Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

Published by the Mason County Historical Society and co-authored by Ethel M. Dalby and Valerie Abrams Johnson, Tales of Hood Canal compiles rich local lore, vintage photographs, and personal recollections documenting the historic communities along Washington's dramatic fjord. The book chronicles the lives of early loggers, oyster growers, homesteaders, and maritime traders who navigated the deep, glacier-carved waters of the canal before the arrival of modern highways. Through collected anecdotes and archival records, the text preserves the distinct character of isolated waterfront settlements shaped by the rhythms of the tides and dense surrounding forests. A keen insight drawn from the work is how a winding marine waterway served simultaneously as a barrier and a highway; while the steep topography of the Hood Canal kept communities geographically sequestered from inland urban centers, the water itself provided the vital commercial and social umbilical cord that tied them to the broader Puget Sound economy.

ix, 137 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

220 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

B. A. McKelvie’s Tales of Conflict chronicles the violent imperial colonization and aggressive martial subjugation of the profoundly contested, heavily forested maritime frontier of early British Columbia. The narrative maps how the severe environmental realities of this untamed coastal topography—defined by plunging, impenetrable fjords, treacherous, tide-ripped inland waterways, and the sheer granite barricades of the Coast Mountains—initially dictated a highly volatile and precarious existence, trapping isolated Hudson's Bay Company forts in direct, bloody friction against deeply entrenched indigenous nations. By detailing the explosive deployment of heavy, steam-powered Royal Navy gunboats and the relentless projection of mechanized imperial force to violently pacify these rugged shorelines, the text illustrates how the geopolitical survival of the coastal settlements was strictly governed by the urgent necessity of artificially mastering this hostile geographic labyrinth. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that systematically domesticating this contested coastal wilderness and violently carving a rigid, fortified commercial grid out of the northern Pacific edge were the absolute prerequisites for shattering the region's profound geographical detachment and anchoring it to the broader geopolitical machinery of the British Empire.

vii, 99 pages : illustrations ; 27 cm

With a career spanning five decades, writer Daniel Wood's adventures have inspired, informed, and entertained generations of readers about British Columbia's charms. Whether he's exploring human nature, scientific discoveries, oddities, or environmental wonders, at the centre of those explorations are people, their ideas, and their dreams. Written by B.C.'s most acclaimed writer and journalist, this anthology features 28 award-winning magazine articles, including a near-death hotair balloon ride, B.C.'s pot-growing pioneers, Elvis impersonators in the Okanagan, the province's first dino-dig, and its last free-range cowboys. You won't find a better collection of B.C. tales anywhere

255 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Authored by Helen Huson Olsen and Effie DeForest Boyer Knowlton, Tales from a Tahuya Log: Second Growth preserves the rustic folklore, pioneer genealogy, and personal recollections of early settlement along the Tahuya Peninsula on Washington's Hood Canal. The book captures the unglamorous day-to-day realities of homesteading, logging, and raising families in a densely forested, isolated region where neighbors were separated by miles of wilderness rather than paved roads. Through charming anecdotes and local family histories, the text chronicles how a distinct, resilient community was hewed out of the second-growth timberland. A keen insight drawn from the work is how the concept of "second growth" serves as an apt metaphor for the psychological landscape of frontier children; just as new trees vigorously sprouted from the logged stumps of the original forest, the second generation of settlers had to grow sturdy and resourceful in the literal shadow of their parents' exhausting labor.

159 pages : illustrations, map ; 28 cm

"A natural and environmental history of Mount Rainier National Park and its watersheds and surrounding human communities, with emphasis on Native American people and their millennia-long association with the mountain"-- Provided by publisher

266 pages : illustrations (some color), maps ; 23 cm

Published in 1916 by journalist Herbert Hunt, Tacoma, Its History and Its Builders: A Half Century of Activity offers an exhaustive chronicle of the city’s aggressive rise from a rugged Puget Sound mill town to a major industrial railroad terminus. The multi-volume text details the ruthless corporate maneuvering of the Northern Pacific Railway, the fierce regional rivalry with Seattle, and the foundational lumber and maritime industries that fueled Tacoma's ambitions as the self-proclaimed "City of Destiny." A keen insight drawn from the work is how early civic boosterism actively sanitized the city's history of racial violence to protect its commercial reputation; by framing the brutal 1885 expulsion of Tacoma's entire Chinese community as a tragic but necessary measure for labor stability, Hunt's narrative demonstrates how pioneer-era historians deliberately rewrote organized xenophobia as an acceptable cost of maintaining civic order and industrial progress.

3 volumes frontispieces, plates, portraits, maps 27 cm

An introduction to the T'Sou-ke people and the people of Sooke, a small community on the western coast of Vancouver Island.

