Catalog of British Columbiana and Pacific Northwest Americana

The volumes contain photographs of the Canadian Pacific Railway along the Revelstoke region. They include photographs from the Revelstoke Railway Museum as well as the author's own

volumes : illustrations, maps ; 22 x 28 cm

A one-of-a-kind readable history of the railroads that helped develop the timber and coal resources of Coos County, Oregon from 1850 to 1930. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the towns of Coos Bay, Oregon, grew from a few scattered homesteads to a bustling, ocean-going port. The area's phenomenal growth was fueled by timber and coal. Nothing was more important in developing these resources than railroads. Can't You Hear the Whistle Blowin' is the complete story of how these vital transportation links were built by daring entrepreneurs who drove lines of steel into the area's rugged mountains and deep canyons. From backwoods engines and wooden rails to town celebrations and bay-spanning bridges, Can't You Hear the Whistle Blowin' brings to life a time and place vital to the history of Oregon and the West. Author, William A. "Bill" Lansing has drawn upon decades of first-hand knowledge of the area, backed by hundreds of facts and figures, and countless hours of historical research, to produce a compendium of colorful stories of this robust time.

143 pages : illustrations, 1 color map ; 29 cm + 1 map (61 x 90 c.m.) in pocket

For most of us, the Great Depression that gripped the nation for almost 10 years in the late 1920's and '30's is only something that we vaguely recall from reading history books. In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the reins of the nation and created the NEW DEAL. One of the most successful programs of the NEW DEAL was the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps. It focused on getting the unemployed young men off the streets of America's largest cities and transporting them by train to their new home in camps spread across the country. These camps would be their home for a minimum of six months. The book "Camps and Calluses" discusses what lead up to the Great Depression and where and how the CCC camps in southwestern Oregon played their part. This book follows my other ones in style and narrative. It highlights with photographs the camps and work projects in the region while being supported by a detailed narrative on each camp. Sadly, there is little evidence left to prove the CCC boys were here. The camp sites have all disappeared and only a few rock walls have stood the test of time to demonstrate their work. So, I decided to write a book about what they did. --author

224 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 29 cm + 1 map

Louis J. Clements's folklore collection, Campfire tales of eastern Idaho Volume I, captures the vibrant pioneer oral traditions that echoed across the high desert plains of the upper Snake River Valley and the rugged foothills of the Teton Range. Set against this severe and expansive geography, the narrative reveals how early ranchers, trappers, and homesteading families relied on shared storytelling to cope with the profound isolation of dispersed frontier claims. By gathering around literal and metaphorical campfires, these scattered settlers forged tight-knit kinship networks and neighborly bonds, passing down local histories that laid the cultural foundation for the region. Ultimately, these collected historical yarns document how collaborative survival and deeply rooted regional folklore transformed the demanding wilderness of eastern Idaho into a resilient, interconnected agrarian community.

117 leaves ; 28 cm

Fred W. Ludditt’s Camp Douglas: The Gold of Wells, B.C. chronicles the twentieth-century hard-rock gold mining boom that established the planned company town of Wells in the Cariboo Mountains. Ludditt details how industrial mining promoter Fred Wells spearheaded the development of the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company and Island Mountain Mines during the Great Depression, extracting rich gold veins deeply embedded in the mountain bedrock above Jack of Clubs Lake. The volume documents the systematic platting of the Wells townsite, the construction of modern community halls, schools, and hospitals, and the turbulent 1937 miners' strike that shaped local union politics. By contrasting the deep-shaft industrial technology of Wells with the nineteenth-century placer operations at adjacent Barkerville and Stanley, the narrative captures the final major corporate mining era of the Cariboo region.

168 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 23 cm

This book is a collection of the most compelling and beautiful photographs made of early Idaho people, places, and events in Idaho from 1863 through 1913. Virtually nothing had been published on Idaho’s pioneer photographers when Arthur A. Hart began his research a dozen years ago.

201 pages : illustrations ; 29 cm

"Incorporated in 1909, the Camas Prairie Railroad (CPRR) was a successful joint venture between two major competing companies, the Union Pacific and Northern Pacific Railroads. Despite covering less than 300 miles total, the Camas Prairie Railroad connected the region's largest exporters of wheat and lumber and was the last vital section of rail to directly connect the eastern United States with the Pacific Northwest. In addition to freight, the CPRR was the most reliable method of transportation for people and the postal service in this rural area, even allowing for the creation of new towns along the line. The Camas Prairie itself ranged from desert to mountainous forests, with rugged river canyons in between. Infamously known as the "Railroad on Stilts," one subdivision alone boasts 44 bridges, many of them made from heavy timber. No longer in business, portions of the track have been removed while some remain active, carrying freight to larger markets. Trestles and tunnels still dot the landscape, giving a peek into the not-so-distant past"

127 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm.

