Bøger udgivet af Caitlin Press

By examining the brutal death of Sumas Lake, historian Chad Reimer revives aspects of Sto: lo culture and emboldens the cause for environmental conservation. In his new book, Before We Lost the Lake, Chad Reimer sets out to truly reclaim Sumas Lake, to restore it to its proper place in the history of the Fraser Valley, BC and the Northwest Coast. Drawing on extensive primary material, Reimer reconstructs the life history of Sumas Lake from the glacial age through the lake's demise and after. Before We Lost the Lake examines the lake's natural history and ecology, its occupation and use by the Sema: th and other First Nations, its colonization by White immigrants, the environmental changes brought about by introduced plants and animals, and the campaign to drain it. Drainage proponents had their way and gradually the promised benefits were realized. But these benefits came at a heavy cost to the environment and for the Sema: th, whose traditional way of life was irretrievably lost.

Imprint is a profound and courageous exploration of trauma, family, and the importance of breaking silence and telling stories. This book is a fresh and startling combination of history and personal revelation. When her son almost died at birth and her grandmother passed away, something inside of Claire Sicherman snapped. Her body, which had always felt weighed down by unknown hurt, suddenly suffered from chronic health conditions, and her heart felt cleaved in two. Her grief was so large it seemed to encompass more than her own lifetime, and she became determined to find out why. Sicherman grew up reading Anne Frank and watching Schindler's List with almost no knowledge of the Holocaust's impact on her specific family. Though most of her ancestors were murdered in the Holocaust, Sicherman's grandparents didn't talk about their trauma and her mother grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia completely unaware she was even Jewish. Now a mother herself, Sicherman uses vignettes, epistolary style, and other unconventional forms to explore the intergenerational transmission of trauma, about the fact that genes can be altered and carry memories, which are then passed down--a genetic imprinting. With astounding grace and strength, Sicherman weaves together a story that not only honours her ancestors but offers the truth to the next generation and her now nine-year-old son. A testimony of the connections between mind and body, the past and the present, Imprint is devastatingly beautiful--ultimately a story of love and survival.

Body & Soul: Stories for Skeptics and Seekers is a spiritual journey through experiences that can be liberating but also awkward and sometimes even dangerous, because women are so often excluded from conversations about spirituality. Liberation comes with breaking that age-old code of silence to talk about the messiness of faith, practice, religion and ceremony, to confess our sublimely unconventional modes of spiritual yearning. The writers in this volume, including Sharon Bala, Carleigh Baker, Eufemia Fantetti, Sue Goyette, K.D. Miller, Zarqa Nawaz, Alison Pick, Sigal Samuel, Ayelet Tsabari, Betsy Warland and others, many from marginalized or misunderstood communities, are speaking out so that others will speak up. Enough of fear. Enough of hiding out, tongue-tied. It's time for joy, humanity and frankness. It's time to step up and lead--not by running after answers, but by asking caring, daring questions. It's time for body and soul.

In her first full-length collection, award-winning poet Ruth Daniell offers work that is both earnest and hopeful, even in the face of trauma. In formally-exquisite and lyrical poems, The Brightest Thing tells the story of a young woman who is raped by her first boyfriend and her struggle afterwards to navigate her fairy-tale expectations of romantic love. This contemporary story of hurt and healing is paired with poems that give voice to silenced princesses from fairy tales--including Rapunzel, Donkeyskin, the little mermaid's sister and the princess who feels the pea beneath two hundred mattresses. At turns heartbreaking and joyful, with an unabashed eye for beauty and an unapologetic hope for love, Daniell questions the pursuit of "happily ever after," and probes deep into darkness while looking into the light.

Resolve: The Chelsea Story and a First Nation Community's Will to Heal explores the harrowing, personal journey of the Chelseas. Andy and Phyllis Chelsea met during their years spent at the St. Joseph's Mission School in Williams Lake, BC. Like the thousands of others forced into the church-run residential school system, the couple brought the trauma of their mission school years into their marriage and developed an unhealthy relationship to alcohol, as a result. When their own seven-year-old daughter refused to come home with the Chelsea's after a night out, Andy and Phyllis chose sobriety to preserve their family. This decision sparked a lifetime of activism for the couple, which included overcoming the challenges caused by Canada's disregard for their community. Throughout the twenty-seven years Andy was Chief of the Alkali Lake Esk'et First Nation, the Chelseas worked to eradicate alcoholism and took steps to overcome the rampant intergenerational trauma that existed for the people of Alkali Lake. Their efforts, their story and the perseverance of the members of their village have inspired Indigenous groups facing similar struggles throughout the world.