156 pages : illustrations (some color), maps, portraits ; 22 x 29 cm

"In The History That We Share, historian Robert Janning presents a clear and comprehensive depiction of the relationship that existed between the Snuneymuxw First Nation and the Methodist Church of Canada from the time of contact to the day Snuneymuxw children were first sent to the Coqualeetza Residential School, in Sardis, British Columbia. This book gives readers an opportunity to learn what day to day life was like in a First Nation community prior to the implementation of the Indian residential school system in British Columbia. Despite the fact that fear, guilt and shame have for many years conspired to conceal much of the history that we share, an immense body of documentation chronicling our past has been left to collect dust on the shelves of archives and libraries for a century or more. Driven by a consuming desire to better understand how we became who we are today, Janning launched an investigation that took five years to complete. After collecting and chronologically arranging his findings, he was determined that the evidence would get to see the light of day. After all, if it is the truth that will set us free, then is it not high time we took a long look in our rearview mirror?" -- Back cover

xxx, 317 pages : maps, portraits, black and white photographs ; 29 cm

"The first book in the Speaking of Idaho Series, inspired by the popular blog of the same name. It's filled with Idaho history, loosely defined and quirky. Learn about Chicken Dinner Road, Grace Slick's tenuous connection to Idaho, why a governor didn't care for a beloved folk singer, the unique trick played by the Idaho giant salamander, where that Hot Rod Lincoln race really took place, and more useless but entertaining trivia about the Gem State"--Publisher

89 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Around the turn of the twentieth century, and for decades thereafter, Oregon had the second largest Chinese population in the United States. In terms of geographical coverage, Portland’s two Chinatowns (one an urban area of brick commercial structures, one a vegetable-gardening community of shanty dwellings) were the largest in all of North America. Marie Rose Wong chronicles the history of Portland’s Chinatowns from their early beginnings in the 1850s until the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the 1940s, drawing on exhaustive primary material from the National Archives, including more than six thousand individual immigration files, census manuscripts, letters, and newspaper accounts. She examines both the enforcement of Exclusion Laws in the United States and the means by which Chinese immigrants gained illegal entry into the country. The spatial and ethnic makeup of the combined "Old Chinatown" afforded much more contact and accommodation between Chinese and non-Chinese people than is usually assumed to have occurred in Portland, and than actually may have occurred elsewhere. Sweet Cakes, Long Journey explores the contributions that Oregon’s leaders and laws had on the development of Chinese American community life, and the role that the early Chinese immigrants played in determining their own community destiny and the development of their Chinatown in its urban form and vernacular architectural expression.

xx, 337 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

"This book is about "surviving" and is divided into three sections: an introduction that looks back to my 1996 book and reproduces some of the images and thoughts from that tranquil time nearly 30 years ago; a second section about "surviving" as an adjective--what has survived of its fine buildings and beautiful neighbourhoods; and a third one of "surviving" as a verb--how people are surviving in Vancouver. I have used "Vancouver" both as a term for the city itself and sometimes for Metro Vancouver--the region which includes Burnaby, New Westminster, the North and West Vancouvers, Surrey, Richmond, Delta, Port Moody, White Rock, the Coquitlams and the Langleys. The final section of the book considers that geography, and the "great escapes" further afield."-- Provided by publisher

126 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

"Over the last thirty years, conservative evangelicals have been moving to the north-west of the United States in an effort to survive and resist the impact of secular modernity. Their activity coincides with the promotion by prominent survivalist authors of a programme of migration to the "American Redoubt," a region encompassing Idaho, Montana, eastern parts of Washington and Oregon, and Wyoming, as a location within which to endure hostile social change or natural disaster. These migration movements have independent origins, but they overlap in their influences and aspirations, working in tandem and sometimes in mutual dependence to offer a vision of the present in which Christian values must be defended, if necessary, by force, and a vision of the future in which American society will be rebuilt according to biblical law. Drawing on Calvinist theology, the social theory of Christian Reconstruction, and libertarian politics, these believers are projecting significant soft power, with their books being promoted by leading secular publishers and being listed as New York Times bestsellers. The strategy is gaining momentum, making an impact in local political and economic life, while being repackaged for a wider audience in publications by a broader coalition of conservative commentators and in American mass culture. These believers recognise that they have lost the culture war - but another kind of conflict is beginning. This book examines the origins, evolution, and cultural reach of the migration that might tell us most about the future of American evangelicalism." -- Publisher, page four of cover

xii, 210 pages : map ; 25 cm

"Frank Swannell surveyed much of northern British Columbia in the early part of the 20th century. As well as keeping a journal of what he saw and what his survey crews did, he also kept a photographic record of his seven trips through the North." "This book includes both well-known photographs and others previously unpublished. As the 100th year of the Corporation of Land Surveyors of British Columbia approaches, Surveying Northern British Columbia is finally being produced and acknowledges the contributions of a man, a surveyor, a photographer, and a journalist."--BOOK JACKET

vii, 166 p. : ill., maps, ports ; 27 cm.