Despite frequent depiction as a bird of California and the desert southwest, North America’s largest avian scavenger once graced the skies of the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to British Columbia. This important volume documents the condor’s history in the region, from prehistoric times to the early twentieth century, and explores the challenges of reintroduction. Jesse D’Elia and Susan Haig investigate the paleontological and observational record as well as the cultural relationships between Native American tribes and condors, providing the most complete assessment to date of the condor’s occurrence in the Pacific Northwest. They evaluate the probable causes of regional extinction and the likelihood that condors once bred in the region, and they assess factors that must be considered in determining whether they could once again thrive in Northwest skies. Incorporating the newest research and findings and more than eighty detailed historical accounts of human encounters with these birds of prey, California Condors in the Pacific Northwest sets a new standard for examining the historical record of a species prior to undertaking a reintroduction effort. It is a vital reference for academics, agency decision makers, conservation biologists, and readers interested in Northwest natural history. The volume is beautifully illustrated by Ram Papish and includes a number of previously unpublished photographs.

xvi, 208 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

The mere mention of Calamity Jane conjures up images of buckskins, bull whips and dance halls, but there's more to the woman than the storied legend she became. Born Martha Canary, she was orphaned as a child and assumed the responsibility of caring for her siblings. Much too young and ambitious to rear a family, she found homes for all. After setting off on her own, Martha tried to reconnect with her fractured family in her typical haphazard fashion, all the while transforming into Calamity Jane. Soon, her own foibles and her siblings' choices rendered the attempt futile. From brother Elijah's horse thieving to sister Lena's denial of Martha's tales, author Jan Cerney uncovers the tumultuous Canary family often overlooked in the Calamity canon.

157 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

June 14, 1903, was a typical, hot Sunday in Heppner, a small farm town in northeastern Oregon. People went to church, ate dinner, and relaxed with family and friends. But late that afternoon, calamity struck when a violent thunderstorm brought heavy rain and hail to the mountains and bare hills south of town. When the fierce downpour reached Heppner, people gathered their children and hurried inside. Most everyone closed their doors and windows against the racket. The thunder and pounding hail masked the sound of something they likely could not have imagined: a roaring, two-story wall of water raging toward town. Within an hour, one of every five people in the prosperous town of 1,300 would lose their lives as the floodwaters pulled apart and carried away nearly everything in their path. The center of town was devastated. Enormous drifts of debris, tangled around bodies, snaked down the valley. The telegraph was down, the railroads were out, and the mayor was in Portland. Stunned survivors bent immediately to the dreadful tasks of searching for loved ones and carrying bodies to a makeshift morgue in the bank. By the next afternoon, thousands of individuals and communities had rushed to the town's aid, an outpouring of generosity that enabled the self-reliant citizens of Heppner to undertake the town's recovery. In Calamity, Joann Green Byrd, a native of eastern Oregon, carefully documents this poignant story, illustrating that even the smallest acts have consequences - good or bad. She draws on a wealth of primary sources, including a moving collection of photographs, to paint a rare picture of how a small town in the West coped with disaster at the turn of the twentieth century.

xviii, 202 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm

"This guide is intended to acquaint county residents and visitors with some of the more easily accessible landmarks of African-American history. These include works of art and cultural and historical sites which have been passed or driven by, for years while their existence, significance or association with African Americans in King County over the past century and a half has gone unnoted. This book provides information to give the user a sense of the creators and participants, the places and the activities associated with them ... Except for private homes and corporations most of the art and sites included here are accessible to public viewers. They are marked on the maps accompanying each section." from author's preface

xii, 158 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

In this provocative and illuminating book, Marianna Torgovnick explores the psychology of our profound attraction to cultures we call "primitive." Whether located in Africa, the South Pacific, or the American Southwest, the primitive has become synonymous in the Western imagination with a range of emotions and experiences thought to be lost in modern life: reverence for the land and for nature; strong communal bonds; sexual plentitude; and, perhaps most intriguing, and ecstatic sense of connection to the universe and the life force. Torgovnick investigates the numerous ways we have turned toward the primitive out of spiritual hunger for such deeply human experiences - a hunger that could once be satisfied within the West's own mystical traditions but that often no longer can be. Brilliantly encompassing religion, art, psychology, literature, and other aspects of our culture, Primitive Passions offers new insight into our ideas of spirituality and gender, and, ultimately, into the hidden but vital parts of ourselves

312 pages frontispiece (map), illustrations (including portraits, facsimiles) 22 cm

Dorothy Neil and Lee Brainard’s By canoe and sailing ship they came: a history of Whidbey's Island explores the maritime settlement and agricultural development of the expansive landmass situated between Admiralty Inlet and Saratoga Passage in Puget Sound. Set against the fertile prairies of Penn Cove and the rugged coastlines near Deception Pass, the narrative details how early seafaring pioneers and immigrant homesteaders navigated strict geographical isolation to establish viable land claims. By examining the collaborative construction of community blockhouses and tight-knit agrarian cooperatives, the text reveals how these early residents relied on deeply rooted family networks to survive the demanding coastal environment. Ultimately, this historical account demonstrates how cooperative labor and shared maritime traditions successfully transformed a remote island frontier into a cohesive, enduring community defined by lasting Pacific Northwest lineages.

