Book Description

The essays in this volume -- which grew out of a conference commemorating the Oregon Treaty of 1846 -- view the boundary between Canada and the United States as a dividing line and also as a regional backbone, with people on each side having key experiences and attitudes in common. In their eloquence and scope, they illustrate how historical study of Canadian-American relations in the West calls into question the parameters of the nation-state.

Essays consider both the nineteenth century, when the international border had limited power to restrict the movement of Native peoples, of financial capital, or of settlersí racist attitudes, and the strengthened boundary of the twentieth century, with its disputes over salmon runs, free trade, and World War II defense. Essays also explore the ways in which Canada and the United States have defined and preserved wilderness, the 1840s dispute over the Oregon Country, and U.S. attitudes that have provoked anti-Americanism in Canada.

The U.S.--Canadian border has meant different things to different people, and those meanings have changed over time, but the situation today is the evolution of cross-border integration that took place in the past, and each side of this borderlands region remains, in part, the creation of the other. ... Read more

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A memoir of childhood summers spent in a Laurentian village and of an Indian woman who lived according to her ancient code of courage and humanity. A heartwarming story. ... Read more

Book Description

Kathleen Rice was an inspiring woman who lived ahead of her time. Born in St. Marys, Ontario, she graduated as a gold medallist in Mathematics at the University of Toronto in 1906. After a conventional beginning teaching school in Ontario and Saskatchewan, Kate broke free of the mold, searching for new frontiers as a prospector in Manitoba during the gold rush. She formed a partnership with Dick Woosey and began a life in the remote areas around Herb Lake, prospecting and trapping. After Woosey's death, Kate faced her final and most difficult challenge - living alone in the wildness of the north. ... Read more

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A retrospective of the life and art of McDonald
Ancestral Portraits is a retrospective of the life and art of McDonald, a Native artist, profiles one of Canada's premier First Nation artist, blending selected color images with a review of McDonald's peoples and influences. The many firstperson insights make for a fine examination of Canadian and Native arts. ... Read more

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Cree Adelaide McCauley and her two children witness the shooting of their Metis husband/ father by a crazed white miner. She attempts to nurse him back to life but he dies after several painful days. This tragedy takes place in the Robson Valley and the nearest court of justice is 300 miles away, over treacherous mountain trails, in Golden, BC.Adelaide is convinced by friends of her late husband to travel south to Golden to testify at the trial of her husband's murderer Accompanied by her children and several other witnesses - including the accused - she makes the journey, testifies and hopes to leave. Unfortunately a mistrial is called.During the first trial, she at least has the advantage of a sympathetic interpreter, but the second trial is dominated by men who take the side of the white miner accused of the crime. Indians, particularly Indian women, are not treated with much respect. The murderer goes free and Adelaide, impatient with a white justice system she wanted no part of in the first place, disappears into the northern wilderness from which she came. ... Read more

Book Description

First as education minister and then as minister of lands and forests, Ray Williston has had a profound impact on the development of British Columbia. As education minister, Ray Williston introduced the idea of university education for teachers, among other then-radical innovations. As minister of lands and forests, he had his greatest impact. From the mega-power projects to improved forestry practices, all major industrial developments in interior and northern BC during the 1950s and 1960s had Williston's stamp on them.He oversaw the building of the Bennett Dam on the Peace River and subsequent flooding of the valley behind it -now called Williston Lake - and the flooding of the Arrow Lake and displacement of many people in the Kootenays, but he was a man of his times and was determined to pull rural British Columbia into the modern era. ... Read more