Photographer and curator Terry Toedtemeier (1947–2008) began his career in the 1970s with extensive photographic experiments to capture his close circle of friends and colleagues. Largely self-taught, he began to attract wider critical attention with his landscape images, initially snapshots from his moving car and later exquisite compositions influenced by his deep understanding of both historical and contemporary photography traditions of the American West. His haunting photographs often focused on the Oregon desert and coastline, and magnificent basalt formations of the Pacific Northwest. Sun, Shadows, Stone is the first scholarly monograph of the photography of Terry Toedtemeier. His photographs were featured in the nationally traveling exhibition Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan and are in the collections of many museums including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Philadelphia Art Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

134 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 27 cm

"In 1889, David Eccles chartered the Oregon Lumber Company, an organization that produced many mills and railways and whose influence was felt from Salt Lake City to Northern California and Idaho. Through family connections, Eccles was also involved with many other logging enterprises, and he influenced the growth of the Inter-Mountain region as well as the Pacific Northwest. Sumpter Valley Logging Railroads is a pictorial history of the Oregon operations, focusing on the operations along the Sumpter Valley Railway. It explores the rails, mills, and people, as well as the logging practices of a bygone era

127 pages : chiefly illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

In 1864 Governor James Douglas handed over his office to Arthur Edward Kennedy, closing an era in Vancouver Island's history and ushering in a period of growth and development. The optimism felt by its people was to a large extent justified; the ensuing years were to bring stability, prosperity and many changes. In Summer of Promise, a sequel to Victoria: The Fort, the author chronicles the years from 1864 to the outbreak of World War One in 1914, seeing them through the eyes of the inhabitants of the city which was the capital of the colony and later of the province. Despite its geographical isolation, its population remained well aware of world events: the Boer War, the death of Queen Victoria, the ascension of Edward VII to the throne and the rising threat of the German navy were as much talked about as the waning of many traditional religious beliefs and the enfranchisement of women. Nearer home, these were important years for Victoria as the colony voted to join the Dominion of Canada, the railroad connected the new province with the rest of the country, and the "All Red Route" linked it by steamship to Australia and the Orient. Motorcars, aeroplanes, telephones, the telegraph and electricity brought British Columbia into the twentieth century. From the momentous to the mundane, and sometimes even to the ridiculous, Derek Pethick documents an era in Victoria's history. Summer of Promise is enlightening, fascinating and enjoyable reading.

191 pages, 8 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm

Katharine Berry Judson’s Subject index to the history of the Pacific northwest and of Alaska as found in the United States government documents... 1789-1881 serves as a foundational bibliographic roadmap to the bureaucratic and military footprint of early American expansion. Rather than a standard narrative history, this exhaustive catalog indexes decades of federal surveyor notes, military reports, and territorial correspondence, detailing exactly how the United States government attempted to map its nascent civic infrastructure directly onto the ancient overland trails and riverine networks of the region's diverse indigenous nations. The indexed records capture the intense, often fraught periods of treaty-making and resource competition, documenting the complex interdependent alliances and trade relationships negotiated between indigenous leaders, early pioneer settlers, and federal agents. By systematically organizing the raw data of territorial formation—from the establishment of remote military outposts to international boundary disputes—this vital research tool reveals the massive bureaucratic and cooperative effort required to catalog and re-engineer a vast, established indigenous geography into the recognized political landscape of the modern Pacific Northwest and Alaska.

341 pages 24 cm

To celebrate Oregon's 150th birthday, the Oregon Library Association has chosen one book for all Oregonians to read: Stubborn Twig. Lauren Kessler's award-winning book, the selection for the statewide Oregon Reads program, is a classic story of immigrants making their way in a new land. It is a living work of social history that rings with the power of truth and the drama of fiction, a moving saga about the challenges of becoming an American. Masuo Yasui traveled from Japan across the other Oregon Trail — the one that spanned the Pacific Ocean — in 1903. Like most immigrants, he came with big dreams and empty pockets. Working on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Hood River, Oregon, he opened a store, raised a large family, and became one of the area's most successful orchardists. As Masuo broke the race barrier in the local business community, his American-born children broke it in school, scouts and sports, excelling in most everything they tried. For the Yasuis' first-born son, the constraints and contradictions of being both Japanese and American led to tragedy. But his seven brothers and sisters prevailed, becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and farmers. It was a classic tale of the American dream come true — until December 7, 1941, changed their lives forever. The Yasuis were among the 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry along the West Coast who were forced from their homes and interned in vast inland "relocation camps." Masuo was arrested as a spy and imprisoned for the rest of the war; his family was shamed and broken. Yet the Yasuis endured, as succeeding generations took up the challenge of finding their identity as Americans. Stubborn Twig is their story — a story at once tragic and triumphant, one that bears eloquent witness to both the promise and the peril of America.

