The Breath You Take From The Lord is a masterful volume that confirms Patrick Friesen's reputation as one of Canada's finest and most versatile poets. In language striking in its simplicity and strength, Friesen's work moves with the controlled intensity of a hawk circling in a vast prairie sky.

These are poems infused with a sense of reverie and i …

The author finds grievous fault with democracy and favours most of the seven deadly sins. He approves of arranged marriages but expresses absolute faith in the power of love. He laments the fading of family. He has come to believe that the soul exists independent of mind, personality and genes and, like St. Paul, he sees love and charity as the gre …

The coastal waters of British Columbia are among the most treacherous in the world, with steep rocky shores, mazes of reefs, waves fifty feet high, and Pacific storms that blow in unexpectedly with the force of hurricanes. Most vessels that venture forth on these waters arrive safely at their destinations.

Others have not been so lucky. These twenty …

It is unlikely Hal Hammond ever dreamed his stories would achieve fame and immortality. But in the retelling of his father's stories, Dick Hammond has brought his father a wide audience twenty-six years after his death in 1975.

Hal Hammond worked as a logger, a tracker and a beachcomber during his time on the BC coast. Most of that was spent on the …

Gardening on the west coast can be a frustrating undertaking. The adverse weather and wildlife in our region can be enough to turn some off for good. With the right information in hand, however, gardening in our luscious region can be as rewarding as anywhere else on the planet. The key to obtaining that ever-elusive west coast green thumb is Mary …

What was the three-letter last name of the Ladysmith native who is "the world's most recognizable Canadian?"

What is the four-letter name of the character Burnaby native Michael J. Fox played on Family Ties?

What's the four-letter word for the amount of clothing required at Wreck Beach?

What's the nine-letter pass near Sparwood where the CPR started c …

Since its first publication in 1981, Daughters of Copper Woman has become an underground classic, selling over 200,000 copies. Now comes a new edition that includes many pieces cut from the original as well as fresh material added by the author. Here finally, after twenty-two years of gathering dust, is the complete version of the groundbreaking be …

Following its publication in 1973, Wild Flowers of the Pacific Northwest became an instant bestseller and the authoritative guide to the region's wild flowers. The 604-page work met with such great acclaim that its author, Lewis J. Clark, decided smaller field guides should also be published to assist and encourage the identification of wild flower …

Another west coast classic is back in print with Harbour Publishing! In this prequel to the bestselling Saltwater Summer, renowned outdoor author Roderick Haig-Brown writes about two boys on the verge of manhood and their attempts to make their own living.

Don Morgan is sixteen and ready to earn his keep. His family expects him to take a job at the …

Before the birth of Trans Canada Airlines (TCA) in 1937, Canada was one of the very few countries of the world that had no organized air service connecting its principal cities. In 1936, many of the one million people who travelled on scheduled flights in the United States were Canadian citizens who needed to travel south of the border to reach des …

In his third collection of essays, veteran journalist Stephen Hume demonstrates yet again that his understanding of British Columbia - and beyond - runs as deep as Hecate Strait and as far-reaching as the Rocky Mountains. In Off the Map, Hume takes his readers on a wondrous journey through western Canada, stopping at little-known places along the w …

Sarah Carson is a mother of two and grandmother of two more, living quietly on the BC coast and minding her own business and generally being quite ordinary - or so it seems until one fine day when she goes out to work in her garden and she has a stroke.

From that moment, the lives of everyone around Sarah begin to change. Her daughter Lorraine puts …

This exhilarating journey through British Columbia's historic cattle country takes the reader from the high Chilcotin meadows to the rich irrigated fields of the southern Okanagan, from cattle drives to modern marketing, from urban ranches to those tucked away in splendid isolation - all with spectacular full-colour photographs. Ranchland is a gorg …

The story of Burrard Inlet is also the story of Greater Vancouver, the third largest port in North America and one of the most beautiful cities in the world. This engaging history traces the development of the area from the First Nations settlements dating back thousands of years, to the early European explorers and developers (and tree-huggers!), …

Some say Mike McCardell's "feel-good" stories that cap the six o'clock evening news on BCTV are the best part of the program - the only reason they watch the news. One thing is certain, over the years McCardell has earned the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of fans. In this, his first book, he presents an intriguing and often hilarious behind-the- …

Here is the story of the unique vessels that make up BC history's fleet. The Beaver, the first steamer on the coast, played such an important role that its chunky form and the resonant thud, thud of its sidewheels are inseparable from 19th-century BC history. The Lady Alexandra, a passenger ship in the Union Steamship fleet, is remembered as one of …

Outdoor adventurers from all over the world come to the Sunshine Coast to enjoy the very best in bicycling, beachcombing, scuba diving, birdwatching, canoeing, kayaking and hiking in rain forests and mountain passes.

