Flavours of Cooper's Cove
By Angelo Prosperi-Porta
Photographs by Andrei Fedorov

In this award-winning cookbook by acclaimed chef Angelo Prosperi-Porta, find over 200 inspiring recipes for food that tastes every bit as delicious as it looks. With easy-to-follow instructions, create breakfasts worth jumping out of bed for, elegant hors d’oeuvres, mouth-watering entrées and delightfully decadent desserts. Lavishly photographed, this book is also a feast for the eyes.

With his partner, Ina Haegemann, Angelo owns and operates the waterfront Cooper’s Cove Guesthouse in Sooke, British Columbia. In addition to accommodation, they offer five-star cooking classes, where Angelo teaches the techniques that have earned him a recommendation from Oprah Winfrey, and praise in gourmet magazines and newspapers across North America. This cookbook shares Angelo’s secrets in the kitchen, and will have your guests awarding your meals five-star ratings, too.

An award-winning chef and former member of Culinary Team Victoria (1990 and 1992) and Culinary Team Canada (1994), Angelo Prosperi-Porta trained at Malaspina College and worked as a pastry chef at Murchie’s Tearoom and the Oak Bay Beach Hotel in Victoria, and ran the pastry kitchen at the Delta Mountain Inn in Whistler. In 2001, he opened with his partner, Ina Haegemann, Angelo’s Cooking School in conjunction with Cooper’s Cove Guesthouse.

Drinking Vancouver
100+ Great Bars in the City and Beyond
John Lee

With sharp, witty reviews of the best spots in town to slake your thirst, Drinking Vancouver is the pocket-sized booze bible for locals and visitors craving a night out on the town. Divided into eleven neighbourhoods, visit many new, revamped and unique establishments—from the heritage bars of Gastown to the slick joints of Yaletown to the gritty pubs of the Downtown Eastside. With Vancouver’s long-overdue bar renaissance upon us, travel writer John Lee offers the first hands-on guide to toast the city’s newly hot bar scene.

• Reviews and recommendations for over 100 Vancouver-area watering holes.
• Back-of-the-book bar index for easy reference.
• Appendix of BC’s award-winning and regional beer-makers.
• “Top Three” lists covering the best bars for drinking, eating and ambience.
• Maps of 11 neighbourhoods, great for plotting your next pub-crawl.
• “On the Road” sections covering the Lower Mainland, Victoria and the Okanagan.

Born in the city of St. Albans (home of what is reputedly Britain’s oldest pub), John Lee has been a full-time travel and feature writer since 1999 and his work has appeared in more than 150 different publications around the world, including National Geographic Traveler, CNN Traveller, the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail and the Guardian Weekly. He has also written 15 Lonely Planet guidebooks and is the author of Walking Vancouver. To read his latest stories and peruse current projects, visit www.johnleewriter.com.

Deadly Dues
Linda Kupecek

When former TV star Lulu Malone finds her evil union representative stabbed to death, her first instinct is to run. Unfortunately, the exit is crowded, as she has four actor friends with her. Without much choice, Lulu becomes enmeshed in the real-life detective hunt, one that she has only experienced as an actor on TV. With her life in danger, and her beloved dog Horatio kidnapped, Lulu’s days are filled with threats, thrift store finds, and hindrances by unknown, overweight assailants.

Get ready for the Lulu Malone mysteries, a gutsy new detective series that presents meditations on the life of the artist, in between muggings, murders and mayhem.

Linda Kupecek is the author of Rebel Women and The Rebel Cook. She was a columnist with The Hollywood Reporter for ten years, and her writing has been published in numerous magazines including City Palate, TV Guide and Country Collectibles. She has acted in regional theatre and in classic films such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller. After living in Los Angeles and Vancouver, Linda now lives in Calgary, AB. Deadly Dues is the first mystery in the Lulu Malone Mystery series.

Death as a Last Resort
Gwendolyn Southin

It is January 1961 and Margaret Spencer and Nat Southby are relaxing on a ski holiday when their vacation takes a bone-chilling turn. While cross-country skiing the couple comes across the frozen body of Maurice Dubois, a man who went missing from a fishing resort the month before. When Maurice’s wife is also found murdered, the two Vancouver detectives are hired by the victims’ children to investigate. An energetic hunt begins, as Maggie and Nat find themselves involved in clandestine visits to a clothing factory on East Hastings Street, encounters at horse-breeding stables in Langley, a car chase to Lulu Island and eventually a pilgrimage to the fishing resort at St. Clare’s Cove in Pender Harbour.

In Death As a Last Resort, the fourth book in the popular Margaret Spencer Mystery series, our favourite Vancouver female sleuth Maggie Spencer and her partner Nat Southby continue their escapades as they track down the unlawful and dangerous.

Gwendolyn Southin is the author of the three previous Margaret Spencer Mysteries (Death in a Family Way, In the Shadow of Death, Death on a Short Leash). Long involved in writers’ circles and writing workshops, she also helped organize various book festivals in her community. Born in England, and having lived in Montreal, Gwen now enjoys the temperate Sunshine Coast and has made her home in Sechelt, BC.

Kileasa Wong was born Wu Chewan in Hong Kong, the daughter of a family from Chaozhou in the northeast corner of Guangdong Province. She moved to Canada with her husband in 1974 and is now the secretary of Victoria's Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the editor of the Victoria Chinatown Newsletter. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a master's degree in education from the University of Victoria, and is the foremost teacher of traditional Chinese painting in Victoria. She is also the principal of the Chinese Public School on Fisgard Street. Kileasa lives in Victoria, BC.

Cheadle's Journal of Trip Across Canada
1862-1863
Walter B. Cheadle
Introduction by Stephen R. Bown

Walter B. Cheadle’s diary tells his incredible story of travelling with Lord Milton, as they journeyed along the uncharted Yellowhead route in 1862–63. A miraculously successful expedition, the men traversed the continent, making their way from Quebec, through Saskatchewan, Alberta, up the Athabasca River, risking their lives opening the trails through the Canadian Rockies, and eventually arriving in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1863. Cheadle’s candid and gritty but also humorous account tells, in intimate detail, what life and travel was like in the Northwest and BC during the latter days of the fur-trade era. He acknowledges the heavy debt owed by all the early explorers to the Plains Indians, who passed on to the first white men their sophistication in the ways of the wilderness. He also records the gradual demoralization of the Native people under the impact of European culture. A welcome addition to the Classics West series, Cheadle’s Journal is a rare and important document of a remarkable life and time.

Walter Butler Cheadle was educated at Gaius College, Cambridge, and studied medicine at St. George’s Hospital, London. In 1861, he interrupted his studies to join Lord Milton on the expedition documented in Cheadle’s Journal. Mount Cheadle, located in the Monashee Range of British Columbia, was named in honour of his trip to this area. Intrumental in his field of medicine, Cheadle was an avid advocate of women’s rights in the study of medicine, and was the first man to lecture at the London School of Medicine for Woman. He is also credited as having distinguished scurvy from rickets in 1878. Walter Cheadle died in London, England, in 1910.

The Maquinna Line
A Family Saga
Norma Macmillan

A murder, a tryst, a mysterious child. A Victoria aristocrat who obsesses over her Churchill relatives. A repressive Welsh mother with a royalty fixation. A once-carefree Hesquiat girl from Nootka Sound. A dashing Icelandic philanderer. And quiet, steady Julia Godolphin, trying to rise above it all. The lost novel of Norma Macmillan, the Vancouver actress who lived much of her life in New York and Hollywood, is the work of a woman steeped in the American entertainment industry but deeply in love with the history of her native province, which eventually drew her home before her death in 2001.

The Maquinna Line: A Family Saga is set on Vancouver Island from 1871 to 1945, with a nod to the meeting of Captain Cook and Chief Maquinna in 1778. It traces the stories of the five families of varied social standing, including two descendents of Chief Maquinna. In the end, they’re all ordinary people trying to find happiness in the face of intrigue, ambition, misunderstanding and changing social and sexual mores.

Norma Macmillan had a wide-ranging career in the arts, but she is best known as the actress who was the voice of television’s Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Her name is honoured on Vancouver’s Starwalk. Norma’s plays were produced in Vancouver and New Jersey, and she worked on The Maquinna Line until her death in 2001. Vancouver author and journalist Charles Campbell edited the manuscript into its present form.

Peter O'Reilly
The Rise of a Reluctant Immigrant
Lynne Stonier-Newman

Powerful and diligent, Peter O’Reilly played a role in shaping British Columbia in the last quarter of the 1800s. An immigrant from Ireland, O’Reilly landed in Victoria during the height of the Cariboo Gold Rush and was appointed gold commissioner for BC. He held the position of county court judge, and sorted settler and Native disputes, despite often having to function as an assistant land commissioner. From 1880 to 1898, O’Reilly was the federally appointed BC Indian Reserve Lands commissioner. Many of his decisions about the location and size of Native reserves continue to be challenged in the courts to this day.

