Trail North
Winner (second prize), 2019 British Columbia Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Historical Writing
A revealing history of the ancient trail that served as a major transportation route between Washington and British Columbia and shaped the cultural and economic ties between the two jurisdictions.
Trails are the most enduring memorials of human occupation …
A Mill Behind Every Stump
The story of one family's settlement in the Cariboo and the culture of early sawmills that developed around them.
In 1922, the Judson family arrived in the Cariboo by covered wagon. The stories of their life on the remote homestead at Ruth Lake is told through this humorous and heartwarming book by local historian and author Marianne Van Osch, as re …
A Mill Behind Every Stump
The story of one family's settlement in the Cariboo and the culture of early sawmills that developed around them.
In 1922, the Judson family arrived in the Cariboo by covered wagon. The stories of their life on the remote homestead at Ruth Lake is told through this humorous and heartwarming book by local historian and author Marianne Van Osch, as re …
Children of the Kootenays
A warm-hearted memoir of a childhood spent living in various mining towns in the Kootenays throughout the 1930s and ’40s.
When young Shirley Doris Hall and her family moved to BC’s West Kootenay region in 1927, the area was a hub of mining activity. Shirley’s father, a cook, had no problem finding work at the mining camps, and the family dutif …
Children of the Kootenays
A warm-hearted memoir of a childhood spent living in various mining towns in the Kootenays throughout the 1930s and ’40s.
When young Shirley Doris Hall and her family moved to BC’s West Kootenay region in 1927, the area was a hub of mining activity. Shirley’s father, a cook, had no problem finding work at the mining camps, and the family dutif …
A Matter of Confidence
Shortlisted, 2019 BC and Yukon Book Prizes Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction
A breathtaking behind-the-scenes look at the dramatic rise and fall of Christy Clark’s BC Liberals, the return to power of the NDP, and what it means for British Columbia’s volatile political climate going forward.
British Columbia’s political arena has always been t …
Sonny Assu
A stunning retrospective highlighting the playfulness, power, and subversive spirit of Northwest Coast Indigenous artist Sonny Assu.
Through large-scale installation, sculpture, photography, printmaking, and painting, Sonny Assu merges the aesthetics of Indigenous iconography with a pop-art sensibility. This stunning retrospective spans over a decad …
The Hundred-Year Trek
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 Trude …
Morrison
The never-before-published memoir of Major-General Sir Edward Morrison, a true Canadian hero of the First World War.
The First World War marked a turning point in Canadian history and in Canada’s self-identification as a nation. Yet in memorializing the iconic events and battles of the War, certain key individuals who participated have been lost i …
Lace Up
A charmingly illustrated history of the humble skate and its place in Canadian cultural identity.
Throughout our 150-year history, and even longer, people have braved the treacherous Canadian winters and taken to the ice for the purposes of transportation, competition, exercise, and just plain fun. Canadian culture has developed around ice and the r …
The Spitfire Luck of Skeets Ogilvie
A young Canadian spitfire pilot finds adventure, love, and a remarkable dose of luck on the frontlines of the Second World War.
Rejected by the Royal Canadian Air Force in the summer of 1939, Keith “Skeets” Ogilvie joined the British Royal Air Force instead. A week later he was on a boat to England and a future he could not have imagined.
As a S …
Beckoned by the Sea
A rich and diverse tapestry weaving together the many voices, narratives, skills, and talents of women up and down the coastal Pacific Northwest who devote their lives and careers to the sea.
Beckoned by the Sea celebrates coastal women from northern BC to northern California who work on or with the sea. The twenty-four women featured in this inspi …
Mark Bate
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 acclamati …
All the World's a Stage
A celebration of the twenty-eight-year history of Western Canada’s most illustrious Shakespeare festival.
Over the summer of 1990, six thousand Vancouverites flocked into a rented tent at Vanier Park to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was the inaugural production of what would become one of the city’s most popular and enduring yearly cult …
Medicine Unbundled
"We can no longer pretend we don't know about residential schools, murdered and missing Aboriginal women and 'Indian hospitals.' The only outstanding question is how we respond." —Tom Sandborn, Vancouver Sun
A shocking exposé of the dark history and legacy of segregated Indigenous health care in Canada.
