Browse Books for Adults

In addition to winning lifetime achievement awards as a writer and poet, since 2010 Susan Musgrave has been the proprietor of Copper Beech House, a beautiful bed and breakfast that has for decades played host to authors and prime ministers, artists and adventurers who visit the remote archipelago of Haida Gwaii. In her first cookbook, the famous poet uses her humour and incisive wit to bring cooking and living on the former Queen Charlotte Islands to life with stories gathered over decades. With its evocative tales and wild cuisine, this book offers a unique take on food that could only be developed living off the coast of British Columbia. More than collecting recipes, Musgrave follows the seasons with guides to gathering the freshest local ingredients for recipes that reflect Canada's wild West Coast. This book is a recommended read for fans of food, good humour and the Pacific Northwest. Why not include A Taste of Haida Gwaii in your next meal with one of these recipes: Hands-Free Cloudberry Jam Spruce Tip Mayonnaise Mussels Trudeau Rose Spit Halibut with Wild Rose Petals (Almost) Flourless Chocolate Torte with Thimbleberry Elderflower Liqueur Coulis

Aboriginal people want an education that reflects their cultural values and linguistic heritages, an education that will foster their children's engagement and identity and not marginalize them as learners. This book turns the spotlight on a rare success story – one Ontario high school's attempt to recognize Aboriginal students' cultural and academic needs while helping them build relationships with non-Aboriginal students. Aboriginal students constitute one of the fastest-growing groups in public schools. This timely study not only reveals how the current system is failing Indigenous students – it offers recommendations for enhancing their achievement levels in Canada and abroad.

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212 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" 

This long—awaited first collection by playwright and director Alanis King presents three exciting plays interconnected by themes of hope: spiritual (If Jesus Met Nanabush), personal (The Tommy Prince Story) and cultural (Born Buffalo).

When Jesus turns up at the Champion of Champions Pow—Wow, the first person he meets is Nanabush. Together they form an odd pair. Nanabush is earthy, irascible, fun—loving. Jesus is formal, introverted, a fish out of water. However, as they venture across the back roads, bars and bus depots of Turtle Island, the two will discover that they are not so different after all.

Merging Native and Western traditions, If Jesus Met Nanabush is a thought—provoking and often hilarious cosmological First Contact story. The Tommy Prince Story an emotionally charged drama that brings to light the incredible life and times of the great Saulteaux warrior. As Drew Hayden Taylor concluded: "This is Alanis at her finest."

The final play is the lively Born Buffalo which will take the reader back into the mystical age of the buffalo alongside fraternal twins magically transformed into bison.

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158 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

Would you be surprised if you came face to face with a Drumming Katydid, Red-eared Slider or Brown Bullhead? Would you know what to do if Dalmatian Toadflax or Giant Hogweed landed in your neighbourhood? Alex Van Tol can help. In Aliens Among Us, she identifies more than 50 species of animals and plants that have invaded British Columbia. With the help of colour photographs and illustrations, she exposes the invaders, explains how they got here and what they’re doing to the environment.

In this first-ever children’s book published by the Royal BC Museum, Van Tol has harvested the knowledge of museum biologists to alert the next generation of responsible environmentalists. Her list of serious invaders includes the colourfully named Purple Loosestrife, Violet Tunicate, Eastern Grey Squirrel and Yellow Perch, species that tend to take over an area and crowd out or destroy native species. She names the creatures that can eat their way through an ecosystem, like Smallmouth Bass, Gypsy Moths and American Bullfrogs, as well as vandals like Norway Rats and European Starlings that cause damage to property. And she points out the species that might do serious harm to humans and other animals, such Rockpool Mosquitoes, Giant Hogweed and Poison Hemlock. Some aliens, like European Wall Lizards and Giant Garden Slugs, haven’t yet posed problems in BC, at least not that we’re aware of – but they still need to be watched. And finally, Van Tol raises the alert on species that haven’t yet arrived but may be coming soon, like Northern Snakeheads, Fence Lizards and Zebra Mussels. This readable and alarmingly informative book will help young people prepare for the invasion, and arm them with the tools to stop the spread of unwanted aliens in British Columbia.

Reviews
"Chapters include examples within every class of animal and a selection of herbaceous and woody plants found in BC. One chapter discusses three animals (e.g. zebra mussel) not yet in the province, but likely to appear soon. Another chapter looks at native species (e.g. northern raccoon) that can dominate enough to upset ecology. Finally, the author offers a few examples of aliens that have become so familiar (e.g. cattle) that we forget they are not native here. An important feature is the section “You Can Help” which outlines ways to stop the spread of aliens and urges the reporting of sightings. There’s a Glossary of terms, several pages of scientific names and a useful list of sources, both print and web. The book is packed with concise, intriguing details gathered by the BC author, a former teacher who loves to research. It is published by the Royal BC Museum which attests to its relevancy and accuracy." - CM Magazine, 2016

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128 pages | 7.50" x 9.00"

An in-depth investigation of the forced sterilization of Aboriginal women carried out by the Canadian government.