This new, expanded edition covers the 160 picturesque kilometres of winding coastline from Port Mellon, Gibsons, Sechelt and Pender Ha …

The Pacific Ocean off the west coast of North America - ranging from the south coast of Alaska to the Equator - encompasses many marine environments, from warm tropics to cold temperate waters, and from the shallow continental shelf to deep ocean canyons. A diverse number of marine mammals have adapted characteristics to survive and prosper in each …

The largest of BC's southern Gulf Islands, beautiful Salt Spring Island has long been a favoured holiday destination and a prized real-estate area for those in search of an idyllic rural residence. Now available in trade paper, Salt Spring: The Story of an Island chronicles the island's rich history from the days when Coast Salish people inhabited …

This exquisite cookbook instructs the epicure-boater on how to make magnificent gourmet meals using only a limited galley pantry and plenty of fresh food from the ocean: from spicy Haw Mog Hoy (mouthwatering spicy steamed mussels with a touch of Thailand) and Coquilles St. Jacques (a delectable creamy scallop dish), to a Sesame Seed Crusted Halibut …

Crows Do Not Have Retirement, David Zieroth's sixth book of poems, explores the many lives of the spirit and the flesh: lives that challenge, bewilder and excite. With the fluidity of language and sharpness of image that he is known for, Zieroth voyages through the conflicting worlds of dream and everyday life, exploring feelings of extreme self-ir …

For as long as we have communicated by words, men and women have turned to poets to help them express the surges of emotion that accompany the feelings we call romantic love. Recognizing that "love's domain is as huge, as vast as Canada itself," acclaimed poet Tom Wayman set out in 1997 to compile an anthology of the nation's best poetry on the sub …

In January 1887 a delegation of chiefs from the Nisga'a and Tsimshian peoples of northern British Columbia, seeking restitution from a government that had stolen their lands without a treaty or compensation, arrived by steamship in Victoria's Inner Harbour. They were met by Premier William Smithe, who refused them entry to the provincial legislatur …

Sixteen contemporary northern writers explore the unique place known as the North and tell us about their experiences on the boundary between bush and asphalt, trapline and supermarket.

The heart of this fresh and eclectic look at BC's history is an enormously popular 11-part series that ran in the Vancouver Province newspaper late in 1999. Starting with the years before the Europeans arrived, the book chronicles the life and times of BC through the decades, with plenty of photographs from public and private archives in large and …

From the bestselling author Anne Cameron comes a novel that puts the fun back in dysfunctional - a light-hearted look at the trials and tribulations of a family that defines disadvantage.

Arguing, nagging and fighting are the main pastimes in the Lancaster household - usually over the family businesses of
bootlegging and marijuana growing. The fat …

A century ago, the steel ships working coastal waters were built elsewhere. Gradually marine engineers began migrating to the coast with their families, and the BC industry got underway.

Ships of Steel chronicles that industry from the early development of steel construction facilities, equipment and qualified personnel; to the World War II boom whe …

It's the 1950s, and just when Terry Belshaw -- the unlikely hero of Peter Trower's two previous novels, Grogan's Café and Dead Man's Ticket -- vows never to log again, his circumstances change and he needs to return to BC's backwoods to get a stake, and fast.

His newest adventures -- gripping and ominous -- are detailed in The Judas Hills, in which …

By the time Al Purdy succumbed to lung cancer at his waterfront home in Sidney BC on April 21, 2000, he was universally acknowledged to be one of the greatest writers Canada has produced. In five decades as a published author he had produced over forty books and received innumerable distinctions, including two Governor General's Awards and the Orde …

The long-awaited sequel to BC children's classic Jason and the Sea Otter.

This delightful story of a Nuu-chah-nulth boy explores First Nations traditions and values through the making of a canoe. Jason's first canoe is crushed during a storm, and he must replace it. Through Uncle Silas, he learns the traditional methods of canoe building - plus scor …

With introductions, commentary and five new poems derived from Donne's elegies by Doug Beardsley and Al Purdy. In 1998, the poets Al Purdy and Doug Beardsley spent many hours in Victoria's Waddling Dog Pub discussing the often-neglected poetry of D.H. Lawrence. The result was No One Else is Lawrence!, acclaimed by readers across the country.