After the publication of his critically accl …
John McCrae
Shortlisted, 2018 Forest of Reading Golden Oak Award
Most Canadians are familiar with John McCrae through his iconic poem “In Flanders Fields,” which was penned on the battlefields of the First World War and remains a symbol of remembrance to this day. Although he will always be remembered as a war poet, the Guelph, Ontario, native was a physici …
The Valiant Nellie McClung
Although her name today is synonymous with the women’s suffrage movement in Canada, Nellie McClung’s long and varied career covered several fields—from social activist to elected politician, from novelist to journalist. McClung was instrumental in Canadian women gaining the right to vote before their British and American counterparts—2016 m …
Remembered in Bronze and Stone
Remembered in Broze and Stone evokes the years immediately following the First World War, when grief was still freshly felt in communities from one end of Canada to the other. This book tells the story of the nation’s war memorials—particularly bronze or stone sculptures depicting Canadian soldiers—through the artists who conceived them, the …
Remembered in Bronze and Stone
Remembered in Bronze and Stone evokes the years immediately following the First World War, when grief was still freshly felt in communities from one end of Canada to the other. This book tells the story of the nation’s war memorials—particularly bronze or stone sculptures depicting Canadian soldiers—through the artists who conceived them, the …
Remembered in Bronze and Stone
Remembered in Broze and Stone evokes the years immediately following the First World War, when grief was still freshly felt in communities from one end of Canada to the other. This book tells the story of the nation’s war memorials—particularly bronze or stone sculptures depicting Canadian soldiers—through the artists who conceived them, the …
Britannia's Navy on the West Coast of North America, 1812-1914
The influence of the Royal Navy on the development of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest was both effective and extensive. Yet all too frequently, its impact has been ignored by historians, who instead focus on the influence of explorers, fur traders, settlers, and railway builders. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of his cla …
Haida Gwaii
“Perhaps the definitive guidebook to Haida Gwaii.”—Globe and Mail
Haida Gwaii, ancestral home of the Haida Nation, was once as inaccessible and mysterious as it was beautiful. The tight cluster of islands off British Columbia’s northwest coast remained virtually untouchable for millennia, allowing its people to develop a distinct and except …
Lost Nuke
“A story seemingly drawn out of a Hollywood action script…Gripping stuff.”—Canada’s History
Just before midnight on February 13, 1950, three engines of a US Air Force B-36 intercontinental bomber caught fire over Canada’s northwest coast. The crew jumped, and the plane ditched somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Almost four years later, the …
Come 'n' Get It
A wholesome and hearty collection of authentic recipes and local history from ranch country.
Come ‘n’ Get It is an authentic collection of down-home recipes and early Western Canadian ranch lore. Featuring material and recipes gathered from letters, history books, family cookbooks, and interviews with ranching families, this book represents a cr …
Daggers Unsheathed
Daggers Unsheathed: The Political Assassination of Glen Clark is the story of the Glen Clark era in British Columbia politics. From the 1995 announcement of his NDP leadership aspirations to the day in 2002 when he was acquitted of criminal charges in a BC court, Glen Clark was the dominant personality in West Coast politics. Clark's style and poli …
Whistle Posts West
Everybody has a train story. Whether it comes from a distant relative who worked on the railways or from a family train trip that formed a lasting impression of the Canadian landscape, trains inspire a sense of wonder and nostalgia. They are embedded in the history of Canada as a whole and western Canada in particular, and for generations they were …
Emily Carr
This is the story of a rebellious girl from British Columbia who travelled the world in pursuit of her calling only to find her true inspiration in the Canadian landscape she’d left behind. Both a prolific painter and an accomplished writer, Carr was more comfortable in the raw wilderness than in the tea rooms of London, and more at home with her …
The Great Blackfoot Treaties
“A must-read for historians and their students.”—Annette Bruised Head, Kainai High School Principal, Blood Tribe
The expansive ancestral territory of the Blackfoot Nation ranged from the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta to the Missouri River in Montana and from the Rocky Mountains east to the Cypress Hills. This buffalo-rich land sustained …
The Great Blackfoot Treaties
The expansive ancestral territory of the Blackfoot Nation ranged from the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta to the Missouri River in Montana and from the Rocky Mountains east to the Cypress Hills. This buffalo-rich land sustained the Blackfoot for generations until the arrival of whiskey traders, unscrupulous wolfers, smallpox epidemics, and the …
British Columbia and Yukon Gold Hunters
Although the 1848 discovery of gold in California was the first bonanza to trigger an invasion of migrants to North America’s Pacific Coast, it was relatively short-lived. Soon, grander findings farther north led to an even greater influx of gold hunters. In 1851, a twenty-seven-ounce gold nugget was found on Haida Gwaii, ushering in fifty years …
Stone by Stone
Stone by Stone takes readers on a fascinating journey across the short-grass prairie of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan in search of tangible evidence of the region’s ancient past—a civilization dating back at least twelve thousand years.
In this revised and updated edition of her one-of-a-kind guidebook, author Liz Bryan explores archaeolog …
Stones of Time
In their last adventure, Cody, Eric, and Rachel were clever enough to fool townspeople with a homemade "ancient Egyptian" tablet. Their exploits brought some much-needed tourism to Sultana, Manitoba, but their deception ensured they would spend the summer doing community service. While mowing the grass in the local cemetery, they stumble across som …
Flames of the Tiger
Finalist, White Pine Award
Finalist, Stellar Award
Society of School Librarians International, Honour Book
Manitoba Young Reader’s Choice Award, Honour Book
As a boy growing up in Germany during Hitler’s rise to power, Dieter has been seduced by the pomp and circumstance of war. But as global hostilities intensify, he is called upon to fight …
The Luck of the Karluk
When the members of Canada’s First Arctic Expedition set out from Victoria aboard HMCS Karluk in the summer of 1913, it was a moment of great optimism. The three-year mission would chart unexplored landmasses of the Western Arctic and secure Canada’s place in the international geographic community. Little did the team of distinguished scholars …
The Law and the Lawless
At the end of the nineteenth century, Canada’s prairies were still sparsely populated. Crimes such as horse theft, random murders, and prison escapes were the order of the day, and the North West Mounted Police continued to rely on their horses, their contacts, and their wits to apprehend the culprits. By the mid-1930s, a sea change in technology …