During the 1900s eugenics gained favour as a means of controlling the birth rate among “undesirable” populations in Canada. Though many people were targeted, the coercive sterilization of one group has gone largely unnoticed. An Act of Genocide unpacks long-buried archival evidence to begin documenting the forced sterilization of Aboriginal women in Canada. Grounding this evidence within the context of colonialism, the oppression of women and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty, Karen Stote argues that this coercive sterilization must be considered in relation to the larger goals of Indian policy — to gain access to Indigenous lands and resources while reducing the numbers of those to whom the federal government has obligations. Stote also contends that, in accordance with the original meaning of the term, this sterilization should be understood as an act of genocide, and she explores the ways Canada has managed to avoid this charge. This lucid, engaging book explicitly challenges Canadians to take up their responsibilities as treaty partners, to reconsider their history and to hold their government to account for its treatment of Indigenous peoples.

Reviews
"In An Act of Genocide, Karen Stote examines a controversial topic of which few Canadians are aware: the coercive sterilizations of Aboriginal women." - Morgran Grant

Educator Information
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Eugenics, Feminism and the Woman Question
Indian Policy and Aboriginal Women
Sterilization, Birth Control and Abusive Abortions
Settling the Past
Canada, Genocide and Aboriginal Peoples
Conclusion
References
Index

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192 pages | 6.00" x 9.00"

In 2017-2018, Bearskin Diary was the award recipient for First Nation Communities Read.

Raw and honest, Bearskin Diary gives voice to a generation of First Nations women who have always been silenced, at a time when movements like Idle No More call for a national inquiry into the missing and murdered Aboriginal women. Carol Daniels adds an important perspective to the Canadian literary landscape.

Taken from the arms of her mother as soon as she was born, Sandy was only one of over twenty thousand Aboriginal children scooped up by the federal government between the 1960s and 1980s. Sandy was adopted by a Ukrainian family and grew up as the only First Nations child in a town of white people. Ostracized by everyone around her and tired of being different, at the early age of five she tried to scrub the brown off her skin. But she was never sent back into the foster system, and for that she considers herself lucky.

From this tragic period in her personal life and in Canadian history, Sandy does not emerge unscathed, but she emerges strong--finding her way by embracing the First Nations culture that the Sixties Scoop had tried to deny. Those very roots allow Sandy to overcome the discriminations that she suffers every day from her co-workers, from strangers and sometimes even from herself.

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Birdie is a darkly comic and moving first novel about the universal experience of recovering from wounds of the past, informed by the lore and knowledge of Cree traditions. Bernice Meetoos, a Cree woman, leaves her home in Northern Alberta following tragedy and travels to Gibsons, BC. She is on something of a vision quest, seeking to understand the messages from The Frugal Gourmet (one of the only television shows available on CBC North) that come to her in her dreams. She is also driven by the leftover teenaged desire to meet Pat Johns, who played Jesse on The Beachcombers, because he is, as she says, a working, healthy Indian man. Bernice heads for Molly’s Reach to find answers but they are not the ones she expected.

With the arrival in Gibsons of her Auntie Val and her cousin Skinny Freda, Bernice finds the strength to face the past and draw the lessons from her dreams that she was never fully taught in life. Part road trip, dream quest and travelogue, the novel touches on the universality of women's experience, regardless of culture or race.

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This book is also available in French as Birdie.

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288 pages | 5.50" x 8.50"

As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.

Reviews
“Robin Wall Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book, showing how the factual, objective approach of science can be enriched by the ancient knowledge of the indigenous people. It is the way she captures beauty that I love the most—the images of giant cedars and wild strawberries, a forest in the rain and a meadow of fragrant sweetgrass will stay with you long after you read the last page.”— Jane Goodall

"I give daily thanks for Robin Wall Kimmerer for being a font of endless knowledge, both mental and spiritual."— Richard Powers,New York Times

"In a world where only six percent of mammalian biomass on the planet now comprises of wild animals, I longed for books that pressed me up against the inhuman, that connected me to an inhuman world. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer moved me to actual tears."— Alexandra Kleeman, The Millions

"In Braiding Sweetgrass, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer tackles everything from sustainable agriculture to pond scum as a reflection of her Potawatomi heritage, which carries a stewardship 'which could not be taken by history: the knowing that we belonged to the land.' . . . It's a book absorbed with the unfolding of the world to observant eyes—that sense of discovery that draws us in."— NPR

“With deep compassion and graceful prose, Robin Wall Kimmerer encourages readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave through the natural world. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of gratitude in which we all should live.”—Publishers Weekly

“The gift of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book is that she provides readers the ability to see a very common world in uncommon ways, or, rather, in ways that have been commonly held but have recently been largely discarded. She puts forth the notion that we ought to be interacting in such a way that the land should be thankful for the people.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Braiding Sweetgrass is instructive poetry. Robin Wall Kimmerer has put the spiritual relationship that Chief Seattle called the ‘web of life’ into writing. Industrial societies lack the understanding of the interrelationships that bind all living things—this book fills that void. I encourage one and all to read these instructions.”— Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper, Onondaga Nation and Indigenous Environmental Leader

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Cerulean Blue is a comedic play about a struggling blues band invited to participate in a benefit concert for a First Nation community in conflict with governmental authorities. Upon arriving, the band discovers the entire lineup of musical acts has cancelled and they’re left trapped behind barricades. Complicating the matter, there is conflict within the band and the sudden appearance of an old girlfriend makes the event even more perilous.

