Pioneer Days in British Columbia


Book Description

Pioneer Days is a blend of words and photos that proves British Columbia's history is as interesting as that recorded anywhere else in North America. Every article is true, many written or narrated by those who, 100 or more years ago, lived the experiences they relate. Each volume contains 160 pages, plus some 60,000 words of text and over 200 historical photos, many published for the first time.




Frontier Days in British Columbia


Book Description

BC's best history writers bring the province's early days to life in these pages. Illustrated with over 80 colour photos, plus maps and archival illustrations, Frontier Days in British Columbia is a fountain of information and a visual treat. Editor Garnet Basque's selection of 20 great west-coast stories offers entertaining lore from the high seas to the high country, ranging from the fateful voyage of the Grappler to the legendary exploits of packer Jean "Cataline" Caux, and from the first Hudson's Bay Company forts to the age of whaling.




Alex Lord's British Columbia


Book Description

Alex Lord, a pioneer inspector of rural BC schools shares in these recollections his experiences in a province barely out of the stage coach era. Travelling through vast northern territory, utilizing unreliable transportation, and enduring climatic extremes, Lord became familiar with the aspirations of remote communities and their faith in the humanizing effects of tiny assisted schools. En route, he performed in resolute yet imaginative fashion the supervisory functions of a top government educator, developing an educational philosophy of his own based on an understanding of the provincial geography, a reverence for citizenship, and a work ethic tuned to challenge and accomplishment. Although not completed, these memoires invite the reader to experience the British Columbia that Alex Lord knew. Through his words, we endure the difficulties of travel in this mountainous province. We meet many of the unusual characters who inhabited this last frontier and learn of their hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, and eccentricities. More particularly, we are reminded of the historical significance of the one-room rural school and its role as an indispensable instrument of community cohesion. John Calam has organized the memoirs according to the regions through which Lord travelled. He has included in his introduction a biography of Alex Lord, a brief description of the British Columbia he knew, a sketch of its public education system, and an assessment of the place Lord’s writing now occupies among other works on education and society.




British Columbia-Yukon Sternwheel Days


Book Description

Over 300 sternwheelers plied the BC-Yukon waters, a record in North America. In icy northern lakes, rivers and the open sea, these flat-bottomed steamers served for 100 years. Ripped open by rapids, gutted by fire, crushed by ice, they left a memorable wake that altered history forever. This book includes portraits of flamboyant captains and crews, details on how the vessels were constructed and operated, historical background of the communities they served and more.













Triumph and Tragedy in the Crowsnest Pass


Book Description

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 industry. Towns and coal mines blossomed as the nourishing stem of the railroad brought abundance to British Columbia and Alberta, but with progress came disaster. The town of Frank, Alberta, was devastated when part of the legendary "Mountain That Walks" crashed down on the homes and businesses nestled at its foot. A mine explosion at nearby Hillcrest took nearly 200 men in one huge blast, and the entire town of Fernie, BC, was razed by fire. Was the relentless hand of fate responsible, or was it the Elk Valley curse? A must-read for anyone who enjoys thrilling tales of true life and real people, this book captures all the drama and spirit of a mythic land.




A Bibliography of Canadian Folklore in English


Book Description

This book is the only comprehensive bibliography of Canadian folklore in English. The 3877 different items are arranged by genres: folktales; folk music and dance; folk speech and naming; superstitions, popular beliefs, folk medicine, and the supernatural; folk life and customs; folk art and material culture; and within genres by ethnic groups: Anglophone and Celtic, Francophone, Indian and Inuit, and other cultural groups. The items include reference books, periodicals, articles, records, films, biographies of scholars and informants, and graduate theses. Each items is annotated through a coding that indicates whether it is academic or popular, its importance to the scholar, and whether it is suitable for young people. The introduction includes a brief survey of Canadian folklore studies, putting this work into academic and social perspective. The book covers all the important items and most minor items dealing with Canadian folklore published in English up to the end of 1979. It is concerned with legitimate Canadian folklore – whether transplanted from other countries and preserved here, or created here to reflect the culture of this country. It distinguishes between authentic folklore presented as collected and popular treatments in which the material has been rewritten by the authors. Intended primarily for scholars of folklore, international as well as Canadian, the book will also be of use to scholars in anthropology, cultural geography, oral history, and other branches of Canadian culture studies, as well as to librarians, teachers, and the general public.




The Archive of Place


Book Description

The Archive of Place weaves together a series of narratives about environmental history in a particular location � British Columbia's Chilcotin Plateau. In the mid-1990s, the Chilcotin was at the centre of three territorial conflicts. Opposing groups, in their struggle to control the fate of the region and its resources, invoked different understandings of its past � and different types of evidence � to justify their actions. These controversies serve as case studies, as William Turkel examines how people interpret material traces to reconstruct past events, the conditions under which such interpretation takes place, and the role that this interpretation plays in historical consciousness and social memory. It is a wide-ranging and original study that extends the span of conventional historical research.