In Peter O’Reilly, we also see the private side of this industrious man, a man who enjoyed the vast wilderness for years, on horseback or by foot, on snowshoes or in a canoe. He had many acquaintances and two close friends, Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie and Edward Dewdney. He lived with his cherished wife, Caroline Trutch O’Reilly, and their children at Point Ellice House in Victoria, BC.

Lynne Stonier-Newman is a freelance writer, historian and communications consultant who is the author of articles, poetry and plays about BC. She was born in Quesnel, where her father was the BCPP patrolman. She is the author of Policing a Pioneer Province and The Lawman: Adventures of a Frontier Diplomat and was a contributor to the 2008 CBC Radio One book The Trail of 1858.

Inside Chinatown
Ancient Culture in a New World
Robert Amos and Kileasa Wong

Victoria’s Chinatown is Canada’s oldest Chinese neighbourhood and has a lineage unbroken since 1858. With large-format colour photos and photocollages, Robert Amos and Kileasa Wong take you behind the doors of the 29 private clubs that make up the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. You’ll see the gilded altars, antique art and ornate furniture that grace these meeting halls. Through stunning pictures and text in both Chinese and English, you will meet the club members and take an inside look at the culture of this complex community. Inside Chinatown is sure to become a landmark publication chronicling the vibrant heritage of Chinese Canadians.

Robert Amos is a full-time artist who began painting professionally in 1980; a five-part panorama of Chinatown’s Fisgard Street was the centrepiece of his first exhibition. He is the author of Artists in Their Studios: Where Art is Born (TouchWood Editions). Since 1986, Robert has been the art writer for the Victoria Times Colonist newspaper and his drawings of Victoria’s Chinatown have appeared on almost every issue of the Victoria Chinatown Newsletter. Robert lives in Victoria, BC.

Kileasa Wong was born Wu Chewan in Hong Kong, the daughter of a family from Chaozhou in the northeast corner of Guangdong Province. She moved to Canada with her husband in 1974 and is now the secretary of Victoria's Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association and the editor of the Victoria Chinatown Newsletter. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a master's degree in education from the University of Victoria, and is the foremost teacher of traditional Chinese painting in Victoria. She is also the principal of the Chinese Public School on Fisgard Street. Kileasa lives in Victoria, BC.

Seaweed in the Soup
Stanley Evans

Silas Seaweed is back on the beat as the street-smart Coast Salish cop. A gardener is found dead and the prime suspects are two young local party girls. Silas is handed the case that soon takes a bloodier turn when a policeman’s wife is killed. Silas begins to suspect that these murders and other events are related to the recent tide of gang-related crimes that has been sweeping British Columbia. Just as he draws closer to finding concrete evidence, Silas finds his own reputation in danger and is suspended from the police force. His quest to clear his name and find the killers leads him from Victoria’s loud and steamy nightclubs and bars to the remote and quiet islands of Desolation Sound.

The fifth mystery in this popular series, Seaweed in the Soup is a thrilling and suspenseful tale that skilfully combines a hard-boiled mystery narrative with the mythology of the Coast Salish.

PRAISE FOR SEAWEED ON THE ROCKS (BOOK FOUR)

“This series just keeps getting better and better. Rich descriptors evoke colour and emotion . . . In places the high energy feels like a hundred-yard dash.”—Hamilton Spectator

“As clever and sparkly as the first three. Evans’ combination of light mystery and Salish mythology is fun.”—Globe and Mail

The Chief Factor's Daughter
Vanessa Winn

Chief factor: In the Hudson’s Bay Company fur-trade monopoly, the title of chief factor was the highest rank given to commissioned officers, who were responsible for a major trading post and its surrounding district.

Colonial Victoria in 1858 is an unruly mix of rowdy gold seekers and hustling immigrants caught in the upheaval of the fur trade giving way to the gold rush. Chief Factor John Work, an elite of the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade and husband to a country-born wife, forbids his daughters to go into the formerly quiet Fort Victoria, to protect them from its burgeoning transient population. Margaret, the eldest daughter, chafes at her father’s restrictions and worries that, at 23, she is fated to be a spinster. Born of a British father and Métis mother, Margaret and her sisters belong to the upper class of the fur-trade community, though they become targets of snobbery and racism from the new settlers. But dashing naval officers and Royal Engineers still host parties and balls, and Margaret and her sisters attend, dressed in the fashionable gowns they order from England. As happens the world over, these cultural tensions lead to love and romance. 

An elegant recreation of real events and people, The Chief Factor’s Daughter takes readers inside a now-vanished society, just as Pride and Prejudice does. Margaret Work, with her aspirations, hopes and dreams, is a recognizable and thoroughly appealing heroine.

Vanessa Winn’s non-fiction has appeared in Monday Magazine and her poetry has been published in Quill’s Canadian Poetry Magazine and Island Writer Magazine. She has a Bachelor of Arts with a major in English from the University of Victoria. Beyond her love of the written word, Vanessa finds inspiration in music and dance and currently teaches Argentine tango. Born in England, Vanessa now lives in Victoria, BC, with her two daughters. The Chief Factor’s Daughter is her first novel

Where There's Food, There's Firefighters
More Surefire Recipes to Feed Your Crew
Jeff Derraugh

In a follow-up to his bestselling Fire Hall Cooking with Jeff the Chef, Jeff Derraugh, a 20-year veteran firefighter, offers over 150 delectable, affordable and easy-to-make recipes straight from the fire hall kitchens. Written in a relaxed, conversational style, this eclectic collection of recipes for any time of day and any kind of food craving makes for both entertaining reading and great cooking. With new, funky recipes such as “Breakfast Lasagna” and “Fallin’ Off the Bone Already Ribs,” “Asian Orange Asparagus” and “Firehouse Jambalaya,” clearly decadence hath no bounds. Amusing anecdotes that reflect the unique camaraderie of fire hall life accompany the recipes. As January Magazine said in its review of Jeff’s debut cookbook: “He knows from feeding hungry guys, he is concerned about health, he likes variety. And additionally, he’s funny and he can write. This is a fun cookbook with lots of easy-to-follow recipes featuring the type of food most families will enjoy.”

The tradition continues with Where There’s Food, There’s Firefighters. So come on—the dinner bell’s ringing; it’s time to fire up your kitchen!

Jeff Derraugh is a dedicated firefighter who has also enjoyed a wide variety of writing experiences. He has been a morning-show radio personality, award-winning commercial writer and host of a nationally syndicated radio comedy program. He is a columnist for Fire Hall Magazine and is the co-creator of a fire-safety video game for children and the website www.stayingalive.ca. You can find Jeff online at www.jeffthechef.ca.

R.M. Patterson
A Life of Great Adventure
David Finch

David Finch's highly regarded biography of R.M. Patterson is now available in paperback. The escapades of this great Canadian are brought to life in a story that combines the lure of gold, the thrill of wilderness exploration and comic tales about life on a southern Alberta ranch. With access to Patterson's diaries, letters and photographs, as well as numerous interviews with Patterson and members of his family, Finch recounts the adventurous life of this well-loved outdoorsman, writer and rancher and sheds light on some of what Patterson left unsaid.

PRAISE FOR R.M. PATTERSON: A LIFE OF GREAT ADVENTURE

"Calgary historian David Finch has produced a richly detailed portrait of the gentleman adventurer behind the byline."- The Beaver

Born in pre-revolutionary Cuba, David Finch is the only son of Canadian missionaries. After completing a portion of his education in Canada and Venezuela, Finch came to Canada for good and earned a master’s degree in post-confederation Canadian history at the University of Calgary. He presently lives in Calgary with his wife and daughter. In his spare time David likes to canoe, cross-country ski and hike in the Canadian Rockies. He builds and restores canoes and has a fine collection of watercraft.

The Journey
The Overlanders' Quest for Gold
Bill Gallaher

Bill Gallaher’s bestselling novel The Journey follows a group of three adventurous Overlanders—two young men and one remarkable woman—as they travel west in 1862, from the Manitoba prairies to the goldfields of the Cariboo.

With his gift for storytelling, Gallaher brings this intriguing era to the page as he vividly recounts the overland trek of the spirited Catherine Schubert, who made the trip in an undetected state of pregnancy; James Sellar, a combative young man of rigid determination; and Thomas McMicking, the visionary captain of the often unruly company.

Reprinted with an appealing new look, this popular novel is an engaging and moving tribute to a band of heroic pioneers.

“Rich in detail . . . A highly readable account of one of the most interesting, and most important, chapters in BC’s history.”—Times Colonist

The Ranch on the Cariboo
Classics West Collection
Alan Fry

It was the summer of ’43 on a Cariboo ranch. He was 12 and had to become a man. If you were a man, you could become a cowboy. Join the author on this nostalgic look back on the joys, frustrations and observations of growing up and discovering where he belongs.

Excerpt from Eldon Lee's foreword: “This book by Alan Fry is probably the best book ever written on ranch life in the Cariboo. His account of everyday events is so perceptive and so true to the mark that all we country types yearn to re-experience its joys, and its miseries.

The Ranch on the Cariboo is a good book and while it may not make a pretty sight to the tractor jockeys, by damn it is authentic; I should know because I was raised on a similar ranch just 18 miles north.”

