During the frenzied Klondike Gold Rush, many daring women ventured north to seek riches and adventure or to escape a troubled past. These unforgettable, strong-willed women defied the social conventions of the time and endured heartbreak and horrific conditions to build a life in the wild North. At the height of the gold rush, Martha Purdy, Nellie …

This entertaining collection of historical photographs, amusing newspaper accounts, reminiscences and letters celebrates the capricious antics that the Rockies and Selkirks summoned in Victorian residents and visitors. From climbers, cowboys, cooks and shopkeepers to hunters, guides, photographers and poets, these were people with a mania for mount …

A finalist for the 1995 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language non-fiction

Winner of the Mountain Environment and Culture Award at the 1995 Banff Mountain Book Festival

Leaning on the Wind is a love song of the west, sung to the tune of the wild chinook wind. Sid Marty skilfully weaves together the prehistory of Alberta with the ex …

Since 1873, the Mounties have brought the law to the furthest reaches of the Canadian frontier. Sam Steele, the "Lion of the North," was involved in almost every significant event in the Canadian West; James Macleod and James Walsh negotiated peace with the First Nations peoples. Less famous, unsung heroes risked their lives enforcing justice in th …

Canadian history is full of touching stories of animal companionship, and some relationships between people and their cherished companions are legendary. From Grey Owl and the Beaver People to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's "little angel dogs" to Emily Carr's menagerie, these stories describe notable people and their relationships wit …

In 1897, tens of thousands of would-be prospectors flooded into the Yukon in search of instant wealth during the Klondike Gold Rush. In this historical tale of mayhem and obsession, characters like prospectors George Carmack and Skookum Jim, Skagway gangster Soapy Smith and Mountie Sam Steele come to life. Enduring savage weather, unforgiving terra …

Today, many of the historic coal-mining communities of the Rocky Mountains are uninhabited ghost towns. Yet behind the crumbled ruins are tales of perseverance, danger and romance. A devastating mine explosion on Halloween shatters the lives of mining families in Nordegg. The miners of Mountain Park build a hockey rink still celebrated in local lor …

Once an almost inaccessible logging town on the edge of the frontier, Vancouver has metamorphosed into one of the world's most beautiful urban centres, host city of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. This book traces Vancouver's extraordinary coming of age through lively text and 150 evocative historical images that capture the city in e …

To many people, Alberta represents the true Canadian frontier. It is known for its rugged image, its "wild west" past and its staunchly independent residents, from the First Nations who originally inhabited the land to the explorers, homesteaders, cowboys, oilmen and others who continued to build and shape the province. This engaging book uses more …

Ten gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknow …

The early history of the Hudson's Bay Company comes alive in these true tales of fur-trade wars, incredible wilderness journeys, hardships and danger. Founded by the extraordinary adventurers and renegades Radisson and des Groseilliers, the HBC attracted many memorable characters. Explorer Henry Kelsey was the first European to see the buffalo herd …

One hundred years ago, British Columbia was a resource-rich province greeting new arrivals from all over the world who'd come to seek their fortunes. Greetings from British Columbia portrays their "land of dreams" as it once was through the very postcards these pioneers may have mailed home to friends and family. These early picture postcards cost …

Harry Marriott was a cowboy-rancher from 1912, when he arrived at the Gang Ranch after a 100-mile journey by freight wagon, through to the 1950s. He adhered to a homespun philosophy of perseverance, a code that helped him overcome adversities of all kinds, from devastating summer droughts to numbing -60°F spells in winter.

In colourful, down-home …

These eight true tales explore the dark side of 20th-century prairie history. A Saskatchewan farmhouse is burned to the ground to conceal the brutal murders of a family of seven. A German prisoner-of-war camp in Medicine Hat is the scene of savage Nazi killings. A convicted killer is given a day pass out of prison for his birthday, only to escape a …

Technically it was a minor league, but for hockey fans west of the Mississippi, the Western Hockey League provided major-league entertainment for over 25 years.