Sybil Andrews was one of Canada's most prominent artists working throughout the late twentieth century. From a cottage by the sea in Campbell River, Andrews created striking linocut prints steeped in feeling and full of movement. Inspired by the working-class community that she lived in, her art is known for its honest depiction of ordinary people at work and play on Canada's West Coast. In this first fully illustrated biography, author Janet Nicol weaves together stories from Andrews' letters, diaries and interviews from her former students and friends, creating a portrait of this determined, resilient and gifted British-Canadian artist. Andrews' work is as popular today as it was in her lifetime and continues to celebrate the cultural, industrial, agricultural and natural world of Canada's West Coast.

'I love this book.'' --Jann Arden ''Jules Torti takes you on a wild spin of a joy ride through her life as she looks for a place to call home.'' --Laurie Gough, author of KISS THE SUNSET PIG, KITE STRINGS OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS and STOLEN CHILD ''A walker, a talker and one helluva writer. An avid explorer of this flawed and fabulous world, a fearless and hilarious examiner of the heart's mysteries, Jules Torti is a brilliant dynamo who reminds us that the optimism of youth and the courage to be true to oneself are shining examples of how to live large, go big and find a forever home and true love. Unless you are a terminally timid wannabe writer with envy issues or a judgey prune with a pickle up your bum, you'll love this wonderful book!'' --Caroline Woodward, author of SINGING AWAY THE DARK and LIGHT YEARS: A MEMOIR OF A MODERN LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER

When a brain tumour takes the life of Becky Livingstons twenty-three-year-old daughter Rachel, her life makes an unconventional turn. Rachel, an avid traveller, had one wish: to keep exploring the world. So, for twenty-six months Livingston travels untethered and alone to Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, India, England, Ireland and North America, coast to coast. In her suitcase: Rachels ashes, heavy but compact. As she gradually merges her daughters remains with the elements, Livingston learns how to forge a new sense of belonging in an unfamiliar world. Is it reckless for a fifty-three-year-old mother to quit her job and set off overseas with no agenda or timeline? Is such a journey squandering a life, or saving it? The Suitcase and the Jar is a profoundly moving story of a mothers courage and resilience. It explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: how one finds the strength to reconfigure a new life by necessity. A poignant memoir, The Suitcase and the Jar is the story of a mothers transformative journey of surrender and belonging.

In 1974, Terry Milos moved to rural northern Canada, to pursue her dream of homesteading. Following the seventies trend of the back-to-landers, she and her partner left the city life for what they imagined would be a simpler existence. Sometimes humorous and often insightful, North of Familiar is the story of a woman who learned to hunt, fish, and live off the land in what most would consider an utterly hostile and unbelievably cold environment. After a few months of cobbling together a living, Terry reluctantly leaves the north to further her education but with a dream of returning as a teacher. A year later Terry accepts a job in the small town of Atlin where she grows to expect the unexpected. Terrys adventures in the north push her beyond the familiar as she tries to apply her street savvy skills to negotiate a desolate mountain trail, or mush her dogs to school when the deep cold renders her car useless. But there are also times when unfamiliar becomes pure fear, such as when the pilot of a bush plane on which she is the only passenger falls asleep, sending the plane on a downward descent, or when a strange man is repeatedly seen lurking in the woods by Terrys cabin after a trapper mysteriously goes missing. This book is about coming to grips with life in the bush far away from the luxuries of the city. In Carcross, Carmacks, Dawson City and Old Crow, Terry navigates the cultural differences between her urban upbringing and the communities of Canadas Indigenous north. In spite of the harsh country, Terry survives and thrives, while raising a family and becoming a part of a strong and unique community. This story is not only entertaining and inspiring, it is also a story of joy, friendship, and change.

From the 1920s to 1952, George and Else Seel lived about sixty kilometres south of Burns Lake near the small farming settlement of Wistaria on the western shore of Ootsa Lake. Like many early twentieth century settlers who migrated to BC''s Central Interior, the Seels came in search of opportunity and prosperity, but the harsh environment posed challenges they could not have imagined. The community was remote and the winters were long, but eventually, along with their fellow settlers, they learned how to live and thrive in this new world. They developed a close connection to the land; helped each other in times of need; and established collaborative relationships with the First Nations people who lived around them. The couple and their family lived at Ootsa Lake through the prosperity of the late 1920s; subsisted during the Depression of the 1930s; and experienced a rejuvenation during World War II and its aftermath. George died in 1950, but Else remained until 1952, when their property was flooded by the Nechako Reservoir as part of the Alcan project and she was uprooted, like many of the Ootsa Lake settlers and Cheslatta First Nations people. George had spent his life as a prospector and trapper and Else as a published writer. Together they documented a rich story of pioneer life in a small Northern BC community before the demand for hydro power changed their life and the valley forever.