Alan Fry's significance in B.C.'s literary history lies in his accurate and sometimes humourous portrayals of life on B.C. Indian reserves and the corresponding inflexibility of white officials, including police. Some of his titles have been reprinted but Fry's literary reputation has faded due to the constraints of 'political correctness'. 

Alan Fry was born and raised on a family ranch near Lac La Hache, B.C. in 1931. Although some of his ancestors were farming Quakers in Wiltshire, his grandfather Roger Fry, a member of the Fry family that prospered in the chocolate business, was a Cambridge graduate who kept company with the Bloomsbury Group. Fry is the author of The Ranch on the Cariboo, first published in 1962, about a teenager's introduction to manhood and ranching in the early 1940s.

Drinking Vancouver
100+ Great Bars in the City and Beyond
John Lee

With sharp, witty reviews of the best spots in town to slake your thirst, Drinking Vancouver: 100+ Great Bars in the City and Beyond is the pocket-sized booze bible for locals and visitors craving a night out on the town. Divided into 11 neighbourhoods, each one with a handy map, visit many of the new, revamped and unique establishments from the heritage bars of Gastown to the slick joints of Yaletown to the gritty pubs of the Downtown Eastside. The book includes a bar index for easy referral, 'On-the-Road' sections covering the Lower Mainland, Victoria, and the Okanagan. 'Top Three' lists covering best bars for drink, food and ambiance, and an appendix of B.C.'s award-winning and regional beer-makers. With Vancouver's long-overdue bar renaissance upon us, travel writer John Lee has compiled the first hands-on guide that toasts the city's newly-hot bar scene.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in the leafy southeast England city of St. Albans (home of what is reputedly Britain's oldest pub), John Lee first nipped across the pond for Expo 86, where he particularly remembers the Elephant & Castle bar with its red telephone box. Since 1999, John has been a full-time travel and feature writer and his work has appeared in more than 150 different publications around the world, including National Geographic Traveler, CNN Traveller, the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail and the Guardian Weekly. He has also written 15 Lonely Planet guidebooks and is the author of Walking Vancouver, covering 36 short strolls around the city and beyond-the perfect hangover cure accompaniment to this book. To read his latest stories and peruse current projects, visit www.johnleewriter.com.

Blue Heaven
Encounters with the Blue Poppy
Bill Terry

"With wit and erudition, author Bill Terry examines the world of the fabled Himalayan Blue Poppy and its relatives. Ranging from the slopes of the high Himalayas through the gardens of contemporary poppy lovers, Terry-himself an accomplished Meconopsis grower-also provides clear guidelines for the successful cultivation and propagation of these notoriously temperamental beauties. But buyer beware! Meconopsis obsession may ensue."
-Des Kennedy, author of An Ecology of Enchantment: A Year in the Life of a Garden

Blue Heaven: Encounters with the Blue Poppy tells the story of the enchanting Himalayan Blue Poppy. It begins in 1924 in Tibet, where the renowned plant explorer Frank Kingdon-Ward came upon "a stream of blue poppies, dazzling as sapphires in the pale light." Soon the blue poppy was introduced to cultivation and proved challenging, stubborn, even believed to be impossible to grow.

In Blue Heaven, Bill Terry-a leading North American authority on Asiatic poppies-debunks this myth, relating his own encounters with the blue poppy and showing how, given a suitable climate, a patient and persistent gardener can raise this most alluring of perennial plants. Gorgeous photographs accompany the text throughout, leading to a visually stunning collection of images and stories, illuminating this rare and precious flower.

"An irresistible book. Bill Terry's ardent account of the fabled Blue Poppy is elegant, humorous, and bracingly practical-a master class in gardening, the record of a 40-year passion, a chronicle of other gardeners and plant hunters equally possessed. Author and subject are a match made in heaven. I loved the book all the way to the end."
-Elizabeth Hay, author of Late Nights on Air, winner of the 2007 Scotia Bank Giller Prize

Bill Terry is a retired CBC executive. His broadcast career spanned 35 years and encompassed 13 jobs in radio and television production and management in four Canadian cities. Since 1994, he has lived on the BC Sunshine Coast, with his wife, Rosemary, pursuing a life-long ambition to create the perfect garden. His collection of Asiatic poppies is the most diverse in North America. Please visit www.meconopsis.ca.

Public Art in Vancouver
Angels Among Lions
John Steil and Aileen Stalker

Featuring more than 500 public art installations, this is the essential guide for tourists and Vancouver residents alike.

The character of a city is revealed by its public art-what it collectively places on its streets and walls and in its public spaces. As a city known internationally for its breathtaking cityscapes and mountain backdrop, Vancouver has much to offer visually including the diverse and thriving public art found in the city's neighbourhoods. Public Art in Vancouver: Angels Among Lions is the first comprehensive guidebook that explores Vancouver through the eyes of public art.

Engaging colour photos and detailed descriptions that focus on the historical and cultural context of each art piece, its place in modern art and the artist who created it allow for a greater understanding of these urban treasures. Easy-to follow maps take readers to communities and destinations such as False Creek, Chinatown, the West End, Downtown North and South, East Vancouver, Van- Dusen Botanical Garden, Stanley Park and the University of British Columbia. Tour the better known and the hidden art installations that are made from every possible medium and include monuments, paintings, murals, tapestries, figurines, First Nations art, relics, busts, fountains, gateways, mosaics, sculptures and reliefs. 

John Steil was raised in Edmonton and moved to Vancouver in 1992. He is a community planning consultant for a major Canadian consulting firm and has had numerous articles published in Albertan and Canadian planning journals. John is also a Vancouver visual artist, and works from his studio where Chinatown, Gastown and the Port meet. Please visit www.johnsteil.com.

Aileen Stalker was born in Kingston, Ontario and enjoys working as an occupational therapist. She has also worked as an elementary school teacher, tutor and mother. She is co-author of two books including Paddling Through History: Sea Kayak Vancouver and Victoria (2005) and is the author of a children's book coming out this spring. Aileen lives in Vancouver and enjoys travelling the world.

The Dangerous River
Adventure on the Nahanni
R.M. Patterson

"A truly enchanting book." -The New Yorker

"The excitement, anxiety and hardships are slipped naturally into a story which conjures up pictures with the effortlessness of good and restrained writing."
-The Times, London

R.M. Patterson's bestselling book The Dangerous River is back in print in its unabridged version and ready to take readers down the treacherous and challenging waters of the Nahanni River once again. Written with Patterson's characteristic sharp wit and observation, The Dangerous River chronicles the year he spent battling the temperatures and wild waters as he canoed down the Nahanni in 1927. Patterson originally travelled to Canada's Northwest Territories with hopes of finding gold in the river and clues to the mysterious murder of a prospector. Instead, he fell in love with the landscape and through his meticulously recorded journals and hauntingly beautiful photographs he introduced the world to the Nahanni River, now known as a prime destination for adventure seekers. Included in this newest printing are Patterson's own blackand- white photographs, including the first photos to be taken of the falls of the Nahanni.

R.M. Patterson (1898-1984) moved to Canada when he realized that working in a London bank would never bring him happiness. He spent the remaining years of his life pursuing adventure in the Canadian West and was a delightfully evocative writer and an intrepid explorer. Authoring a total of five books about his excursions into the Canadian wilderness and his life on a southern Alberta ranch, Raymond Murray Patterson earned himself legions of fans and made Canada's wilderness famous. TouchWood Editions is proud to be keeping his works in print.

Scammed
Ron Chudley

"Grabs you by the throat and doesn't let go." -The Globe and Mail

"Anger, fear and staggering grief is so strong and passionately written that it drives the reader into turning the pages . . . . The writing is explosive. . . . the conclusion is a riveting gunshot. A hard-to-put-down winner."
-The Hamilton Spectator

"Enjoyed the chase 'em, catch 'em, beat 'em, lose 'em story line. . . . would make a great thriller-style movie." -St. Albert Gazette

Nearly two million Canadians have fallen victim to identity theft, could you be next?

In Ron Chudley's latest mystery, Greg Lothian's orderly life is torn apart when his mother and famous artist father are scammed of their life savings by cruel con men. When the same criminals steal Greg's own identity, the normally law-abiding accountant turns his analytical mind to plotting revenge. This uncharacteristic decision plunges him into the strange and horrifying underworld that lurks everywhere, even on peaceful Vancouver Island. As Greg prepares to find the perpetrators of the debilitating crime, he sets up a clever plan of entrapment that ends up going badly wrong.

Greg's descent into the whirlpool of evil puts at risk a helpless neighbour, a loyal young woman and his very life. The magnificent panorama of the Pacific coast, with its mountains, dense forest, fog-shrouded shores and swift, cold rivers, provides the moody setting for this tale of crime and punishment-and bravery.

Ron Chudley is an accomplished screenwriter and playwright, and the author of three other novels of mystery and suspense: Stolen (2007), Dark Resurrection (2006) and Old Bones (2005). He lives on Vancouver Island and knows intimately the landscape where he unfurls this story of a frightening violation that is becoming increasingly familiar to all of us.

