Heritage House is pleased to announce that Ken Mather has been honoured with second prize at the 2019 BC Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing awards for his book Trail North: The Okanagan Trail of 1858–68 and Its Origins in British Columbia And Washington.
Hosted by the British Columbia Historical Federation, the Lieutenant-Governor’s awards celebrate books that make significant contributions to the historical literature of British Columbia.
Mather received his prize at the BCHF Book Awards Gala at the Native Sons Hall in Courtenay, BC, on June 8.
Focusing on one of BC’s oldest transportation routes that today links Brewster, WA, to Kamloops, BC, Trail North chronicles the tumultuous years when the route was dominated by American drovers moving cattle, freight, and American culture into Canada, and the impact of this wave on BC’s development.
Based in Vernon, BC, Ken Mather is the author of three previous books on ranching history for Heritage House, including Buckaroos and Mud Pups: The Early Days of Ranching in British Columbia; Bronc Busters and Hay Sloops: Ranching in the West in the Early 20th Century; and Frontier Cowboys and the Great Divide: Early Ranching in BC and Alberta. A fifth title, Ranch Tales: Stories from the Frontier, is forthcoming this July.
Other winners of the 2019 Lieutenant-Governor’s awards include Tyler McCreary for Shared Histories: Witsuwit’en–Settler Relations in Smithers, British Columbia, 1913–1973 (first prize), and Veronica Strong-Boag for The Last Suffragist Standing: The Life and Times of Laura Marshall Jamieson (third prize).
More information on the 2019 BC Historical Federation awards is available on their website.