turner and Richard Hebda present the results of many years of working with botanical experts from the Saanich Nation on southern Vancouver Island. Elders Violet Williams, Elsie Claxton, Christopher Paul and Dave Elliott pass on their knowledge of plants and their uses to future generations of Saanich and Coast Salish people, and to anyone int …

The genus Lasiopogon is a widespread group of robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae) inhabiting the north temperate parts of the Earth. This study is the first to examine the genus as a complete entity and clearly define intrageneric relationships. It is also the first to pay special attention to the male and female genitalia, important structures in the …

Preserving What Is Valued explores the concept of preserving heritage. It presents the conservation profession's code of ethics and discusses four significant contexts embedded in museum conservation practice: science, professionalization, museum practice, and the relationship between museums and First Nations peoples.

Museum practice regarding han …

Birding and butterfly watching have been popular outdoor activities for decades. Now, dragonfly watching is catching on as a fascinating and enjoyable pursuit. Dragonflies are large, colourful insects with amazing and easily observed behaviour. Noted entomologist Dr. Robert Cannings introduces students, naturalists and outdoor enthusiasts to the wo …

The men who worked British Columbia's mines have passed into history. Coal Dust In My Blood is a moving account of one coal miner's life, in plain, evocative language. But this book is much more than a personal memoir. Bill Johnstone's mining career spanned several decades and he worked in a wide variety of positions. His broad insights reveal impo …

The Uncanny: Experiments in Cyborg Culture is a dazzling and provocative examination of the cyborg--the concept of man-as-machine--in popular culture. The book collects essays and images, in colour and black-and-white, presenting the image of the cyborg in all its imaginative guises. The title is from a 1919 essay by Sigmund Freud (and included in …

Since the release of our first, bestselling Calgary cityguide, many things in the city have changed: it's gotten bigger, faster, and richer. Still filled with strange secrets, this revised and expanded edition of the earlier Calgary: Secrets of the City reveals the whole truth.
With stories of notorious figures like the jazz impresario who has ha …