BC Heritage Week 2024

Heritage Week is an annual event on the 3rd week of February that celebrates and showcases local heritage across BC. This year’s Heritage Week: Layer by Layer, invites you to dig deeper into your community’s past and explore the many layers and stories that your unique community holds.

Updated January 25, 2024
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Stewards of splendour : a history of wildlife and people in British Columbia
Bonnell, Jennifer
Paper Book
The subject of wildlife both unites and deeply divides British Columbians. From concern over dwindling orca populations to deeply political debates over hunting and harvesting, questions surrounding fish and wildlife harvest rights and methods, and the effects of industrial resource extraction,...
Room at the Inn : Historic Hotels of British Columbia's Southern Interior
Mofford, Glen A.
Paper Book
A fully illustrated social history profiling forty historic hotels spread over five regions of the southern interior of British Columbia, covering the time period of the 1890s to 1950s. Room at the Inn reveals the long-forgotten histories of British Columbia's early hospitality...
Gumboot Guys: Nautical Adventures on British Columbia's North Coast
Allison, Lou
Gumboot Girls and Dancing in Gumboots chronicled the fascinating and inspiring stories of the 1970' s migration of women seeking a new way of life on BC' s West Coast, from Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii to the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. But what about the men who came in search of their own...
British Columbia in the balance : 1846-1871
Barman, Jean
Paper Book
Esteemed historian Jean Barman brings new insights on the seemingly disparate events that converged to lay the foundation of the present-day province. By examining newly accessible private correspondence exchanged with the Colonial Office in London, Barman pieces together the chain of...
The Eventful Life of Philip Hankin: World-Wide Traveller and Witness to British Columbia’s Early History
Geoff Mynett Llb
Paper Book
In 1849, at just 13 years old, Philip Hankin entered the Royal Navy and engaged in campaigns to suppress the trade of enslaved people on the coasts of Africa. His naval career brought him to Vancouver Island in 1858, where he helped survey the coastline. In his journeys on Indigenous homelands,...
The Years Between: My Experiences in British Columbia Reflecting a Century of Change
Pettapiece, Fay
Paper Book
This delightful collection of colourful anecdotes from Fay Pettapiece's upbringing and married life in urban and rural British Columbia brings on both laughter and tears -- but more of the former than the latter. The Years Between is a fascinating reflection of British Columbia's history, as told...
Galena Bay Odyssey: Reflections of a Hippie Homesteader
Schwartz, Ellen
Paper Book
A writer and educator reflects on the idealistic, tumultuous, and eye-opening time she spent as a back-to-the-land hippie homesteader in Kootenays in the 1970s. What compelled a nice Jewish girl from the suburbs of New York to spend a decade of her life as a hippie homesteader in the BC...
A Haida Wedding
Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson
Paper Book
A visual and cultural celebration of a traditional Haida wedding ceremony, exploring its roots, rituals, symbolism, joyfulness, and contemporary significance for a thriving Indigenous Nation. In 1996, Terri-Lynn Williams and Robert Davidson celebrated their wedding with a traditional...
Kimiko Murakami: A Japanese-Canadian Pioneer
Healey, Haley
Paper Book
The inspiring and true life story of Kimiko Murakami, a Japanese-Canadian pioneer and internment camp survivor, beautifully illustrated for a young audience. Ganbaru is a Japanese word that means to keep going during hard times and never give up. This picture book introduces...
Her Courage Rises: 50 Trailblazing Women of British Columbia and Yukon
Healey, Haley
Paper Book
Finalist, 2023 Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize - BC and Yukon Book Prizes A beautifully illustrated collection of inspiring life stories of fifty extraordinary historical women from BC and the Yukon. This fascinating, informative, and charming book...
Joseph William McKay : a Métis business leader in Colonial British Columbia
Fraser, Greg N.
Paper Book
Finalist, 2021 Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Historical Writing An intriguing look at the accomplishments and contradictions of Joseph William McKay, best known as the founder of Nanaimo, BC, and one of the most successful Métis men to rise through the ranks of the Hudson's...
A journey back to nature : a history of Strathcona Provincial Park
Gilbert, Catherine Marie
Paper Book
Finalist, 2021 Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Historical Writing 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...
The object’s the thing : the writings of Yorke Edwards : a pioneer of heritage interpretation in Canada
Edwards, Yorke
Paper Book
R. Yorke Edwards was a pioneer in the field of heritage interpretation in Canada. First with BC Parks and then with the Canadian Wildlife Service, throughout the 1960s Edwards developed an approach to the interpretation of natural and cultural history with a focus on the "real thing"--the...
British Columbiana: A Millennial in a Gold Rush Town
Teed, Josie
Paper Book
A job as a heritage interpreter at a remote gold rush site propels an insecure and anxious twenty-four-year-old to find what she truly desires from life. "By turns deadpan and wryly candid, Teed has a keen observational eye and a talent for characterization. An...
The Curious Passage of Richard Blanshard: First Governor of Vancouver Island
Barry Gough
Paper Book
Celebrated historian Barry Gough brings a defining era of Pacific Northwest history into focus in this biography of Richard Blanshard, the first governor of Vancouver Island--illuminating with intriguing detail the genesis and early days of Canada's westernmost province. Early one wintry...
Wild bird : a novel
Baugh, Leanne
Paper Book
In the opening pages of this historical novel, sixteen-year-old Kate Harding is desperately trying to assist her mother who is about to give premature birth to a child in their home in the small colonial community of Victoria in 1861.The experience is gruelling for mother and daughter, and in the...
East Side story : growing up at the PNE
Marino, Nick
Paper Book
A sly, sentimental, and wickedly funny memoir about growing up at the local fair A ROBIN'S EGG BOOK The PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) is a Vancouver tradition, an annual fair started in 1910 that is famous for its farm animals, dog trick shows, and amusement park -...
The Best Loved Boat: The Princess Maquinna
Ian Kennedy
To Share, Not Surrender: Indigenous and Settler Visions of Treaty Making in the Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia
Cook, Peter
Paper Book
Too often, history and knowledge of Indigenous-settler conflict over land take the form of confidential reports prepared for court challenges. To Share, Not Surrender offers an entirely new approach, opening scholarship to the public and augmenting it with First Nations community expertise. ...
Histories, Territories and Laws of the Kitwancool
Cox, Constance.
Paper Book
A new edition of the groundbreaking 1959 publication created in collaboration with the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs. This beautiful new edition of the histories and laws of the Gitanyow (literally "people of the small/narrow place," once called the Kitwancool in settler accounts),...

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