Beautifully illustrated children''s story about Canadian wildlife by famed Canadian conservationist and Governor General Award-winning author, Roderick Haig-Brown. First published as a limited edition in 1980 by Colophon Books, ALISON''S FISHING BIRDS by BC''s acclaimed author and conservationist Roderick Haig-Brown is the story of a young girl''s encounter with some of BC''s most intriguing river birds. Alison''s favourite bird, the Dipper, lives along the river by her house. She spends many hours watching the "fierce and splendid" bird as it fishes for dinner, "bob, bob, bobbing" as it skitters and dives below the surface, always emerging with a tiny fish. Farther up the river bank, Alison catches a glimpse of the Belted Kingfisher hovering above the water, just waiting patiently for the perfect moment to "drop like a stone, headfirst in the water" only to emerge a few seconds later with a tiny wiggling silver fish in its beak. Alison encounters many other birds on her adventures and, true to Haig-Brown''s other stories, every bird, whether it is the Osprey, the Heron, or the Merganser, all have a lesson to share about their life and the natural world around them. For almost a century, Haig-Brown has been teaching children and adults alike to explore, learn, and respect our forests, oceans, and rivers. As one of Haig-Brown''s lesser-known stories, ALISON''S FISHING BIRDS is a gem that is long overdue on the shelves of popular children''s fiction. ALISON''S FISHING BIRDS is richly illustrated by acclaimed and talented artist Sheryl McDougald, and includes a preface by Valerie Haig-Brown.

Kara-lee MacDonald is a survivor. These poems are sophisticated explorations of anorexia and bulimia, from within and in retrospect, as the semiautobiographical narrator faces and overcomes her complex drives and compulsions. Through a variety of poetic forms, she explores the deep structures of body images and societal pressures that create and promulgate eating disorders and the culture of shame surrounding them. The poems will strike a chord in those who have experience with the illnesses and subtly educate those who have not. Throughout MacDonald maintains an edgy authenticity that will both horrify and inspire. From Princess Diana to the problem with baking and the tyranny of mirrors, this collection brings new life to a topic often discussed but seldom understood. Part trauma travelogue, part self-analysis, part cultural critique, part healing journey, MacDonald addresses the hidden world of the binge/purge purgatory. You will share in her struggle and triumph.

When author Kay Johnston first met Mazie Baker, she came to know her as the reigning queen of bannock, selling out batch after batch of fluffy, light frybread at local powwows. She soon learned that Mazie, a matriarch and an activist, had been nurturing and fiercely protecting her community for a lifetime. In 1931, Mazie Antone was born into the Squamish Nation, a community caught between its traditional values of respect-for the land, the family and the band-and the secular, capitalistic legislation imposed by European settlers. When she was six, the police carried her off to St. Paul''s Indian Residential School, as mandated by the 1920 Indian Act. There, she endured months of beatings, malnourishment and lice infestations before her family collected Mazie and her siblings and fled across the border. Once in Washington, the Antones weathered the Depression by picking fruit and working in the shipyard. After the war, the children were old enough that the family could safely return to their home on the Capilano Reserve. At sixteen, Mazie began working at a cannery; she packed salmon for eleven years, all the while learning to defend herself from supervisors and fellow packers foolish enough to make her a target. Mazie married her sweetheart, Alvie Baker, and together they raised nine children. Part of the legacy of residential school was that Mazie and her generation were alienated from their culture and language, but through her children, she reconnected with her Squamish identity. She came to mourn the loss of the old style of government by councils of hereditary chiefs and to criticize the corruption in the band leadership created in 1989 by federal legislation. Galvanized by the injustices she saw committed against and within her community-especially against indigenous women, who were denied status and property rights-she began a long career of advocacy. She fought for housing for families in need; she pushed for transparency in local government; she defended ancestral lands; she shone a bright light into the darkest political corners. Her family called her ch''sken: Golden Eagle. This intimate biography of a community leader illuminates a difficult, unresolved chapter of Canadian history and paints a portrait of a resilient and principled woman who faced down her every political foe, unflinching, irreverent, and uncompromising.