Never Sleep with a Suspect on Gabriola Island
An Islands Investigations International Mystery
George Szanto and Sandy Frances Duncan

Murder, forgery and international intrigue are part of the newest TouchWood Mystery Series.

Rose Gill Marchand, a paraplegic, brilliant botanist and co-owner, with her husband, of Eaglenest Gallery on Gabriola Island, finds the body of Roy Dempster, their gardener, sprawled dead on the gallery grounds. An RCMP investigation ensues, without immediate success. Upset by a suggestive gossipy article about the murder in the local paper, Rose's husband, Artemus, calls on Noel Franklin, an ex-investigative reporter living in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, and asks him to find evidence that will eliminate the spreading rumours. Noel agrees to start looking into it and asks his long-time friend Kyra Rachel an insurance investigator from Bellingham, Washington, to assist him.

As Noel and Kyra's inquiry proceeds, they discover that islands like Gabriola hide secrets far more mysterious than murder, far more dangerous than gossip, as each investigator falls prey to the depravity of those they need to trust.

Never Sleep With a Suspect on Gabriola Island is the first novel in George Szanto and Sandy Frances Duncan's Islands Investigations International detective novel series. 

A National Magazine Award recipient and winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for fiction, George Szanto is the author of half a dozen novels, the most recent being his Mexican trilogy, The Underside of Stones, Second Sight and The Condesa of M., as well as several books of essays. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Please visit www.georgeszanto.com.

Sandy Frances Duncan is the author of ten award-winning books for children and adults. Her most recent historical fiction is Gold Rush Orphan, shortlisted for the BC Book Prize.

An Edible Journey (3rd Edition)
Exploring the Islands' Fine Foods, Farms and Vineyards
Elizabeth Levinson

"Even those of us who think we know Vancouver Island will find some surprises in this book. A great book for the food-lover."
-Island Home and Style

"This is argumentatively the most comprehensive summary of Vancouver Island's emerging culinary and agricultural community."
-The Vancouver Courier

"Each person profiled has a story to tell, and Levinson tells it. Region by region."
-EAT Magazine (Epicure and Travel)

"[Elizabeth's] easy, carefree writing style just adds to the charm."
-Northwest Palate

"An Edible Journey is a chatty account, including photos and maps, of how much fun it is to seek out, make, and eat really good 'natural' food."
-Independently Reviewed

Winner in the 2004 Cuisine Canada Culinary Book Awards

With thoughtful detail and thorough research, Elizabeth Levinson has expanded and updated her award-winning An Edible Journey to its third edition. With new recipes and destinations to visit, this revised volume offers the ins and outs of Victoria, Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands' growing culinary community. From luscious organic vegetables and fruits, outstanding cheeses and prized wines, Elizabeth has tracked down the local and devoted growers and artisans. What she discovered is that many of these people have left behind high-profile careers in other fields to dedicate themselves to the land and to growing and developing gourmet goodies. Meant to inspire, savour and explore, An Edible Journey belongs on every foodie's table.

A long-time resident of Victoria, BC, Elizabeth Levinson is an inexhaustible hunter gatherer of fresh, organic foods. She is the author of Getting Fresh In and Around Victoria: The Guide to Going Organic and writes a monthly column about food, "At My Table," in Focus Magazine.

Bright Seas, Pioneer Spirits
A History of the Sunshine Coast
Betty Keller and Rosella Leslie

"For the people who live on the Sunshine Coast, and for the people who are thinking about coming here, this book is invaluable."
-Going Coastal Magazine

For well over a century, the bright seas of the Sunshine Coast have been attracting visitors to the waterfront resorts, fishing lodges and beaches that rest between Howe Sound and the spectacular Princess Louisa Inlet. But these coastal hotspots and communities were settled by a few courageous and daring pioneers whose names are still familiar today: Gibsons, Roberts, Whitaker, Donley, Silvey, Griffiths.

Bright Seas, Pioneer Spirits tells the stories of the homesteaders, loggers, prospectors and fishermen who carved out a living on the treacherous mountainside that rises straight out of the inlets. These men and women came with nothing in their pockets and founded logging empires, shingle mills and sawmills, launched fish canneries, a glue factory and even a well-known jam factory, and scaled the mountainsides to start copper and gold mines. They travelled and traded by boat, long before coastal roads were built in the 1950s, and their pioneering spirits still ride the bright seas of the Sunshine Coast today.

Betty Keller has lived in Vancouver, BC's Fraser Valley, the Okanagan and Kootenay areas, as well as in Nigeria. She has taught at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia and was a founding member of the SunCoast Writers Forge, The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts and the Sunshine Coast Writers-in- Residence Program. Author of several books of non-fiction and fiction, Betty has been the recipient of a number of awards, including The Lescarbot Award (1991), the Talewind Books Award (1996) and The Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002). Please visit www.quintessentialwriters.com.

Rosella Leslie was born in Alberta and began writing when she moved to a small floathouse on an inlet 25 miles north of Sechelt, BC. Her feature articles and short fiction have appeared in local and national magazines and she is the author of several books. A founding member of the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts and the SunCoast Writers Forge, she continues to be involved with community leadership. In 2002, she was awarded the BC Confederation of Parent Advistory Councils' George Matthews Award for Excellence in Parent Leadership. Please visit www.quintessentialwriters.com.

Sarah's Tea Time
Sarah Amos

At Aunt Mary's farmhouse, Leigh Court in Gloucestershire, tea time was a daily occurrence at 5:00 p.m. You could set your watch by it! Leigh Court was a dairy farm and everyone had been up and working since early morning. Breakfast was served at 8:00 a.m. and dinner was at 1:00 p.m. Both were robust meals. Tea was the last meal of the day.

Everything stops for tea-and we don't just mean a cup of tea. In this charming little book, Victoria artist Sarah Amos shares the traditions of afternoon tea with recipes and stories brought over from her early years of British farm life. Enjoy a buttermilk scone, pecan rum square or a slice of almond cake and sit around the dining table with family and friends over endless cups of tea. At the heart of the book are Amos' own classic recipes, thoughtfully illustrated with her exquisite and vibrant artwork that has been created over the past 25 years. Both practical and delightful, Sarah's Tea Time is a book about heart and home.

Sarah Amos was born in rural England where cooking and painting were part of her family's tradition. After coming to Vancouver in 1968 she was associated with the Western Front Society of avant garde artists with whom she participated in performance and video activities. After extensive travel in Europe, Japan and Southeast Asia, she married artist and writer Robert Amos and settled in the lovely seaside city of Victoria on Vancouver Island in 1981. That turned out to be the perfect place to paint, garden and raise their two daughters.

You can see more of Sarah Amos' artwork on her website at www.sarahamos.com.

Nobody's Father
Life Without Kids
Edited by Lynne Van Luven and Bruce Gillespie

In a sequel to the celebrated collection of stories Nobody's Mother comes an honest and poignant collection of essays from men who have forgone fatherhood.

Statistics Canada data show that seven per cent of women and eight per cent of men intend to remain childless. Nobody's Father gives readers fresh, honest insights into that male eight per cent. Ranging in age from young manhood to late middle age, some gay and some straight, and making their homes across North America, the contributors explore the issues of what it means to live a life without children. While some writers admit they are haunted by feelings of failure to live up to their own fathers' expectations and to carry on the family name, others admit to knowing from an early age that parenthood was not for them and are content with the alternative lives they lead.

Lynne Van Luven is an associate professor at the Department of Writing, University of Victoria, where she teaches journalism and creative non-fiction. She is also a freelance editor, writer and commentator. She is a regular contributor to Monday Magazine and has edited three previous anthologies, including Nobody's Mother: Life Without Kids.

Bruce Gillespie is an award-winning freelance writer and editor. His work has appeared in a variety of national magazines and newspapers, including Canadian Geographic, Saturday Night, Chatelaine, the National Post and Quill & Quire. He teaches part-time in Ryerson University's School of Journalism, in Toronto, and lives in Simcoe, Ontario, near the Lake Erie shore.

Seaweed on the Rocks
Stanley Evans

In this fourth mystery of the Seaweed series, Victoria neighbourhood cop Silas Seaweed is as always sensitive to his Coast Salish culture, but when he's confronted by a ten-foot-tall bear on a marsh on the city's outskirts, he suspects that this is no creature from the unknown world but someone out to con him. And Silas is right, but his attempts to unmask the bear lead him into a labyrinth of blackmail and murder. Along the way he investigates a homeless people's sit-in at Beacon Hill Park, a burglary in the office of hypnotherapist Dr. Lawrence Trew, and the barely legal world of small-time hood Titus Silverman. And whenever Silas is not busy finding corpses, he's on the lookout for a missing artist and two eight-year-old runaways.

Evans' combination of Salish lore and solid plotting is a winner.
-GLOBE AND MAIL 

… written with strong plots … worth reading and lingering over.
-THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR

Now a full-time writer, Stanley Evans has been a soldier, a surveyor, and deep-sea fisherman. He once spent several months travelling up and down the Amazon and its tributaries. He worked one season in Canada's Northwest Territories, as a crewman on the George Askew, one of Canada's last functioning paddlewheelers. Evans' hobbies are reading, carving wooden duck decoys, and conversation. He lives in Victoria.

