Grandfathered
A sharp, funny, heartfelt memoir by a career-driven baby boomer who enters semi-retirement and explores the joys, challenges, and never-ending surprises of being a "young" granddad.
One summer, shortly after taking a step back from an illustrious journalism career, Ian Haysom found himself in charge of his first grandchild, Mayana, who was three at …
Gilly the Ghillie
Tall tales of coastal adventures, colourful locals, privileged tourists, and elusive fish abound in this hilariously offbeat sequel to The Codfish Dream.
"David Giblin is a marvellous storyteller."—Ian Ferguson, author of The Survival Guide to British Columbia
David Giblin's stint as a seasonal salmon fishing guide on Stuart Island provides a seemi …
Driving to Treblinka
An intimate memoir recounting a woman’s quest to solve the mystery of her Holocaust survivor father’s death.
As a child growing up in Vancouver in the 1950s and early ’60s, Diana Wichtel knew there was something different about her family. Her parents were far from forthcoming about the harrowing details of her Jewish father’s journey from P …
The Codfish Dream
"You'll meet eccentric shore workers, wealthy guests who arrive by yacht and floatplane, as well as essential guides Big Jake, Lucky Petersen, Vop and Wet Lenny. . . . A deadpan narrative keeps the absurdity coming as earnest RCMP, FBI and Fisheries officers encounter the salmon-obsessed denizens of the island resort. This book is a keeper." —Wes …
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 …
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 …
A Gillnet's Drift
One Friday morning in the spring of 1972, an ad in the Vancouver Sun caught Nick Marach’s eye: GILLNETTER FOR SALE. A young architect who had just returned to the west coast from a yearlong motorcycle trip abroad, Marach was not looking for a change of career—but he was looking for a boat to live on, and the price of the old gillnetter was chea …
Drugstore Cowgirl
In 1964, Patricia MacKay immigrated to Canada from England in search of the wild-open lands and cowboy culture that captivated her as a child. In the 1960s, the Wild West was still alive and kicking in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, although it had been tamed—a little. Old-time hospitality and helping anyone in need was the acknowledged way of life.
Pat l …
No Easy Ride
On July 3, 1961, Ian Parsons reported to RCMP Depot Division in Regina as a raw recruit. It was the beginning of a 33-year adventure that took him from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island and many points between. By the time he retired with the rank of inspector, Parsons had a policeman’s trunk full of colourful stories and insightful observations t …
The Fisher Queen
It’s 1981, and Sylvia Taylor has signed on as rookie deckhand on a wallowy 40-foot salmon troller. Looking forward to making money for university, she is determined to master the ins and outs of fishing some of the most dangerous waters in the world: the Graveyard of the Pacific. For four months, she helps navigate the waters off northern Vancouv …
Chilcotin Yarns
Getting three trucks and two horses stuck in the mud on "a good road" into BC's wild, remote interior was just the start of Bruce Watt's hilarious adventures—and it was his honeymoon, too. When the newly married Watt moved there in 1948 to take up ranching, he was a just a kid in his early 20s. He and his wife fell in love with Big Creek, three h …
Mulligan's Stew
Veteran broadcaster Terry David Mulligan takes readers on a galloping romp down the roads he’s travelled, from busting bad guys as a Mountie to spinning records as a DJ to sampling fine wines around the world. He reminisces about growing up in the North Vancouver neighbourhood known as Skunk Hollow, and about the hard price he paid to leave the M …
Campie
Bankrupt, homeless and with only an old Toyota Tercel to her name, Barbara Stewart has taken a job as a camp attendant at Trinidad 11, an oil-rig camp in northwestern Alberta. She was told it’s a “dry” camp—good news for a person hoping to stay sober—but she soon finds out this isn’t true. During the day, she mops floors, scrubs bathroo …
Shelter From the Storm
Buying Saffron, a 24-foot racing sailboat, was an act of desperation meant to help single parent June Cameron and her youngest son validate themselves. It did that and more. A friend persuaded June to race the boat, and over the next decade June, either solo or with her all-female crew, competed in BC's major sailing races, taking home a lot of the …
Denny's Trek
Like many other pioneering North West Mounted Police officers, Cecil Denny was a colourful, independent man with a career full of conquest and controversy. He and his comrades played key roles in the taming of Canada's wild and woolly west, and in this compilation of selected writings from his books The Law Marches West and The Riders of the Plains …
Jack Whyte
Best known for his original series of Arthurian novels, A Dream of Eagles (called The Camulod Chronicles in the US), and his Knights Templar trilogy, Jack Whyte has authored 10 international bestsellers in the past 15 years. Jack's imagination and his passion for observing human nature shine through in both his prose and his verse in this uniquely …
Never Shoot a Stampede Queen
Winner of the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour
The cops wanted to shoot me, my bosses thought I was a Bolshevik, and a local lawyer warned me that some people I was writing about might try to test the strength of my skull with a steel pipe. What more could any young reporter hope for from his first real job?
The night Mark Leiren-Young drove …
Broken Circle
Now an approved curriculum resource for grade 9–12 students in British Columbia and Manitoba.
Theodore (Ted) Fontaine lost his family and freedom just after his seventh birthday, when his parents were forced to leave him at an Indian residential school by order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. Twelve years later, he lef …
Broken Circle
“Too many survivors of Canada’s Indian residential schools live to forget. Theodore Fontaine writes to remember.”
– Hana Gartner, CBC’s The Fifth Estate
Bestselling Memoir, McNally Robinson Booksellers
Approved curriculum resource for grade 9–12 students in British Columbia and Manitoba.
Theodore Niizhotay Fontaine lost his family and fre …
Reena
Shortlisted for the 2009 George Ryga Award.
This is the story of an average family that has never been the same . . . since its eldest child was swarmed and killed by her peers on a moonlit night, November 14, 1997 . . . It is the story of what sudden and horrific violence can do to a family, and how a family somehow remains intact in the face of …
Jack Whyte: Forty Years in Canada
Best known for his original series of Arthurian novels, A Dream of Eagles (called The Camulod Chronicles in the US), and his more recent Knights Templar trilogy, Jack Whyte has authored 10 international bestsellers in the past 15 years. Jack's imagination and his passion for observing human nature shine through in both his prose and his verse in th …
Denny's Trek
Like many other pioneering North West Mounted Police officers, Cecil Denny was a colourful, independent man with a career full of conquests and controversy. He and his comrades played key roles in the taming of Canada's wild and woolly west, and in this compilation of selected writings from his books The Law Marches West and The Riders of the Plain …
Never Fly Over an Eagle's Nest
A BC classic—over 100,000 copies in print!
Joe Garner's father, Oland, was the oldest of four brothers who were run out of South Carolina in 1903 by the Ku Klux Klan. Along with his bride, Lona, Oland headed west to San Francisco, then north to Victoria, BC. He found employment with Emily Carr's father. Ten years later he helped Emily build her …