Jane Byers' Acquired Community is both a collection of narrative poems about seminal moments in North American lesbian and gay history, mostly post-World War II, and a series of first person poems that act as a touchstone to compare the narrator's coming out experience within the larger context of the gay liberation movement. The "parade" poems such as "Celebration Was a Side Effect, 1992" explores the important role parades have played in the queer movement and how they have transformed from activism to celebration. "St Patrick's Day Parade, 2014" takes the Boston St. Patrick's Day committee's homophobia to task, reminding us that this is not ancient history, but an ever-transforming experience. In her long poem, "Keen," Byers imagines a dialogue between a young queer university student and Michael Lynch, an AIDS activist, poet and scholar who helped found many gay community institutions. In this compelling poem we are reminded that the AIDS epidemic had a rippling effect, touching the lives of everyone within the gay community and well beyond. In this second book by Byers her poems go beyond the historical perspective of LGBT rights and are living examples of progress. Acquired Community examines and celebrates community resilience.

A young woman chronicles the experience of living on the margins, in spaces and places where body and mind are flayed by guilt, disappointments and betrayals. Her poems record the shattering trauma of struggling to survive through periods of doubt, fear, rage and pain, creating a narrative of disconnection, indignation, alienation and emptiness, the extremes of suffering and desperation. Employing lyrical free verse, Rani Rivera has skillfully employed the short line to pinpoint moments of acute perception. Unadorned, taut and precise cries of pain, loss and fury draw the reader deeper and deeper inside this in-your-face confrontation with a dark world of foreboding alleviated by flashes of mordant wit and grace under fire.

In 1917, during Canadas 50th anniversary, there was little celebration in the country as it entered the fourth year of World War I. This conflict had a tremendous economic and emotional impact on the various levels of government in the country and on the lives of many people in Canada. In western Canada, despite the turmoil and uncertain outcome of the war, one of the countrys major surveying projects continued. In 1913 the Alberta, British Columbia, and Dominion governments began surveying and marking the boundary between the two provinces along the Rocky Mountains. British Columbias representative, A O Wheeler, scaled many of the peaks along the Great Divide and did the phototopographic surveying. R W Cautley, the representative for the Alberta and Dominion governments, mapped the boundary through the economically important mountain passes. During the years of 1913-1917, the Boundary Commission surveyors mainly covered the area from Kicking Horse Pass to the United States border.

This mouthwatering, intimate, and sensual memoir traces Monica Meneghettis unique life journey through her relationship with food, family and love. As the youngest child of a traditional Italian-Catholic immigrant family, Monica learns the intimacy of the dinner table and the ritual of meals, along with the requirements of conformity both at the table and in life. Monica is thirteen when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoes a mastectomy. When her mother dies three years later, Monica considers the existence of her own breasts and her emerging sexuality in the context of grief and the disintegration of her sense of family. As Monica becomes an adult, she discovers a part of her self that rebels against the rigours of her traditional upbringing. And as the layers of her sexuality are revealed she begins to understand that like herbs infusing a sauce with flavour, her differences add a delicious complexity to her life. But in coming to terms with her place in the margins of the margins, Monica must also face the challenge of coming out while living in a small town, years before same-sex marriage and amendments to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms created safer spaces for queers. Through risk, courage, and heartbreak, she ultimately redefines and recreates family and identity according to her own alternative vision.

Curious about the previous inhabitants of the lake community where her family has vacationed for over one hundred years, author Shelley O'Callaghan starts researching and writing about the area. But what begins as a personal journey of one woman's relationship to the land and her desire to uncover the history of her family's remote cabin, soon turns into an exploration and questioning of our rights as settlers upon a land that was inhabited long before we came.O'Callaghan's research discovers a depth to the history of the Valley that runs as deep as the 1000 metre lake. She discovers her grandfather's intriguing connection with the First Nation's chief whose ancestry goes back to the earliest recorded history at the lake, and her grandmother's attendance at a school where First Nations girls were taught servitude instead of knowledge.Through the summer of her research, she shares her discoveries with her six grandchildren as they set off on expeditions that make the past come alive. Together they find the headstone of an American scout with the 1858 International Boundary Commission Survey, a 1916 silver mine set up by Chief Sepass, and remnants of the original Indian Trail. They learn about trapper and prospector Charlie Lindeman, who introduced her grandfather to the lake in the early 1920s, and rescued her mother and grandmother from a fire that engulfed the lake in the 1930s.Together with her grandchildren they consider the impact of the legacy of white settlement in the area-what is received from the past and what is given to the future. And as they reflect on the essence of a "summer cabin," a place that brings family together and that nourishes the soul with its solitude and beauty, they gain a new perspective on the inevitable nature of change and privilege."Only someone with O'Callaghan's intimate attachment to 'the lake' could have written such an appealing history-cum-memoir of this out of the way corner of the province. A charming portrait of family life set against the historical changes that threaten the tranquility and isolation of so many unique wilderness retreats. Highly recommended." -- Daniel Francis, editorial director, Encyclopedia of British Columbia