The Frog Lake Massacre
Bill Gallaher

In the spring of 1884, an adventurous young man packs his bags in Victoria, BC, and heads for the prairies, looking for a new life and hoping to get involved in an Indian "war." Instead, he lucks into an exciting job in the fur trade and meets and befriends many of the great chiefs of the Cree nation, such as Poundmaker and Big Bear, and ends up between a bullet and a target when the North-West Rebellion erupts. After witnessing the historic Frog Lake Massacre and the murder of his friends, Jack is captured by the Cree warriors and, later, guides the famous Inspector Sam Steele on the hunt for Cree Chief Big Bear.

The Frog Lake Massacre is the first book in a trilogy about a young man who is trying to forge an independent life for himself in the huge and newly established country of Canada. Along the way, he discovers that bravery and loyalty bring their own rewards.

Bill Gallaher is a well-known singer and songwriter who has also worked as an air-traffic controller and taught social studies. Author of The Promise: Love, Loyalty and the Lure of Gold; The Journey: The Overlanders' Quest for Gold; A Man Called Moses: The Curious Life of Wellington Delaney Moses; and Deadly Innocent, Bill lives with his family in BC's Cariboo region, where he frequently performs with a guitar in hand.

BACK IN PRINT
The Promise
Love, Loyalty & the Lure of Gold
By Bill Gallaher

It was 1862 and the Cariboo Gold Rush was in full swing. Sophia Cameron, the Beauty of Barkerville, lay dying of typhoid when her husband, John "Cariboo" Cameron, made one last promise to his fading young wife. The Promise is a compelling story of a great love and an epic struggle to honour a dying wife's final request: to take her body home to eastern Canada.

Told in the voice of Robert Stevenson, Cameron's friend and mining partner, the story travels with the two men as they leave the frozen goldfields of BC and carry Sophia's body by sled, ship and rail to a tree-shaded cemetery near Cornwall, Ontario. However, she was buried amid mistrust and dark suspicions because Cameron refused to open the coffin-did it truly contain his lovely, young wife? In this his first novel, Bill Gallaher provides unique insight into a famous legend of the gold rush.

A story about a promise of epic proportions. Highly entertaining yarn based on gold miner Robert Stevenson's memoir of his life and adventures with John "Cariboo" Cameron. 
-KAMLOOPS DAILY NEWS

Intrigued by the level of commitment and loyalty in the "Cariboo" Cameron saga, Bill Gallaher first wrote a song about the Camerons and as a result of further extensive research, wrote his first book, The Promise. He is now an author of several well-received books, The Journey: The Overlanders' Quest for Gold; A Man Called Moses: The Curious Life of Wellington Delaney Moses; Deadly Innocent; and The Frog Lake Massacre. Bill lives with his family in the Cariboo region of British Columbia.

BACK IN PRINT
The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley
1769 - 1845
By Beth Hill and Cathy Converse

Frances Barkley was just eighteen when she became the first European woman to set foot on the west coast of North America. After a sheltered upbringing in England, Frances found herself boarding the Imperial Eagle in 1786 to set sail on an adventurous, round-the-world voyage with her husband, Captain Charles William Barkley.

With great wisdom and wit, Frances recounted her eight years at sea in her "Reminiscences" as she found herself in a wider world, helping her husband in his business, giving birth to her children, surviving the tragedy of a young daughter's death and meeting strange and foreign peoples. Today's place names of Barkley Sound, Frances Island, Imperial Eagle Channel and others on Vancouver Island-as well as the ship Frances Barkley-are standing memorials to the enterprising and courageous Barkleys.

Originally researched by writer Beth Hill, The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley has been expanded on by writer and historian Cathy Converse to bring the intrepid young bride and her world to life for a new generation of readers.

In addition to the personal details revealed, this book sheds light on the politics of exploration and provides a perspective on the 'new world' by an interested visitor and observer. 
-WAVELENGTH MAGAZINE

Beth Hill was born in Ontario but lived most of her adult life in British Columbia. She had a BA from the University of British Columbia and a Certificate in Prehistoric Archaeology from Cambridge University. Beth was the author of Upcoast Summers, Seven-Knot Summers and Moonspinners. The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley was first published in 1978, by Gray's Publishing.

Cathy Converse is the author of Following the Curve of Time: The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet, Mainstays: Women Who Shaped BC, and co-editor of In Her Own Right: Selected Essays on the History of Women in BC. A founder of Women's Studies curricula and ancillary programs at Camosun College, she is also a former department chair, instructor and frequent public speaker.

A Taste of the Canadian Rockies Cookbook
By Myriam Leighton and Chip Olver

The Canadian Rockies is renowned for its incredible variety of dining opportunities. Chefs come from around the world to create dishes to tempt you and your friends. A Taste of the Canadian Rockies includes many of the mouth-watering recipes from the best restaurants in the towns of Banff, Jasper, Lake Louise, Waterton and Canmore, as well as selections from the backcountry resorts and lodges nestled throughout the Canadian Rockies.

Spectacular mountain photographs by Douglas Leighton accompany the recipes, making this book an excellent gift and a remarkable culinary experience of Canada's famous Rocky Mountains.

Enjoy recipes from the following kitchens: Banff Springs Hotel, Chateau Jasper, Chateau Lake Louise, Banff Park Lodge, Emerald Lake Lodge, Lodge at Kananaskis / Hotel Kananaskis, Mount Assisniboine Lodge, Sunshine Village Ski & Summer Resort, and many more!

Myriam Leighton is the co-author of Dining Out At Home: Edmonton, Dining Out At Home: Calgary and Dining Out At Home: Vancouver. She is an avid gardener and naturalist who loves to be creative in the kitchen.

Chip Olver has been a Banff Councillor for over ten years and has lived in Banff for 30 years. She has a Bachelor of Science from McMaster University and lives with her husband and three children.

A Fork in the Trail
Mouthwatering Meals and Tempting Treats for the Backcountry
Laurie Ann March

After many years of eating backpackers' standard meals, Laurie Ann March set out to replicate her home kitchen favourites in the outdoors. With more than 200 trail-tested recipes, March will transform your expectations for backcountry cooking possibilities. Don't just crave a gourmet adventure-create one!

Recipes Include:

• Cinnamon Walnut Buns

• Ginger Mango Chicken

• Lemon and Blueberry Cream Pie

For additional backpacking tips, printable recipe suggestions, and to learn more about Laurie's outdoor endeavours, visit www.aforkinthetrail.com.

Havens in a Hectic World
Finding Sacred Places
Star Weiss

The frantic pace of our world leaves little time for reflection, and even less time to nurture our spirits. In this insightful book, Star Weiss explores the spiritual geography of the West Coast with individuals from a wide variety of faiths and cultural traditions. In visiting their sacred places, and hearing them share their stories, Weiss raises questions about our contemporary sources of spiritual growth, our evolving ideas of the divine, and the power of place. From mountains to ancient forests to labyrinths, she takes readers on a journey of awe and wonder through both the geographic destinations, and the experiences they make possible.

Star Weiss is an accomplished journalist, educator and author. Her writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, Focus Magazine and Chatelaine.

Those Earlier Hills
Reminiscences 1928 to 1961
R.M Patterson

Few men have been as set on isolated adventures and as passionate about the wild landscape of Canada as R.M. Patterson. He spent over 30 years in exploration, from northern rivers such as the Nahanni and the Liard, to the foothills of the Rockies, and he recorded his discoveries in vivid words and breathtaking photographs along the way. For the first time, his memorable articles are presented as a collection by TouchWood Editions. 

R.M. Patterson moved to Canada when he realized that working in a London bank would never bring him happiness. He was a delightfully evocative writer and an intrepid explorer and TouchWood Editions is proud to be keeping his works in print.

Following the Curve of Time
The Legendary M. Wylie Blanchet
Cathy Converse

Who was this skipper, this mother, this writer? These are the questions that motivated Cathy Converse to re-trace the route of famous pacific seafarer M. Wylie "Capi" Blanchet, and write this biography in the process. Widowed in 1926, Blanchet cruised the coast with her five children and their dog in a 25-foot boat that had been rescued from the seafloor. The Curve of Time, her resulting book, remains a bestseller and a classic in the annals of nautical literature, but little is known about the rest of Blanchet's life. Converse offers insiders' recollections of this enigmatic woman, along with updated information about the villages, inlets and islands described in Curve, making Following the Curve of Time essential reading for anyone who has ever been captivated by the West Coast or Capi herself. 

Cathy Converse is the author of Mainstays: Women Who Shaped BC, co-author of The Remarkable World of Frances Barkley 1769-1845, and co-editor of In Her Own Right: Selected Essays on the History of Women in BC. A founder of Women's Studies curricula and ancillary programs at Camosun College, she is also a former department chair, instructor and frequent public speaker. Much like her subject, Converse is most at peace on the water.