This ti …

The Bare Plum of Winter Rain is the latest collection of poetry by award-winning poet Patrick Lane, author of more than 20 published books of poetry. An icon in the Canadian literary scene, Lane has won nearly every literary prize in Canada, including the Governor General's Award for Poetry in 1979 for Poems, New and Selected, the Canadian Authors' …

In April 1999, the Inuit dream of a self-governing territory in the eastern Arctic - Nunavut (Our Land) - became a reality. In celebration of this historic event comes a new edition of Inuit Journey, a firsthand account of another turning point in Inuit history: the establishment in the early 1960s of member-owned, member-run Inuit co-operatives, w …

In the middle of a March night nearly thirty years ago, a heavy fog rolls in off the Gulf of Georgia to smother a small fishing town at the mouth of the Fraser River. Ominous and unsettling, the fog sets the scene for a compelling series of events that will forever alter the town and the people who live there - especially the Mawsons, one of the ma …

"In the five years since the Flying Canucks series began," says Pigott, "I have never ceased to marvel that everything connected with aviation in Canada took place in the proverbial blink of an eye." It is barely nine decades since Casey Baldwin became the first Canadian to achieve sustained flight, and only seventy-odd years since J. Dalzell McKee …

Craig has finally made first string on the high school football team and is looking forward to the season ahead. But suddenly his best friend Ray is surpassing him and everyone else on the football field. When Craig learns his friend is on steroids, or what Ray calls his "vitamin program," he decides to start a steroid program of his own.

At first C …

Writing in his introduction to McCarthy's book She Reminds Me of Vermeer, Al Purdy says: "I have the sense of seeing things with her eyes and mind, of actually being in her situation, and it's this intimacy that gives her poems power."

Bittersweet and gently insightful, the poems in Sneaking through the Evening are marked with the fastidious attenti …

Whales, although among our most important and interesting animals, have been little studied until recently. Almost a third of about seventy living cetacean species have been recorded in North American Pacific coast waters.

Our word whale describes glimpses of surfacing cetaceans; its Old English root hvael means "a wheel." A large whale's rolling ba …

Meet Bonnie Marsden, a forty-five-year-old mother of four who hires herself out as a housekeeper when she loses her job as a loans officer in a small Nova Scotia town. But Bonnie ends up doing much more than housework as mystery, mayhem and murder abound in her home town of Membertou County. Each week brings a startling new case that needs cleaning …

"Magic is all around us" says Grandfather to his small grandson, Joseph, one sunny day in the springtime many years ago. "Come with me and I will show you some of nature's magic."

Five-year-old Joseph and his grandfather spend many days exploring the maple woods, the freshwater marshes, the mudflats and the seashores of Burrard Inlet. Through their …

Over a decade ago, Ken Drushka's Stumped: The Forest Industry in Transition emerged as the definitive text on the British Columbia forest industry. In a clear, concise manner, Drushka explained the inner workings of the forest industry and unravelled its complexities, identifying its fundamental problems and explaining how our forests, a resource o …

In this powerful, shocking and highly absorbing new work, Anne Cameron picks up a thread from her prize-winning novel Dreamspeaker, in which an eleven-year-old abuse survivor and runaway named Peter Baxter is taken from his adopted family - two reclusive Native elders - only to be destroyed by the child welfare system that supposedly exists to prot …

Campbell River, stretching along the benchland of Discovery Passage on the east Coast of Vancouver Island, is the hub of the island's north and the surrounding islands and inlets. Internationally renown as a sports fishing destination acclaimed for the size and quality of its salmon and for the wild beauty of its surroundings, the area draws tens o …

From "surviving ground zero in the nuclear family," to "feeling fear at the Fall Fair," to "quelling a taste for champagne on a tap-water budget," Gordon Kirkland writes about survival - survival in the '90s, that is.

Looking back, Kirkland acknowledges his life has always been filled with laughter. He comes from a family who was like "Monty Python …

In this new collection, Canadian poet Tom Wayman, long honoured for his incisive observations on life in the workplace and the classroom, takes a more personal turn. Many of these poems celebrate the gains and losses of "middle-aging," while others reflect on the deaths of parents and friends. Readers of "Life with Dick" and "The Big O" will be rel …

Islands have always had a special place in our minds, hearts and souls. So too have cottages. Add the two together and what do you get? Eric Nicol's wryly funny, sharply observed new book on the joys and terrors of cottage life on Saturna Island, in BC's Strait of Georgia.

Part loopy guidebook, part madcap how-to manual, part fractured history, When …

The Everest disasters of recent years have focused world attention on humanity's obsession with high-altitude mountaineering. What is it that drives people to court such awful risk? And what is the real cost in human terms? Nobody has written more eloquently about these matters than BC author Maria Coffey. Fragile Edge details her love affair with …

The illegal drug trade in BC's Lower Mainland is a ruthless business. Danger is extreme, stakes are high, human lives are expendable. In this white-knuckled crime thriller set in the thick of drug dealing and organized crime, the action gets underway with a murder, followed by more murders and suicide. In the course of the story, a sophisticated yo …

This classic reference on flowering plants has sold over 30,000 copies. Full of gorgeous colour plates and authoritative yet wonderfully readable descriptions, this sumptuous volume is recognized as the definitive source book on Pacific Northwest wild flowers-everything from the Bachelor's Button and the Lady's Smock to Mouse-ear Chickweed and Rabb …