283 pages : illustrations ; 26 cm

"On the day that Lytton, BC burned to the ground, Meghan Fandrich ran from the flames. She saw the village turn into a black pillar of smoke, and went home after a month-long evacuation to its ashes. Her house, on the edge of the fire, was saved; her community and her small business were not. Life as she knew it was gone, and somehow, in spite of the trauma and the ongoing onslaught of natural disasters, she had to keep going. Living. Surviving. Burning Sage shares Meghan's deeply personal story of the fire, the ensuing trauma, and the path out of it. But it is also a human story, a universal story, of loneliness, fragility and beauty. The poems follow the arc of shock, fear, and anger, and the impossibility of single parenting in a burned-up town. They tell of a connection, a love, and the way that feeling understood can help us understand ourselves. The poems in Burning Sage share a vivid portrait of grief and heartbreak and, ultimately, of healing."-- Provided by publisher

88 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

This brief history tells the story of a small valley in Washington State's North Cascades. Over the century since its discovery, it has been developed into a National Parks and Recreation Area, and a large hydroelectric resource that supplies much of Seattle's power. First there were the gold miners who came in 1880 and returned in 1908. Next came the homesteaders who fought the weather and the government for their land. After World War I, Seattle City Light gained control of the Skagit. Would they ever finish building the first dam at Gorge Creek? Why did the Mayor fire J.D. Ross, Seattle City Light's superintendent? What was the Old Skagit Tour like? Construction o all Skagit dams was difficult. The weather and the geology made completion of the project a notable achievement. Building the Skagit is one example of the struggles that have led to the development of our nation's natural resources

105 pages : illustrations, maps, portrait ; 21 cm

"A treasure trove of facts and factoids, original photos, people, events, weird and picturesque Portland... Your indispensable reference and compact field guide to the great architecture in the one square mile of today's central Portland." --Back cover

viii, 106 pages : chiefly color illustrations, map, charts ; 23 cm

Charles Miles and Ottis Bedney Sperlin’s Building a State: Washington, 1889-1939, compiled for the Washington State Historical Society, explores the dynamic civic maturation and collaborative infrastructure development that defined the commonwealth's first fifty years. The narrative illustrates how the profound environmental realities of this expansive landscape—spanning the intricate maritime networks of the Puget Sound, the towering forested barrier of the Cascade Mountains, and the fertile, sun-drenched basins of the eastern plateaus—required immense adaptability and cooperative governance to unite disparate regional interests. By detailing the steady transition from isolated territorial enclaves to the thoughtful integration of robust rail corridors, enduring maritime ferry routes, and vital agricultural institutions, the text highlights how the state's prosperity relied on community-driven responses to its varied ecological zones. Ultimately, the account demonstrates that cooperatively bridging the immense geographic divides of the Pacific Northwest and patiently cultivating shared political and educational frameworks were essential steps in transforming a rugged frontier into a cohesive, culturally vibrant, and deeply interconnected society.

xi, [1], 607, [19] pages : illustrations, map, portraits ; 24 cm

For fifteen years, Evelyn Hess and her husband David lived in a tent and trailer, without electricity or running water, on twenty acres of wild land in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. When they decided to build a house – a real house at last – they knew it would have to respect the lessons of simple living that they learned in their camping life. They knew they could not do it alone. Building a Better Nest chronicles their adventures as they begin to construct a house of their own, seeking a model for sustainable living not just in their home, but beyond its walls. What does it mean to build a better nest? Better for whom? Is it better for the individual or family? The planet? Green building and sustainable design are popular buzzwords, but to Hess, sustainable building is not a simple matter of buying and installing the latest recycled flooring products. It is also about cooperative work: working together in employment, in research, in activism, and in life. Hess is concerned with her local watershed, but also with the widening income gap, disappearing species, and peak resources. She actively works to reduce overconsumption and waste. For Hess, these problems are both philosophical and practical. As Hess and her husband age, the questions of how to live responsibly arise with greater frequency and urgency. With unfailing wit and humor, she looks for answers in such places as neuroscience, Buddhism, and her ancestral legacy. Building a Better Nest will appeal to anyone with an interest in sustainable building, off-grid living, or alternative communities. The questions it asks about the way we live are earnest and important, from an author whose voice is steeped in wisdom and gratitude.