Death in a Family Way
Gwendolyn Southin

At age fifty, Margaret Spencer's empty nest and empty marriage prompt her to answer an ad for part-time office work at the office of private investigator Nat Southby. Suddenly, she is deep in the most unlikely of adventures for a woman in 1950s Vancouver, helping him with a case of missing young women involved in a shady business ring. Maggie finds unexpected freedom as a developing detective and along the way she uncovers evil in the quaintly urban setting. 

"The flow is smooth, the action well-paced."
- Quill & Quire

In the Shadow of Death
Gwendolyn Southin

Just one year later, Margaret is coming into her own as an investigator, after leaving the comforts of her Kerrisdale home and her inattentive husband, a corporate lawyer. Living in trendy and bustling Kitsilano with Nat Southby, her newfound happiness is undercut by her family's pleadings to return home. In need of a vacation, she and Nat head for a ranch in the Cariboo. Instead of solace, they find violence, betrayal and an unsolved missing person's case that introduces them to host of new and questionable characters.

"Margaret Spencer is a smart and feisty woman to whom people open up. Original."
- The Saskatoon Star Phoenix

Death on a Short Leash
Gwendolyn Southin

Back in Vancouver, Maggie and Nat begin their next adventure at a cranberry bog where a veterinarian's assistant has been found dead. A long trail with a faint scent to follow, their victim's double-life leads them to a strip club, a bogus religious sect, and a nursing home with a dark underlying secret. 

Gwendolyn Southin was born in Essex, England and launched her writing career in Canada on the Sunshine Coast. She is a co-founder of the SunCoast Writers' Forge, The Festival of the Written Arts, and the Sunshine Coast Writers-in-Residence Program. Her short stories and articles have appeared in Maturity Magazine, Pioneer News and Sparks from the Forge. She makes her home in Sechelt, B.C.

Robert Amos is a full-time professional artist and writer who has authored four books. His work has been exhibited in private, public and university galleries, and in his own studio in Victoria, B.C. He has written a weekly column for the Victoria Times Colonist since 1986.

Elizabeth and Tom Drummond are living quietly in Mill Bay, B.C., when their tranquil existence is disrupted by a singular event: out of the ashes of 9/11, borne by a person believed long dead, come riches beyond anyone's wildest dreams. But with the wealth comes danger-lies, secrets, insidious temptation and relentless pursuit by a grim figure whose motives may be a lot darker than justice.

Fear, guilt and loyalty mean that Elizabeth and Tom are on their own. All they desire, finally, is to be rid of the dreadful fortune-and to survive the attentions of those who would be rid of them.

Ron Chudley's first book in this mystery series is Old Bones (2005). He has written extensively for television, including The Beachcombers, and for the National Film Board of Canada. He has written many dramas for CBC Radio's Mystery, The Bush and the Salon and CBC Stage. His stage plays have been mounted at a number of Canadian regional theatres.

Coast Salish street cop Silas Seaweed has his hands full. An elderly Jewish immigrant has disappeared. An old blind woman has been murdered. Valuable art stolen from German Jews during the Second World War has begun to show up for sale in Victoria's auction houses, and the word on the street is that collectors are planning to loot a priceless Coast Salish archeological site.

Unravelling these mysteries becomes a life-and-death quest, for when his investigation leads Seaweed into romance, it's just possible that his lover is a ruthless killer.


Stanley Evans' first book in this crime-fiction series is Seaweed on the Street (2005). His previous novels are Outlaw Gold and Snow-Coming Moon. He was born in England, immigrated to Canada in 1954 and now lives in Victoria, B.C. He began his career by writing articles for newspapers and magazines. He has also written two plays that were produced at the Arts Club in Vancouver.

Around One More Point is a journal "sketchbook" of writings, photographs and drawings that capture the adventures of B.C. artist and paddler Mary Gazetas, who has journeyed with family and friends on the west coast of Vancouver Island, the Inside Passage and Haida Gwaii for almost 25 years. 

This work, with its powerful visual imagery, includes stories and art created when Mary first started taking ocean canoe trips in the '80s with her twin sister and her children. Since those "pre-Gore-Tex" days of primitive beach camping and paddling in all kinds of weather, the trips, the people and the artwork have changed. 

What hasn't changed, though, is her passion for the character of the coast, and she returns every summer, bringing home material to be transformed into a variety of artistic expressions. The journeys include paddle trips in Barkley, Clayoquot, Nootka and Kyuquot sounds, the Broughton Archipelago, the central coast and Haida Gwaii (the Queen Charlotte Islands). This evocative journal will take readers on a journey, inspiring some to go to these beautiful places themselves-to go around one more point.


Mary Gazetas was born in West Vancouver and grew up around water and small boats. She studied fine arts at UBC and later entered the design program at the National Theatre School in Montreal, graduating in 1968. She lived in Alberta for 11 years, where she was involved in theatre and film design and printmaking; she also worked as an instructor in visual arts and as a festival planner. She settled in Richmond in 1983. Gazetas is a mother, grandmother, tennis player and founding director of the Richmond Fruit Tree Project, which is involved in the operation of two community-based farming projects.

Statistics say that one in 10 women has no intention of taking the plunge into motherhood. Nobody's Mother is a collection of stories by women who have already made this choice. 
From introspective to humorous to rabble-rousing, these are personal stories that are well and honestly told. The writers range in age from early 30s to mid-70s and come from diverse backgrounds. All have thought long and hard about the role of motherhood, their own destinies, what mothering means in our society and what their choice means to them as individuals and as members of their ethnic communities or social groups. 

Contributors include:
Lorna Crozier, one of Canada's best-known poets, the author of a dozen books and recipient of a Governor General's award and numerous other writing prizes 
Maggie De Vries, children's-book editor and author of Missing Sarah, a memoir about her sister, one of the murdered women from Vancouver's downtown east side
Nancy Baron, a zoologist and science writer who works in the United States for SeaWeb/COMPASS and has won two Canadian Science in Society awards, a National Magazine Award and a Western Magazine Award for Science 
Kate Braid, a creative-writing instructor whose books include Inward to the Bones: Georgia O'Keeffe's Journey with Emily Carr, To This Cedar Fountain, Red Bait! Struggle of a Mine Mill Local, with Al King, and Covering Rough Ground, which won the Pat Lowther Award.

Lynne Van Luven is an associate professor at the Department of Writing, University of Victoria, where she teaches journalism and creative non-fiction. She is also a freelance editor, writer and commentator. She is a regular contributor to Monday Magazine and has edited three anthologies, including Nobody's Father: Life Without Kids.

In her best-selling first book, Home: Tales of a Heritage Farm (2005), Anny Scoones introduced readers to historic Glamorgan Farm. In Home and Away, Anny presents more stories about the joys and sorrows, excitements and mishaps, of living on the farm. But she also takes readers farther afield, sharing with them her travels to other parts of Canada, to New York and to such places as Malaysia and Belarus. Her travel tales offer not only her keen observations on what she sees and experiences while away, but also her perspective from afar on the importance of having a place to return to that truly is home. 

Anny has owned Glamorgan Farm since 2000. Located in North Saanich, B.C., it's one of the original farms and homesteads on Vancouver Island, established in 1870 by Richard John. She is restoring the historic structures and raising heritage breeds of livestock. The front meadows are gardened by an herb gardener and a group of mentally challenged adults who grow organic, heirloom varieties of flowers and produce. 

Anny writes candidly and colourfully about real things, from visits with her family-she is the daughter of internationally acclaimed artists Molly Lamb Bobak and Bruno Bobak-to simple pleasures like arranging bowls of pears and hearing the owls in the woods at dusk. She writes about making bonfires, sitting with a dying horse, playing with a 700-pound sow and visiting the SPCA. Some of her tales are told with humour, some in sadness, but all tell the truth about living, observing and creating, whether at home or away.

Anny Scoones is a second-term councillor for the District of North Saanich, B.C., with a special interest in heritage and agriculture preservation; parks, trails and cycling paths; and architectural design and planning. She has a B.Ed. in history from the University of Victoria and a Diploma of Humanities in philosophy. At the time of writing, Anny had seven cats and four dogs, all from the SPCA. She continues to ride her Russian woolly horse, raise rare Gloucester Old Spot pigs and collect eggs from her many breeds of hens.

The spirit of a young woman haunts the house across the road from where she died. Construction workers restoring an old theatre evoke the anger of a resident ghost. Footsteps on the stairs and phone calls from beyond the grave are items on the menu of ghostly happenings at a premier restaurant. The smell of cigar smoke and the sound of footsteps announce the presence of a hotel's former owner. The growl of an unseen animal terrifies employees of a neighbourhood pub. And mysterious chanting, tripped alarms and the appearance of a phantom monk add to an arts centre's reputation as one of Canada's most haunted places. These are only a few of the stories recounted by Robert C. Belyk in this sequel to his popular book Ghosts: True Tales of Eerie Encounters.

This absorbing collection of spooky tales and baffling experiences is sure to entertain even the most sceptical of readers.

Robert C. Belyk is a Vancouver writer who is particularly interested in western history and the paranormal. In addition to his books on ghosts, he is the author of the biography John Tod: Rebel in the Ranks.