Edited by Miriam Matejova, Wherever I Find Myself is a diverse collection of stories about the joys and struggles of immigrant women living in Canada. Often bringing with them the shadow of war and the guilt of leaving, the women in this new anthology expose their emotional pain but also their gratitude for being able to call Canada home. Their stories paint touching and charming portraits of cultural and linguistic misunderstandings, bureaucratic hurdles, attempts to navigate unfamiliar landscapes, and a desire to be accepted despite differences in accent, skin colour, or taste in food. Together they form a mosaic of emotions and world-views that underline the immigrant condition for women. A yellow dress with ruffles, a kind Grade 1 teacher with a surname that's difficult to spell, cockroaches in the bathroom, the contempt of strangers, and Whitney Houston on the radio-a Filipino woman recalls her experience as a six-year-old immigrant in a ghetto in Mississauga in the 80s. Browsing through a Polish fashion magazine at a European deli, a woman sees herself in an alternative universe of what her life might have been had she never immigrated to Canada. A same-sex couple moves from Minnesota to Ontario to find refuge for their love, but first they must drive a seventeen-foot truck through a blizzard and make it through the frustrating net of Canadian bureaucracy. In search of her origins, a Jewish woman travels to her birthplace in Passau, Germany. There, among rows of European picturesque houses and foreign tombstones of a Jewish cemetery, she finds no memories, only the shadow of Hitler and the ghosts of her parents. Through these stories of courage, aloneness, and hope, new and established writers reach out to both immigrants and those whose families long ago ceased to identify with the immigrant label. Through their struggles and, at times, endearingly critical looks at Canada, they remind us that many of our perceived divisions are nothing but artificial creations of mind and that all of us are past, current, or potential immigrants.

In 1945, Alfred Adams, a respected Haida elder and founding president of the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia (NBBC), was dying of cancer. After decades of fighting to increase the rights and recognition of First Nations people, he implored Maisie Hurley to help his people by telling others about their struggle. Hurley took his request to both heart and mind, and with $150 of her own money, started a small newspaper that would become a powerful catalyst for change: The Native Voice. At that time, the Welsh-born Hurley had been an advocate for First Nations clients in court. She did not have a law degree, but was graced with the courage and confidence to challenge all who stood in her way. When defending a First Nations woman accused of stealing a hotel clerk''s wallet, she seared the hapless plaintiff with such a withering cross examination that his off-colour rejoinder earned him a night in jail for contempt after he refused to pay the fine. After Hurley launched The Native Voice, it became the official newspaper of the NBBC, one of the largest democratic First Nations organizations in the country, but she continued to serve on the editorial board as publisher and director for many years without remuneration. At a time when telecommunication was expensive and often inaccessible in Aboriginal communities, The Native Voicereported relevant news and stories of everyday life to First Nations throughout the province, including hard-won rights such as the right to vote provincially (1949) and federally (1960). As the official publication of the NBBC, the VOICE chronicled both the realities of Aboriginal life and a vision for the future, enabling and inspiring overdue change in Canada. Maisie Hurley''s dedication to improving the lives of those she referred to as "my people" was honoured through several First Nations naming ceremonies by people of the Skeena, Squamish/North Vancouver and Comox areas. The story of the NBBC, The Native Voice and Maisie Hurley offer an inspiring testament to the power of cooperation and vision to create powerful change.

At the age of sixteen, Ernest Lamarque travelled from England to North America, to begin a life as a Victorian adventurer. Born in 1879 and orphaned at age twelve, he would go on to become an artist, a writer and a surveyor, creating some of the earliest visual records of the people of remote regions of Canada. At seventeen, Lamarque started working as a clerk at Hudson''s Bay Company posts in Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. He recorded his adventures through paintings, sketches and photographs, which would later become invaluable historical resources -- the artwork and photography he created during his three years at the Ile-a-la-Crosse district, for example, are among the earliest visual records of the Metis of the area. As one of British Columbia''s best-known surveyors, he located a route across northern BC during the Bedaux Expedition. He also travelled along and photographed the historic First Nations Davie Trail as part of his work on the location of the initial Alaska Highway. In 1914, Lamarque participated in the important D A Thomas coal transportation survey in northern Alberta that was halted by the start of World War I. This book reveals remote regions of western Canada and its people and places through the eyes of a self-taught man. Utilising unpublished artwork, photographs and written accounts, author Jay Sherwood tells the story of Lamarque''s varied, unusual and interesting life.