The WHL was a determined and ambitious professional league, with some 22 teams based in major American and Canadian cities. Known as the Pacific Coast Hockey League prior to 1952, the WHL a …

Peppered with lively stories, literary references and pithy observations on the emerging culture and future development of the Dominion of Canada, this 19th-century travelogue is a remarkable and authentic slice of history. In these accounts of his travels in North America, Alexander Staveley Hill weaves together details of Canadian and American h …

Bravo to the New Westminster Museum and Archives for their groundbreaking research into the history of Yi Fao, and for their understanding that these records of the past will remain as a living contribution to enrich and strengthen our collective heritage. —Wayson Choy

This is the fascinating history of Yi Fao—the Chinese name for New Westmins …

This book guides readers to the many places in British Columbia, Washington and Alaska where totem poles can be found and helps viewers understand the "language" of the poles.

Learn about their origin and history, the symbols and ceremonies linked to them, types of figures and how to identify them, and where to see authentic poles and pole collect …

This is a delightful collection of tales by authors from British Columbia's rugged Cariboo-Chilcotin region, and a few "outsiders."

Joining well-known Cariboo favourites Rich Hobson, Paul St. Pierre and Eric Collier are Barry Broadfoot and his touching tribute to Cariboo legend Fred Lindsay; historian/journalist Bruce Ramsey and his description of …

How the city reporters of the 1950s must have loved Major Matthews. Eminently quotable, forthright and provocative in speech . . . his mere presence at any discussion of a contentious nature would be enough to ensure a wealth of good copy, and a strong, catchy headline as well.

So writes Daphne Sleigh in her compelling biography of controversial ar …

These are the stories of more than 50 relics of the West Kootenay. Arrowhead, Beaton and Needles are among the towns that were drowned. Waneta is a power dam; Jersey City was auctioned. Comaplix died one fiery night; Cody, Three Forks, Poplar, Waterloo, Goldfields, Gerrard, Brooklyn, Cascade and a host of others vanished. Leaning headboards in smot …

The West was a lawless domain when Jerry Potts was born into the Upper Missouri fur trade in 1838. The son of a Scottish father and a Blood mother, he was given the name Bear Child by his Blood tribe for his bravery and tenacity while he was still a teen. In 1874, when the North West Mounted Police first marched west and sat lost and starving near …

In the summer of 1984, Anthony Dalton embarked on a near-fatal voyage in a small open boat along the wild northwest coast of Alaska, attempting a solo transit of the Northwest Passage. His sea quest ran parallel to an arduous relief expedition undertaken in 1897-98, when the officers of the US cutter Bear set out to reach eight whaling ships that w …

Slumach's Gold chronicles what is possibly Canada's greatest lost-mine story. It searches out the truth behind a Salish man's hanging for murder in 1891 and tracks the intriguing legend about him that grew after his death. It was a legend that turned into a drama of international fascination when Slumach—the hanged criminal—was mysteriously li …

Experience Alberta's heritage and the outdoors in Country Roads of Alberta, an intriguing photographic guidebook that takes you to places off the beaten track.

Alberta's scenery is as diverse as its topography. Fringed along its western edge by high mountains, the land descends through foothills to stretch into undulating plains sculpted by ancient …

The story of the Northwest Rebellion is synonymous with Métis leader Louis Riel, whose allies joined together in 1885 to face the military forces of the Canadian government, engaging in a civil war on the Canadian Prairies. A lesser-known element of the story is the gripping tale of river warfare along the banks of rivers in Saskatchewan, Alberta …

The many lost communities of British Columbia's Boundary country, which stretches from Osoyoos east to the Kootnays, are reborn with the help of 150 photographs, a dozen maps and a factual and entertaining text. Garnet Basque interviewed old-timers and scoured newspaper archives to create these entertaining accounts.

The Heart of the Cariboo-Chilcotin anthology celebrates this beautiful and remote region of British Columbia. From the days of the gold rush through to modern times, the stories in this collection capture the spirit of a place whose beauty and wildness have inspired its people throughout its history. Legendary tales include:

• a husband's promis …

A historian and a naturalist team up to bring the hidden history of Alberta's agricultural heartland to life in 14 guided road trips. Mile by mile you'll be introduced to plants and wildlife, geological formations and anomalies, and many other nooks and niches of central Alberta, including picnic spots, museums and restaurants.