Autumn leaves dry in the sun, curling to make endless abstract patterns of curved surfaces and shadows. Or are they leaves? A closer look with Dr. David M. Baird reveals not leaves but layers of mud, which have shrunk into leaf-like shapes as they dried.

Baird's amazing photographs show that intriguing patterns and textures are all around us. In Beauty in the Rocks the esteemed geologist, writer and poet takes readers on a photographic journey around the globe, finding beauty and form in settings as exotic as the Galapagos and as close to home as Yoho National Park.

His intense, artistic images and accompanying text give mood and meaning to the changing earth and encourage readers to observe carefully the world around them, recognize what they see and understand how it came to be. From the hexagonal "organ pipe" patterns in Northern Ireland's Giant's Causeway to the "hoodoos" in Yoho National Park to the wrinkled surface skin of cooled liquid lava on James Island in the Galapagos, the wonders captured in this book will engage and enlighten anyone with an interest in the natural world.

David M. Baird, Ph.D., was the founding director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alberta, and of the National Museum of Science and Technology in Ottawa, Ontario. He was named an Officer of the Order of Canada for his work in natural sciences, education and museums. A geologist by training, Baird is also a writer, a poet and an expert on museums, trains, ships and lighthouses.

Murderers, thieves and drunks tested the will of Superintendent Fred Hussey, the B.C. Provincial Police officer appointed to keep the peace in rough-and-tumble, turn-of-the-century B.C. But in his action-packed and often risky career, he always relied on the power of reason rather than force to set things right. Even his prisoners seemed to like him, it was said.

Hussey's work took him from formal dinners in elegant mansions to chilly breakfasts around campfires. In a 20-year period that saw the province's population mushroom by 100,000, he knew the famous and the infamous, from Judge Matthew Baillie Begbie to train robber Bill Miner and everyone in between. Inspecting his vast territory on horseback, by steamer and canoe, this remarkable man set the tone for the peaceful development of the young province.

A glimpse into the ambience of a bygone era, The Lawman is an engaging look at the life and adventures of a self-possessed hero in turbulent times.

Lynne Stonier-Newman is a freelance writer, communications consul-tant and enthusiastic historian who is the author of articles, poetry and plays about B.C. She was born in Quesnel, where her father was the BCPP patrolman. Her first book was Policing a Pioneer Province.

First released in 1982, Gardening Under the Arch has long been hailed as the gardening bible for the challenging chinook region of southwestern Alberta. Now, for the first time since its original publication, this hugely successful book has been revised and updated into a full-colour edition by some of its original contributors and a new group of gardeners.

This unique book is truly a work of the heart. Hardly slick, not at all highbrow, Gardening Under the Arch is full of practical, homespun know-how based on the collective wisdom gleaned over years by determined gardeners in the chinook zone. There is knowledge here that can't be found in other books, and there is passion-loads of passion-for the love of gardening and all the special moments it brings. Gardening Under the Arch provides insight and inspiration, from the first sunny day in spring when you start to dig your beds to that cold winter's day when you enjoy a freshly baked pie made with the fruit you have grown.

The Millarville Horticultural Club was formed in 1976 by an enthusiastic group of people who had been attending gardening classes. The club decided that its project for 1982 would be to write a gardening book specifically for the foothills area of Alberta, a unique chinook zone that poses challenges to gardening. That book, Gardening Under the Arch, quickly became a gardening classic.

In Finlay's River, R. M. Patterson, whose style was described by noted author Bruce Hutchison as a "a mixture between Thoreau and Jack London," tells the story of his 1949 trip up this wild river in remote northern British Columbia. Patterson uses his own journey as a framework to recount the adventures of explorers who went there before; all had struggled up the Finlay for different reasons, and all left spirited accounts of that challenging, doomed river-accounts that Patterson brings to vivid life again.

Much of the Finlay, a river of whitewater rapids that flowed through a magnificent country of dense forests and high mountains, disappeared forever under the waters of Williston Lake with the completion of the W. A. C. Bennett Dam in 1968. In this engaging book, Patterson preserves the memory of this wilderness and the long-gone adventurers who first told the world about its existence.

Harmon's Journal-the first published English-language journal written in B.C.-is a lively, engaging story that, unlike other early journals, captures the rough-and-tumble life of a fur trader and explorer in the western Canada of 200 years ago. Harmon's descriptions of the cultures and customs of the people he met provide important observations of various First Nations almost before they were touched by European culture. He also details activities of the traders and explorers with whom he exchanged letters-such notable personalities as David Thompson, Simon Fraser and John Stuart. Harmon writes with honesty and often raw emotion in his accounts of his travels and adventures, and his reflections are often profound. Harmon's Journal is the authentic 1957 edition of the journal edited by esteemed historian William Kaye Lamb. 

Daniel Williams Harmon left his home in Bennington, Vermont, in 1800, when he was 21 years old. He was engaged by the North West Company in Montreal to proceed to "Indian Country," where he spent the next 19 years. For nine of these years, he was a seasoned trader in north-central British Columbia at the Stuart Lake Post (now Fort St. James).

A wealthy madam who was known from San Francisco to Victoria in the early part of the 20th century, Stella Carroll was glamorous, worldly and determined to succeed. Her bordellos were fashionably decorated and patronized by the affluent and the powerful; she offered the best of everything—fine food and wine, cigars, entertainment and, of course, girls. 

The author, with the cooperation of Stella’s family in California and New Mexico, has provided an intimate portrait of this infamous, unrepentant woman, her business and her tenuous relationships with double-dealing politicians and corrupt police, whose cooperation was essential to her success in the shadowy world she inhabited. 

Stella was a woman of contrasts. Her scandalous lifestyle and fiery temper often landed her in court on morals charges, yet she was devoted to and supportive of her family and gave generously to orphans and charities. 

This compelling non-fiction narrative is a fascinating look at Stella’s life and at how things were in Victoria 100 years ago.
 
LINDA EVERSOLE is a freelance researcher, writer and heritage consultant historian who has been researching the intriguing life of Stella Carroll for many years. She lives in Victoria, B.C. 

Gorgeous, fascinating and unconventional, the maps in this collection show aspects of the Gulf Islands, the “Islands in the Salish Sea,” that are most beloved by the residents, from heritage orchards, fishing spots and patches of endangered wild orchids to ancient First Nations’ sites and bird colonies. The community on each island decided what elements should be depicted, and local artists then created each of the magnificent and wildly different maps. This volume is a treasure-trove of cherished information that could have been lost, presented with imagination and great beauty. The Islands in the Salish Sea Community Mapping Project was coordinated by Sheila Harrington and Judi Stevenson, who live on Saltspring Island. 

In the early days, Plains Indians travelled on foot across the vast Canadian prairies, with only fierce, wolf-like dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the scene. In Rediscovering the Prairies, Norman Henderson, a leading scholar of the world’s great temperate grasslands, revives the earlier modes of prairie travel. He journeys along 325 kilometres of Saskatchewan’s Qu’Appelle Valley by dog and travois (the wooden rack pulled by dogs and horses used by First Nations to transport belongings), then by canoe, and finally by horse and travois. 

Henderson’s often humourous descriptions of his attempts to find and train a dog and a horse highlight the difficulties involved in recreating traditional travel methods. Henderson interweaves his own adventures with the exploits of earlier travellers, such as La Vérendrye, Alexander Henry and Peter Fidler, and the experiences of fur traders and others who struggled across this strange and forbidding landscape. His captivating account will foster a better appreciation for, and a deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the Canadian prairies.

NORMAN HENDERSON was born in Saskatchewan in 1960. He studied in Saskatchewan, Germany and Britain, where he completed a doctorate in environmental sciences. He currently works in climate research at the University of Regina. He lives in Regina.

Pretensions, conspiracy, lies … all play a part in this riveting book that kicks off TouchWood Editions’ new mystery series featuring Coast Salish investigator Silas Seaweed. 

A billionaire’s daughter with an unsavoury past has mysteriously disappeared. Silas Seaweed, a savvy, street-smart investigator based in Victoria, B.C., is put on the case. His search for the young woman leads him on a trail of murder, greed and obsessive violence. Overcoming such obstacles as a pair of ruthless cocaine dealers, the murder of key witnesses and a failed attempt on his own life, Seaweed perseveres in his quest to bring a master criminal to justice, his journey taking him from the darker side of Victoria’s downtown to Nevada’s glittering casinos. 

Blending modern-day crime detection with age-old Coast Salish ritual, Seaweed on the Street is an absorbing, suspenseful page-turner with a pace that never lets up from the first page to the last. 

STAN EVANS was born in England, immigrated to Canada in 1954 and now lives in Victoria, B.C. A former college instructor, he began his writing career by selling articles to newspapers and magazines. He has written two plays that were produced at the Seymour Street Arts Club in Vancouver and is the author of Outlaw Gold (1996) and Snow-Coming Moon (1997).

In a remote British Columbia lake, an ancient auto wreck is discovered. Inside are the half-century-old remains of a traveller, long lost and long forgotten. While there are few clues to the identity of the corpse, the discovery sets in motion a singular chain of events that dramatically affects a small and disparate group of people, each unknown to the others but connected by history to the dead driver. Old agonies, unresolved quarrels and desperate, dangerous secrets come to light, leading to a strange and surprising conclusion.

