Overview
Beautiful Desolation Sound, 150 km north of Vancouver, has for many years been the most popular cruising destination on the BC coast, but is today almost as devoid of local occupants as it was in 1792 when the dyspeptic Captain George Vancouver gave it its misleading name. It has not always been this way. Thick clamshell middens in remote bays, rotted pilings on silent estuaries, ambitious stone terraces on vacant hillsides, overgrown fences around deserted fields, even abandoned railroads--all contribute to an impression that this is an area full of ghosts, an area with a storied past. In Desolation Sound, author Heather Harbord details that remarkable past and brings those ghosts back to unforgettable life. We meet Mike Shuttler, the Homer-quoting hermit who figured in famous books by Stuart Edward White and M. Wylie Blanchet. We meet his illiterate neighbour Phil Lavigne, who said, when Shuttler died, ""All dem words, and 'e 'ad to die like all de rest of us!"" We meet ""the Cougar Queen of Okeover Arm,"" who said, ""Living in the bush like I do, a gun is as much a part of my household tools as a vacuum cleaner is in the city."" We visit Baloney Bay, a sprawling Depression-era logging camp where human life had so little value they piled accident victims in a heap and didn't bother moving them until the end of the working day. We meet Sliammon chief Joe Mitchell, whose ancestors had an aboriginal city with buildings 200 feet long in now-deserted Grace Harbour. Harbord assiduously tracks down all the old legends that cling to the shoreside trees like Spanish moss, debunking some, confirming many. Desolation Sound is a captivating book full of great characters, heroic deeds, humorous anecdotes and well-researched fact. It fills a crucial hole in the history of the BC coast.
Full Product Details
Author: Heather Harbord
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
Imprint: Harbour Publishing
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.20cm
, Length: 22.80cm
Weight: 0.562kg
ISBN: 9781550174076
ISBN 10: 155017407
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 12 July 2007
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.
Author Information
An avid sea kayaker and canoeist since 1969, Heather Harbord has paddled the Gulf Islands and much of the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver and Cortes Island, BC. She was the first president of the Sea Kayak Association of BC and was awarded honorary membership in January 2003. A former professional librarian who worked in BC, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan, she was president of the Canadian Library Association in 1980 and chief librarian in Powell River until 1995.
