Necessaries and Sufficiencies: Planter Society in Londonderry, Onslow and Truro Townships, 1761–1780
Carol Campbell & James F. Smith
2011 marks the 250th anniversary of the coming of New England and Irish Planters to Nova Scotia. Necessaries and Sufficiencies is a social political, cultural and material microhistory of 18th-century daily life in the district of Cobequid, now part of Colchester County. Eight vignettes from a cross-section of immigrants detail migration and settlement and the evolution of New England and Irish cultural mores in this wilderness setting. Occupations of both men and women, family and religious life, educational and social institutions, health care, commercial links and more. A separate section chronicles Cobequid's reaction to the American Revolutionary War.
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Texada Tapestry: A History
Heather Harbord
Texada is the largest island in the Strait of Georgia, a long strip of richly mineralized granite and limestone dividing the upper gulf. Although today Texada is better known as the home of the illegal agricultural product called Texada Gold, it was once the focus of a real gold rush that lured no less a figure than cookie tycoon William Christie. Later, Texada was the site of British Columbia's first major political scandal when squabbles over a rich iron ore claim forced the resignation of Premier Amor de Cosmos in February 1874. Population ebbed and flowed with mineral prices and Texada has been in and out of the news: its association with illegal intoxicants, the bitter Blubber Bay strike of 1938 where the Pacific Lime Company faced off against the International Woodworkers' Association labour union in a bloody riot and the feisty struggle against the Greater Vancouver Regional District when it wanted to dump metropolitan garbage in the abandoned pit of the once-famous Texada Mine. Author Heather Harbord has dedicated years to research, including over a hundred interviews of locals and old-timers to create a captivating book full of unforgettable characters, humorous anecdotes and well-researched fact, accompanied by many previously unpublished photographs. Once again, she has created a valuable volume on the history of the BC coast.
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Happyland: A History of the Dirty Thirties in Saskatchewan, 1914-1937
Curtis R. McManus
In Happyland, Curtis McManus contends that the agricultural crisis commonly known as the "Dirty Thirties" actually began much earlier and was connected only peripherally to the Great Depression itself. McManus has mined the rarely consulted records of Rural Municipalities in Saskatchewan, as well as government documents, ministerial correspondence, local community histories, newspapers, and publications of relevant government departments, to tell this story that has not yet been told - a story of a quarter-century of stubborn persistence, but also of absurdity, despair, social dislocation, moral corrosion, and inconsistent and often inept government policy. Thanks to McManus's rare and welcome blend of sound scholarship and living, breathing prose, it is a gripping and evocative story as well.
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The Way of the Bachelor: Early Chinese Settlement in Manitoba
Alison R. Marshall
The lives of early Japanese and Chinese settlers in British Columbia have come to define the Asian experience in Canada. Yet many men travelled beyond British Columbia to settle in small Prairie towns and cities. Chinese bachelors opened the region''s first laundries and Chinese cafes. They maintained ties to the Old World and negotiated a place in the new by fostering a vibrant homosocial culture based on friendship, everyday religious practices, the example of Sun Yat-sen, and the sharing of food. This exploration of the intersection of gender and migration in rural Canada, in particular, offers new takes on the Chinese quest for identity in North America in general. With a preface by the Honourable Inky Mark, former Member of Parliament for Dauphin-Swan River-Marquette.
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The Kelowna Story: An Okanagan History
Sharron J. Simpson
The Kelowna Story embraces the full sweep of central Okanagan history, starting with the days of the S-Ookanhkchinx, who enjoyed a largely peaceful existence along the shores of the lakes and rivers before the earliest explorers came to trade, followed by Father Pandosy and his Okanagan Mission in 1859. It was the mission that attracted Kelowna's first homesteaders, soon followed by cattle ranchers and orchardists, and much later by the empire-builders like the Bennett family who paved the way for today''s budding metropolis. Simpson tells the story of her hometown with an attention to detail and a passion for narrative that bespeaks her own considerable talent and deep commitment. This excellent history has been a long time coming but, all will agree, well worth waiting for.
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