The indomitable spirit of Bert Irvine is at the heart of Nechako Country, a story that provides a glimpse into a simpler world in simpler times. After Bert moved his young family from Barrhead in northwestern Alberta to Vanderhoof in central British Columbia, the upper Nechako country and Nechako River became integral parts of their lives. Bert's l …

In Philip Timms' Vancouver, the city's "golden age" has been captured with spirit and style by one of British Columbia's foremost photographers. Philip Timms was a man of many accomplishments, but one of the most notable was his photographic record of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, created between 1900 and 1910. As Vancouver evolved from a colo …

One hundred years ago, a shy bank clerk sent a collection of his poems south from the Yukon to be privately published and shared with a small group of friends. Fate intervened, however, and Robert Service, Sam McGee and Dan McGrew became household names across North America and throughout the British Commonwealth.

Service spent the decade prior to …

The sparsely populated southern Interior of British Columbia was rich in resources and ripe for settlement in the late 1800s. The agricultural lands of the Okanagan and Nicola valleys, and the precious metals and coal of the Kootenays, lay largely unused or undiscovered: the challenges was getting to these places.

Transportation was the key that o …

Highway 97 winds its way from the high desert plains of northern California to the Yukon-British Columbia border, making it North America's longest north-south road. Author Jim Couper takes you on a spectacular guided tour from one end of this unsung highway to the other, mixing historical anecdotes with information on colourful local events and mu …

Ranching with Lords & Commons, originally published in 1903, tells the fascinating story of Alberta's famous Oxley Ranch from the perspective of John R. Craig, Oxley's former manager. Craig's passion and knowledge shine through in this overview of what the cattle business was really like when ranching got underway in the late 1800s. In writing abo …

Leechtown, Wellington, Bevan, Kildonan, Fort Rupert, Cape Scott . . .Vancouver Island's ghost towns dot the Island from its southern end to its northern tip, and their stories chart the boom and bust of the resource economy that still characterizes the region.

Well illustrated with maps and an abundance of photos, archival and modern, Ghost Towns & …

Hughina Harold paints a powerful picture of a world that no longer exists in this compelling account of her experiences as a young teacher and nurse on the remote Broughton Archipelago on British Columbia's coast in the 1930s. Fresh from nursing school in Victoria and eager to start work, Harold could not have imagined the challenges that awaited h …

The modern era of professional hockey began in 1979 when the Edmonton Oilers became an NHL team. Over the next decade the team set the standard for successful, exciting hockey, dominating the league, winning five Stanley Cups in seven seasons, and producing some of the greatest players in the history of the sport - Gretzkey, Messier, Fuhr and Coffe …

The promise of fast money and good times attracted some of America's most legendary personalities to the mines, gambling dens and bordellos of early Colorado. It was a world of famous gunslingers, slick con men, expert gamblers and high-class madams. This is a great collection of shoot-em-up, knock-em-down stories about how the west was wild.

Franz (Frank) Oberle was nine years old when his family was relocated from Germany to Poland. Once there, he was taken from his parents to an isolated school where adolescents were being indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth. As the tide of war changed, he became a refugee fleeing the Russian advance, arriving in Dresden as the city became the target …

Beautiful, translucent and indestructible, jade has a mystique that's captivated people since Neolithic times. Stan Leaming, Canada's leading jade geologist, was fascinated by this unusual gem; he is credited with pioneering the emergence of the jade industry in British Columbia. Leaming shares his unique insight into the science and magic of jade …

Liz Bryan reconstructs the lives of some of the very first Canadians, who lived as nomadic buffalo hunters between the final days of the great Ice Age and the coming of the first Europeans. Bryan went beyond the part of their story that can be told through oral history, taking clues from decades of archaeological research.

In a writing style that …

Rich in stories, the Crowsnest Pass region in the southern Rocky Mountains still bears evidence of its tragedies, and one monumental triumph—a railroad rammed through the pass in 18 months. Hailed as the greatest project in the Dominion, the Crow's Nest Pass Railway was built by men who toiled with horses and primitive tools to carve the way for …

Fort Edmonton, a prairie institution and icon from 1795 to 1915, was not just a physical edifice and community—it was a touchstone of western Canadian commercial history, leading to the founding of a strong prosperous city. Established in the wilderness as an outpost and pioneer commercial venture, it became the headquarters for the fur trade for …