191 pages ; 23 cm

Through such rolling hills and prairies, over rocks and across valleys with views of cascade peaks, army troops and indians evaded and confrtoned each other during the Yakima War that brought Fort Simcoe's begining

viii, 196 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Anne Kennedy’s 1989 lyric collection, Buck Mountain Poems, provides an evocative spatial and ecological record of rural domestic life, seasonal isolation, and ecological observation set atop Buck Mountain on Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago. The verses map daily habitation across rain-shadow slopes of Douglas fir, Pacific madrone, and exposed marine sandstone, situating contemporary island residency directly within the ancestral homelands, resource grounds, and maritime viewsheds long stewarded by Northern Straits Salish peoples, including the Lummi and Samish. Kennedy illuminates the granular logistics of upland island existence, tracing the material realities of steep unpaved roads, wood heat, rainwater catchment, and the constant temporal pull of ferry connections that bind isolated island ridges to mainland supply corridors. Ultimately, the work functions as an intimate literary cartography of place, capturing how late-twentieth-century rural homesteading negotiated the steep topography, ecological limits, and enduring Indigenous geography of the Salish Sea uplands.

1 volume (unpaged) : illustrations ; 21 cm

Compiled by Cathy English, longtime curator of the Revelstoke Museum & Archives, Brown Bag History: Revelstoke Origins presents a granular examination of the foundational legal, political, and spatial conflicts that forged the city. The text details the contentious 1885 land dispute between settler A.S. Farwell and the Canadian Pacific Railway, which stalled municipal planning and led to dual competing townsite surveys along the Columbia River waterfront. English traces early civic engineering efforts, including the installation of the original wooden water flumes, the establishment of early commercial banks and brickworks, and the construction of railway and traffic bridges linking downtown Revelstoke to the working-class settlement of Big Eddy. Drawing on municipal minute books, court filings, and archival photographs, the chronicle illuminates the grassroots administrative struggles of an interior railway townsite.

112 pages : illustrations, portraits ; 22 cm

Poems and short stories written by Elizabeth Gamble Wahl. From the foreword by David Wahl: “When my grandfather, Daniel Gamble, returned from Goldendale and Victoria to his homestead on Paradise Ridge, he built a new home for his family. Following Irish tradition, he gave his home a name: Brooklawn. It was here that my mother grew up on a farm with the woods nearby. She learned to love the flowers and birds of field and woodland, and the passing seasons. The seasons show themselves distinctly here in the Palouse Country, and sometimes all four seasons come on one March day. Both her father and her brother Bert could write poetry. Before she was eleven, she and her sister Lola would make up their own stories. She decided that she would like to be a writer. She payed close attention to people, seemingly ordinary people, who worked in the fields with her brothers, or helped with chores and cooking. Among these people was “Shorty Hill”, a ranch hand and a real cowboy. Although he was not a writer, he was a master storyteller, and he helped my mother learn how to write the way that people speak. The short stories are fiction, but they have the good times among the hard times, the closeness of nature, and both the mischief and the warmth and caring of real people woven into them. Our family has enjoyed her stories and poems, and it is my hope that this book will bring as much pleasure to many others. Perhaps her words will help you to see that there are no ordinary people, and that today is no ordinary day.”

30 cm : illustrations ; 28 cm

Carlton E. Appelo’s Brookfield: The Joe Megler Story chronicles the rise and fall of a pioneering salmon cannery town situated along the remote, timbered shores of the lower Columbia River in Wahkiakum County, Washington. The narrative maps the rugged estuarine geography where J.G. Megler established his bustling fishing enterprise, nestled between dense coastal rainforests and the sweeping tidal waters near the river's treacherous mouth. By detailing the daily operations of this isolated riverfront community, the book illustrates how the region's immense salmon runs and strategic aquatic access directly fueled the Pacific Northwest's early maritime economy. Ultimately, the text captures the distinct historical footprint of southwestern Washington’s coastal inlets, preserving the memory of a vibrant industrial settlement that was eventually reclaimed by the surrounding wilderness.

40 pages illustrations, maps, portraits 24 cm

This significant study offers information on the British investors who brought capital to America's mining industry in the late nineteenth century. The author devotes primary attention to the promotional activities that led to the organization and operation of more than 500 English joint venture stock companies between 1860 and 1901

ix, 288 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Pages 16-35 contain the report of Joshua Pilcher of his experiences in the Hudson's Bay Company posts, including Flathead Post, during the winter of 1829-30. Probably written in the fall of 1830

61 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm