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Built in 1913, the Canadian Pacific Railway's ship Princess Maquinna steamed up and down the rugged west coast of Vancouver Island in summer and winter, calm weather and storms, for over forty years, and has become one of the most beloved boats in BC's maritime history. Princess Maquinna, sometimes referred to as the "Ugly Princess" but most often "Old Faithful," transported Indigenous people, settlers, missionaries, loggers, cannery workers, prospectors...
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Broadcaster and bestselling author Mike McCardell haunts British Columbia's past in order to summon spellbinding tales of Western Canada. Reprising his 2013 bestseller Haunting Vancouver, Mike McCardell summons the ghost of real-life pioneer Jock Linn to provide hair-raising and humorous versions of what really happened during some of the formative events that shaped British Columbia. In Haunting British Columbia, McCardell's ghostly narrator explains...
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"Of the settlers, prospectors, trappers, mountaineers and loggers who came to British Columbia's remote Bute Inlet between the 1890s and the 1940s, few remained long. August Schnarr, however, trapped far up the Homathko and Southgate Rivers and logged the inlet shores from 1910 until the 1960s. An adventurous photographer, August strapped his Kodak camera to his suspenders and captured his mountain climbing, upriver treks and family homestead. His...
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Living in pre-Civil War Philadelphia, young Black activist Mifflin Gibbs was feeling disheartened from fighting the overwhelming tide of White America's legalized racism when abolitionist Julia Griffith encouraged him to "go do some great thing." These words helped inspire him to become a successful merchant in San Francisco, and then to seek a more just society in the new colony of Vancouver Island, where he was to become a prominent citizen and...
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In 1945, following years as an instructor, Carl Agar was honorably discharged from the British and Commonwealth Air Training Plan and moved to Penticton where he began looking for flying opportunities. A first attempt to start a flying club never took off but Agar and his partners Barney Bent and Alf Stringer were determined to get off the ground. They began looking at commercial ventures and in 1947 Okanagan Air Services (OAS) was formed to provide...
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Harbour Publishing
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"The Skeena, second longest river in the province, remains an icon of British Columbia's northwest. Called Xsien (water of the clouds) by the Tsimshian and Gitksan, it has always played a vital role in the lives of Indigenous people of the region. Since the 1800s, it has also become home to gold seekers, traders, salmon fishers and other settlers who were drawn by the area's beauty and abundant natural resources. Voices from the Skeena will take readers...
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A brisk chronicle of Vancouver, BC, from early days to its emergence as a global metropolis, refracted through the events, characters and communities that have shaped the city. In Becoming Vancouver award-winning historian Daniel Francis follows the evolution of the city from early habitation by the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, to the area's settlement as a mill town, to the flourishing speakeasies and brothels during the 1920s,...
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"'We operated perfectly legally. We considered ourselves philanthropists! We supplied good liquor to poor thirsty Americans ... and brought prosperity back to the Harbour of Vancouver ...' --Captain Charles Hudson. At the stroke of one minute past midnight, January 17, 1920, the National Prohibition Act was officially declared in effect in the United States. From 1920 to 1933 the manufacture, sale, importation and transportation of alcohol and, of...
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"Up until the 1930s, Refuge Cove was one of the most remote places on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Tucked into Clayoquot Sound, it sheltered boats from Pacific storms and its hot springs provided welcome relief for anyone waiting for bad weather to pass. In spite of its natural wonders, the cove was undeveloped and transiently populated. But everything changed in 1933, when supply boat operator Ivan Clarke saw a business opportunity. At the...
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Harbour Publishing
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"Texada is the largest island in the Strait of Georgia, a long strip of richly mineralized granite and limestone dividing the upper gulf. Travel time from Vancouver is six hours via three ferries. A newcomer's first impression is of an idyllic place with a big sandy beach, a Sunday farmer's market and a scant population of aging loggers, miners, pot-growers and other retirees, but this belies Texada's intriguing history. Although today Texada is better...
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Explore the rich history of Canada's largest ranch. Douglas Lake is the largest ranch in Canada, encompassing over one million acres of BC's south-central interior, and thousands of people have worked there since it was founded in the mid 1880s. Douglas Lake now includes BC's first cattle ranch, Alkali Lake Ranch, as well as Circle S Ranch, Quilchena Ranch, Riske Creek Ranching and the infamous Gang Ranch. It has had a succession of wealthy owners...
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"The BC tradition of fighting back against unfair pay and unsafe working conditions has been around since before the colony joined Confederation. In 1849 Scottish labourers at BC's first coal mine at Fort Rupert went on strike to protest wretched working conditions, and it's been a wild ride ever since. For years the BC labour movement was the most militant in the land, led by colourful characters like Ginger Goodwin, murdered for his pains, and pull-no-punches...
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"Social unrest, political activism, worry about human impact on this earth--sound familiar? In 1969, British Columbians were facing concerns that are still making headlines today. At the end of a decade of changing technological and political landscapes associated with draft dodgers, hippie flower power and the rise of the counterculture, a group of serious-minded citizens created Sierra Club BC to protect and preserve wild places in the province....
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"When the dust settled after the restructuring of the Canadian forest industry at the beginning of the 21st century and many of the major players such as MacMillan Bloedel, Doman Industries and Slocan Forest Products vanished into memory, one feisty player remained standing, stronger than ever: Terminal Forest Products. Remarkably, Terminal was privately owned by one man, a Sikh immigrant and former labourer named Asa Singh Johal. Who was he and how...
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