Old Bones is the story of how a single circumstance can bring about huge changes in the lives of many people. “If we could only know,” observes one of the characters, “just how many lost souls are stashed beneath the earth, some likely as near as our neighbour’s yard, we would never sleep at nights.” Old Bones is the tale of what happens when some small-town stashing comes badly undone. 


RON CHUDLEY has written more than a hundred scripts for television programs, including The Beachcombers, and several for the National Film Board of Canada. He’s also written scripts for the CBC history series The Bush & the Salon and the drama series CBC Stage and Mystery. He lives in Cobble Hill, B.C.

I Love Canadian Beef, indeed. It’s still the best. 

Featured here are 125 nutritious and easy-to-prepare Canadian beef recipes for all occasions, including appetizers, salads, grills, soups, stews, casseroles, pastas, stir-fries and, of course, the classic roasts, burgers and prime rib. With recipes for quick meals, light meals, meals for one or two and for entertaining, plus tips on how to buy, prepare and cook beef, this book has everything you need to keep on loving Canadian beef.

THE BEEF INFORMATION CENTRE (BIC) is a division of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association. BIC programs focus on five key areas: improving the quality of beef; increasing beef’s convenience; expanding the use and value of all cuts; improving food safety; and improving consumers’ perceptions about beef’s healthfulness and wholesomeness.

The latest addition to TouchWood Editions’ Classics West Collection, this is the colourful tale of a formidable trek undertaken by legendary Cariboo rancher Norman Lee. 

In 1898, Lee set out to drive 200 head of cattle from his home in the Chilcotin area of B.C. to the Klondike goldfields—a distance of 1,500 miles. He was gambling both his cattle and his life. This is his story, derived from the journal he kept, his letters and the loyal men who accompanied him. 
Throughout the daunting weeks of coping with mud, cold and sheer bad luck, Lee kept his sense of humour. When he returned from his Yukon trek, he rewrote the notes from his journal, illustrating his story with his own cartoons and sketches. He completed his manuscript around the turn of the century, but it sat untouched until 1960, when it was published by Howard Mitchell of Mitchell Press, Vancouver. 

Well-known pioneer NORMAN LEE was born in England and arrived in British Columbia via San Francisco. He worked at a variety of jobs before fulfilling his dream of having a ranch of his own. He made his home in Hanceville on the Chilcotin Plateau, where the Lee name remains legendary.

In this collection of essays, veteran fisherman Dennis Reid’s beautifully crafted prose and thoughtful approach offer readers an informed and absorbing introduction to some of British Columbia and Alberta’s choicest sports-fishing destinations. From the Rockies to Barkley Sound, from the Columbia River gorge to the Queen Charlottes Islands, the places Reid visits and writes about are known and loved by globe-trotting fishers from all over the world. There are tales of the “ghosts of summer,” summer steelhead that are spotted first by their shadows, of winter steelhead on the swung end of a spey cast, of motor-mooching among the boats gathered at northern saltwater rock walls, of the tug-of-war with galloping halibut.
Conveying practical information in a lyrical style, Reid offers observations and commentary that will appeal to fans of such authors as Roderick Haig-Brown, Trey Combs, James Babb and Nick Lyons. Details about the fishing lodges featured in the essays will be included in an appendix, for those who wish to plan trips to those locations. 

Dennis Reid has been an angler for 45 years and has been published in more than 30 fishing magazines across North America and abroad. He is the author of How to Catch Salmon, and is known in the literary community as the author of four books of poetry and one novel. He is an acknowledged salmon expert, raconteur, instructor and lecturer, and he writes a fishing column for the Victoria Times Colonist that is read by as many people who don’t fish as those who do.

Illustrated with lush reproductions of Grant and Nixie’s art and photographs of their amazing garden, The Romance Continues is a love story, an art-appreciation adventure and a garden tour, all wrapped up in one gorgeous volume.
Nationally known artists Grant Leier and Nixie Barton are also husband and wife, parents and the creators of an astonishing and whimsical garden on Vancouver Island. Their paintings differ greatly, though both artists make extensive use of rich, luminous and vibrant colours, and both are widely admired and collected. Over their long careers, Grant and Nixie have experimented with subjects and styles, and observing the growth and change in their work is fascinating. When they moved to a rural, seven-acre property, they turned their love of colour and sense of fun onto the land, and the rambling, witty garden they created is a visual spectacle that draws thousands of delighted visitors every year.

Goody Niosi is the author of Magnificently Unrepentant, the story of Merv Wilkinson and his sustainable logging operation at Wildwood; Ordinary People, Extraordinary Lives: Recipients of the Order of British Columbia; and Nanaimo: The Harbour City. She writes for the Nanaimo Daily News, Harbour City Star and other publications.

Join Elizabeth on this lively personal tour of her favourite food producers, specialty shops and eating establishments on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. From neighbourhood coffee shops, bakeries and fine bistros to internationally renowned inns such as Sooke Harbour House, The Aerie, The Wickaninnish Inn and Hastings House, here are
purveyors of an amazing variety of fabulous food experiences. Awardwinning vintners and cheese-makers, devoted gardeners and fruit growers, and world-famous chefs … all are passionate about delicious food and natural local ingredients. In telling the stories of these fascinating people and sharing their tantalizing recipes, Elizabeth will surely inspire you to set off on your
own edible journeys.

A long-time resident of Victoria, B.C., Elizabeth Levinson is an inexhaustible hunter-gatherer of fresh, organic foods. She writes features and a regular monthly column for Focus magazine in Victoria.

This first-hand account of a Canadian pioneer — the next title in TouchWood’s Classics West series — tells the story of a hard-won wilderness home and of the self-sufficient father and brothers who built it. Their tale of wanderlust begins in 1839 in Bytown, Ontario (later called Ottawa), with father Archie MacDonald, who reached his peak as an Ottawa Valley
“bull of the woods” by age 29, prospected for silver and gold from Leadville, Colorado, to Sonora, Mexico, drove Montana cattle to the remote CPR camps in B.C. and carved out a ranch near Fort Colville, Washington. Ervin was motherless by age four, and he and his brothers and sisters were sent to an orphanage. He was reunited with his father when he was 13, and the MacDonalds homesteaded southeast of booming Edmonton. But the prairie disagreed with the mountain man in Archie, who dreamed of the Cariboo.Thus he and his teenage sons embarked on a pack journey across the Rockies via the Yellowhead Pass — without map or compass, and using makeshift rafts to cross rivers — in search of the special site that would become their home: Lac des Roches in the Bridge Lake area of the Cariboo.

Ervin Austin MacDonald was born in 1893. He worked on the family ranch in the Cariboo until he was in his 30s, then as a carpenter in Trail, B.C., until his retirement in 1951. He died in 1986.

The stories in Far Pastures take readers to R.M. Patterson’s homestead in the Peace River country of northern Alberta. To all-night dances that ended as the northern lights faded in the dawn. To escapades on the Fort Nelson, Liard and South Nahanni rivers. And to a ranch in southern Alberta where he raised cattle during the lean years of the 1930s and entertained dudes on mountaintops. In later years, Patterson helped build a wartime road through the Canadian Northwest to Alaska. And then there’s the story of the bear that liked to canoe!

The wildest, loveliest and least-travelled region of Alberta was R.M. Patterson’s home territory in the 1930s and ’40s. The Buffalo Head ranch was located in the foothills of the majestic Canadian Rockies. With the mountains as a backdrop, this dude ranch hosted visitors from around the world. Patterson bought it from its founder, a wild Italian named George Pocaterra, and explored the steep valleys and high mountain passes. Patterson’s tales of the ranch culminate with a fantastic story of meeting a growling grizzly while crossing the Continental Divide in an October snowstorm.

Through a selection of her stunning photographs, Alexandra Morton portrays life on the central British Columbia coast.

She arrived in the area in 1984 as a whale researcher, and at first, she was absorbed in studying the orca and admiring the magnificent scenery. It is a coast with a long history: dolphins have pulsed in and out for 10,000 years; First Nations people have lived here for almost as long; European settlers arrived a scant century ago. As time passed, Morton began to observe the lives of other creatures that share the sea and land—humpback whales, bears, salmon, eagles, deer, and humans—and understand how they are all interconnected. As one example, “Bears drag salmon beneath the trees of the forest, feeding the giant plants that shade the river nursery, protect its banks and allow it to make more fish.” In this book Alexandra explains what is going on beyond the beauty of the images: “One of the joys of watching a place for 20 years is being able to read the signs upon the sea—bubbles on the surface mean tons of herring below; three birds over an orca mean the whale has brought fish to the surface; shearwaters in Blackfish Sound mean autumn is here. The ocean feeds the rivers and the rivers feed the ocean.”

Alexandra Morton is a biologist, photographer, artist, and writer who is well known for her slide shows, films, television appearances and books: Listening to Whales; Siwiti: A Whale’s Story; In the Company of Whales; and Heart of the Raincoast (co-written with Billy Proctor). She says of her home in the Broughton Archipelago, “It is my place on the planet.”