xvi, 308 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm

"A sixty-mile forested corridor dotted with small towns stretching from the gently sloped farmlands of the Willamette Valley to the Cascade mountains, Oregon's North Santiam Canyon is like many other marginalized places in the American West. Its residents have long sought to exercise limited power in the face of real and exaggerated external forces: global economic systems, cultural power emanating from larger cities, and political forces in the form of state and federal government agencies. Struggle on the North Santiam examines how these Oregonians have responded to, interacted with, and sometimes gotten the better of such external forces. In this deeply researched account, historian Bob H. Reinhardt connects the North Santiam Canyon's history to that of the Pacific Northwest and the United States more broadly. Readers will learn about specific events that illuminate famous and infamous themes in the region's history: railroad development as seen through the failed dreams of the Oregon and Pacific Railroad, federal land scams in the Oregon Land Fraud Trails of the early twentieth century, the causes and consequences of mid-century river development projects like Detroit Dam, the post-war booms and busts of the timber industry, the spotted owl/ancient forest debate in the 1980s and 1990s, and the promises and perils of Oregon's recreational tourism economy. From nineteenth-century interactions between Native and non-Native peoples to the changing fortunes of the timber industry and questions about economic and environmental sustainability in the twenty-first century, the book offers important insights into power dynamics in small communities and marginal places. Struggle on the North Santiam will be of interest to scholars of the American West and thoughtful readers interested in Oregon and Pacific Northwest history"-- Provided by publisher

x, 222 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Steven C. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda's sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just to protect their livelihood, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of themselves.

287 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Strathcona: A History of British Columbia's First Provincial Park by Wallace Baikie and Rosemary Phillips is a 1986 regional environmental history that chronicles the exploration, establishment, and preservation of this rugged, mountainous wilderness reserve located in the geographic center of Vancouver Island. The book details the park's origins from its legislative founding in 1911—making it the oldest provincial park in British Columbia—through decades of early mountaineering expeditions, resource use conflicts, and the evolving conservation efforts required to protect its pristine alpine lakes, ancient forests, and glaciated peaks. Ultimately, it serves as an invaluable resource for outdoor enthusiasts and environmental historians seeking to understand the recreational development and the enduring legacy of land preservation in the Canadian Pacific Northwest.

vi, 137 pages : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 28 cm

Authored by local historian John Atkin, Strathcona: Vancouver's First Neighbourhood chronicles the vibrant history, architectural evolution, and immigrant roots of Vancouver's oldest residential district. The book traces how the working-class enclave—sandwiched between industrial waterfronts and the city's commercial core—became a diverse melting pot of European, Asian, and Indigenous residents who built tight-knit community networks in the shadow of urban expansion. Through archival photographs and detailed municipal records, the text highlights the fierce neighborhood activism that repeatedly saved the area from twentieth-century freeway demolition and industrial rezoning. A keen insight drawn from the work is how grassroots architectural preservation serves as a radical form of working-class self-defense; by fighting to protect their modest wooden homes and walkable streets from municipal "renewal" projects, Strathcona residents proved that neighborhood history and vernacular architecture are vital bulwarks against the erasure of marginalized communities by corporate and bureaucratic urban planning.

93 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Describes the social world of the traders in the 18th and 19th centuries. Examines differences between the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company and their effects on Indian-white relations

xxiii, 255 pages, 6 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

"In Strand, travel writer and amateur naturalist Bonnie Henderson traces the stories of wrack washed up on the mile-long stretch of Oregon beach she walked has regularly for more than a decade." "Henderson's writing conveys both a keen attention to the specifics of place and an expansive field of vision. The burned hull of a long-abandoned fishing boat, a glass fishing float, the egg case of a skate, a beached minke whale, an unusual number of dead murres, and an athletic shoe are the starting points for essays that reach across the globe. Henderson takes readers from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Vancouver, B.C.; from the currents circulating through the North Pacific to the "Eastern Garbage Patch" between Hawaii and California; from China's Shenzhen Special Economic Zone to fishing villages on the coast of Hokkaido, Japan." "As Henderson uncovers these odysseys, she meditates on current issues, events, and phenomena - oil spills, the proliferation of ocean debris, international trade, the evolution of sharks, and the survival prospects of whales. The characters that emerge range from the world's leading minke whale researchers to the crew of a Coast Guard airbase to a small-town salvager of wrecked fishing boats, glued to the radio and praying for disaster." "Strand offers a thoughtful look at the surprisingly far-ranging journeys of what washes up on our Pacific shores."--Jacket

216 pages : maps ; 23 cm