This play is an homage to fast-moving farces while also addressing Aboriginal issues. Cerulean Blue deals with relationships, perceptions, politics, and what to do when you discover you’ve been dating your first cousin. Add a few spoonfuls of original blues music, and you’ve got a fun-filled evening.

The play was written for a large ensemble cast, which makes it ideal for musical theatre departments in high schools and colleges – every student can play apart.

Cast of ten women and ten men.

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144 pages | 7.88" x 8.47" | Paperback

This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy.

This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples.

Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse.

More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance.

The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens. Even though the historical experience of residential schools constituted an act of cultural genocide by Canadian government authorities, the United Nation's declaration of the rights of aboriginal peoples and the specific recommendations of the Commission offer a path to move from apology for these events to true reconciliation that can be embraced by all Canadians.

This is a story about the fur trade and First Nations, and the development of northern Canada, seen and experienced not only through Leonard Flett's eyes, but also through the eyes of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.The lives of indigenous people in remote areas of northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in the 1960s and 1970s are examined in detail. Flett's successful career with both the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company provides an insight into the dying days of the fur trade and the rise of a new retail business tailored to First Nations.

Despite recent progress in civil rights for sexual and gender minorities (SGM), ensuring SGM youth experience fairness, justice, inclusion, safety, and security in their schools and communities remains an ongoing challenge. In Growing into Resilience, André P. Grace and Kristopher Wells – co-founders of Camp fYrefly, a summer leadership camp for SGM youth – investigate how teachers, healthcare workers, and other professionals can help SGM youth build the human and material assets that will empower them to be happy, healthy, and resilient.

Grace and Wells investigate the comprehensive (physical, mental, and sexual) health of SGM youth, emphasizing the role of caring professionals in an approach that that recognizes and accommodates SGM youth. Throughout, the authors draw upon the personal narratives of SGM youth, emphasizing how research, policy, and practice must act together for them to be able to thrive and fulfill their promise.

Both a resource for those professionally engaged in work with sexual and gender minorities and a comprehensive text for use in courses on working with vulnerable youth populations, Growing into Resilience is a timely and transdisciplinary book.

The Haida are islanders first and foremost - a people apart. Discover the source of their distinctive culture and the inspirations for their arts.

"This is a gorgeous piece of work, rich and heavy and brimming with the minutiae of attempts to capture aspects of the Canadian landscape by cartography."— The Georgia Straight

Maps tells the story in this innovative volume, and the story of Canada they tell is profoundly engrossing and rewarding. The atlas covers a period of a thousand years and contains essentially all the historically significant maps of the country. Gathered from major archives and libraries all over the world, they include treasures from the National Archives of Canada—many never before published—and many from the archives of the Hudsonís Bay Company. Included are maps by the founder of New France, Samuel de Champlain, by Philip Turnor and Peter Fidler. There are English maps and French maps; Spanish maps and Russian maps; American, Italian and Dutch maps as well as maps drawn by Native people such as the Beothuk, Blackfoot and Cree. Canada's colourful past unfolds in sumptuous visual detail—history seen from a whole new perspective.

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272 pages | 10.00" x 13.44"

What do we know of masculinities in non-patriarchal societies? Indigenous peoples of the Americas and beyond come from traditions of gender equity, complementarity, and the sacred feminine, concepts that were unimaginable and shocking to Euro-western peoples at contact. "Indigenous Men and Masculinities", edited by Kim Anderson and Robert Alexander Innes, brings together prominent thinkers to explore the meaning of masculinities and being a man within such traditions, further examining the colonial disruption and imposition of patriarchy on Indigenous men.

Building on Indigenous knowledge systems, Indigenous feminism, and queer theory, the sixteen essays by scholars and activists from Canada, the U.S., and New Zealand open pathways for the nascent field of Indigenous masculinities. The authors explore subjects of representation through art and literature, as well as Indigenous masculinities in sport, prisons, and gangs.

"Indigenous Men and Masculinities" highlights voices of Indigenous male writers, traditional knowledge keepers, ex-gang members, war veterans, fathers, youth, two-spirited people, and Indigenous men working to end violence against women. It offers a refreshing vision toward equitable societies that celebrate healthy and diverse masculinities.