BC's best history writers bring the province's early days to life in these pages. Illustrated with over 80 colour photos, plus maps and archival illustrations, Frontier Days in British Columbia is a fountain of information and a visual treat. Editor Garnet Basque's selection of 20 great west-coast stories offers entertaining lore from the high seas to the high country, ranging from the fateful voyage of the Grappler to the legendary exploits of packer Jean "Cataline" Caux, and from the first Hudson's Bay Company forts to the age of whaling.

Over 300 sternwheelers plied the BC-Yukon waters, a record in North America. In icy northern lakes, rivers and the open sea, these flat-bottomed steamers served for 100 years. Ripped open by rapids, gutted by fire, crushed by ice, they left a memorable wake that altered history forever. This book includes portraits of flamboyant captains and crews, details on how the vessels were constructed and operated, historical background of the communities they served and more.

In an era when picture postcards became a unique new way to "call home," they quickly established a role in enticing an ongoing parade of tourists to British Columbia. This book features an impressive collection of black-and-white lithograph images that were sold to the public in the early twentieth century. Documenting life in British Columbia during this period of time, each image has a story to tell. Collectively they define the state of affairs in B.C. a century ago. The book is divided into geographic regions, with an introductory article and map for each. Fred Thirkell and Bob Scullion's previous book of postcard images, Postcards From the Past (1996), won a City of Vancouver Heritage Award.

In British Columbia by the Road, Ben Bradley takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the history of roads, highways, and motoring in British Columbia’s Interior, a remote landscape composed of plateaus and interlocking valleys, soaring mountains and treacherous passes. Challenging the idea that the automobile offered travellers the freedom of the road and a view of unadulterated nature, Bradley shows that an array of interested parties – boosters, businessmen, conservationists, and public servants – manipulated what drivers and passengers could and should view from the road. When it came to roads and highways, planners and builders had two concerns: grading or paving a way through “the wilderness” and opening pathways to new parks and historic sites. They understood that the development of a modern road network would lead to new ways of perceiving BC and its environment. Although cars and roads promised freedom, they offered drivers a curated view of the landscape that shaped the province’s image in the eyes of residents and visitors alike.

Outstanding Title by Choice Magazine On the banks of the Pacific Northwest’s greatest river lies the Hanford nuclear reservation, an industrial site that appears to be at odds with the surrounding vineyards and desert. The 586-square-mile compound on the Columbia River is known both for its origins as part of the Manhattan Project, which made the first atomic bombs, and for the monumental effort now under way to clean up forty-five years of waste from manufacturing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hanford routinely makes the news, as scientists, litigants, administrators, and politicians argue over its past and its future. It is easy to think about Hanford as an expression of federal power, a place apart from humanity and nature, but that view distorts its history. Atomic Frontier Days looks through a wider lens, telling a complex story of production, community building, politics, and environmental sensibilities. In brilliantly structured parallel stories, the authors bridge the divisions that accompany Hanford’s headlines and offer perspective on today’s controversies. Influenced as much by regional culture, economics, and politics as by war, diplomacy, and environmentalism, Hanford and the Tri-Cities of Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick illuminate the history of the modern American West.

In Colonization and Community John Belshaw takes a new look at British Columbia's first working class, the men, women, and children beneath and beyond the pit-head. Beginning with an exploration of emigrant expectations and ambitions, he investigates working conditions, household wages, racism, industrial organization, gender, schooling, leisure, community building, and the fluid identity of the British mining colony, the archetypal west coast proletariat. By connecting the story of Vancouver Island to the larger story of Victorian industrialization, he delineates what was distinctive and what was common about the lot of the settler society. Belshaw breaks new ground, challenging the easy assumptions of transferred British political traditions, analyzing the colonial at the household level, and revealing the emergent communities of Vancouver Island as the cradle of British Columbian working-class culture.