British Columbia is regularly described in superlatives both positive and negative - most spectacular scenery, strangest politics, greatest environmental sensitivity, richest Aboriginal cultures, most aggressive resource exploitation, closest ties to Asia. Jean Barman's The West beyond the West presents the history of the province in all its diversity and apparent contradictions. This critically acclaimed work is the premiere book on British Columbian history, with a narrative beginning at the point of contact between Native peoples and Europeans and continuing into the twenty-first century. Barman tells the story by focusing not only on the history made by leaders in government but also on the roles of women, immigrants, and Aboriginal peoples in the development of the province. She incorporates new perspectives and expands discussions on important topics such as the province's relationship to Canada as a nation, its involvement in the two world wars, the perspectives of non-mainstream British Columbians, and its participation in recreation and sports including Olympics. First published in 1991 and revised in 1996, this third edition of The West beyond the West has been supplemented by statistical tables incorporating the 2001 census, two more extensive illustration sections portraying British Columbia's history in images, and other new material bringing the book up to date. Barman's deft scholarship is readily apparent and the book demands to be on the shelf of anyone with an interest in British Columbian or Canadian history.

Beyond Kinship brings together ethnohistorians, archaeologists, and cultural anthropologists for the first time in a common discussion of the social model of house societies proposed by Claude Levi-Strauss. While kinship theory has been central to the study of social organization, an alternative approach has emerged—that of seeing the "house" both as a physical and symbolic structure and a principle of social organization. The house stands as a model social formation that is distinguished by its attention to a number of material domains (land, the dwelling, ritual and nonritual objects). As the essays in this volume make clear, the focus on material culture and on place contributes to the ongoing convergence of anthropology and history and helps erase the artificial distinctions between prehistory and history. Contributions to the volume offer significant new interpretations of primary data as well as reconsidering classic ethnographic material. Beyond Kinship crosses the boundaries within anthropology—not only between cultural anthropology and archaeology but between structural—symbolic and materialist approaches and between American and British schools of anthropology; it is intended to advance the fruitful dialogue now taking place within the field.

A fascinating account of the century-long effort to define, access, preserve, develop, and exploit the uniquely beautiful area of rugged wilderness now known as Strathcona Provincial Park on Central Vancouver Island. Strathcona Provincial Park is situated in the middle of Vancouver Island, bordering Clayoquot Sound on the west, Port Alberni on the south, and a large property once known as the Esquimalt and Nanaimo (E&N) land grant on the east. Measuring 250,000 hectares, this breathtaking park, with its gorgeous mountains, lakes, and waterfalls, is a nature lover's paradise. Yet behind this picture of serenity lies a volatile history. A Journey Back to Nature: A History of Strathcona Provincial Park takes a comprehensive look at this rich, beautiful stretch of wilderness and the competing interests that struggled to protect it, define it, and/or control it—from Indigenous Peoples, who have lived on the land for millennia, to European explorers and industrialists, who could not see beyond the wealth of its natural resources, to early conservationists and enterprising settlers, who wished to preserve the area as a wilderness playground for BC's booming population and nascent tourist industry. Over the course of a century, Strathcona Provincial Park was frequently at the centre of some of the most heated public debates in BC history, between economic and environmental interests. This detailed account—lavishly illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs and maps—uncovers the intriguing history, complex legacy, and majestic natural beauty of BC's first provincial park.

In Islands of Truth, Daniel Clayton examines a series of encounters with the Native peoples and territory of Vancouver Island in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Although he focuses on a particular region and period, Clayton also meditates on how representations of land and people, and studies of the past, serve and shape specific interests, and how the dawn of Native-Western contact in this part of the world might be studied 200 years later, in the light of ongoing struggles between Natives and non-Natives over land and cultural status. Between the 1770s and 1850s, the Native people of Vancouver Island were engaged by three sets of forces that were of general importance in the history of Western overseas expansion: the West's scientific exploration of the world in the Age of Enlightenment; capitalist practices of exchange; and the geopolitics of nation-state rivalry. Islands of Truth discusses these developments, the geographies they worked through, and the stories about land, identity, and empire stemming from this period that have shaped understanding of British Columbia's past and present. Clayton questions premises underlying much of present B.C. historical writing, arguing that international literature offers more fruitful ways of framing local historical experiences. Islands of Truth is a timely, provocative, and vital contribution to post-colonial studies.

A comprehensive guide to the trails in northern Vancouver Island British Columbia