Westcoasters

Here is the story of the unique vessels that make up BC history's fleet. The Beaver, the first steamer on the coast, played such an important role that its chunky form and the resonant thud, thud of its sidewheels are inseparable from 19th-century BC history. The Lady Alexandra, a passenger ship in the Union Steamship fleet, is remembered as one of the most beautiful vessels on the coast despite its undignified end as a floating disco in California. The Lootaas, a 50-foot Haida dugout carved in the mid-1980s by BC's pre-eminent Haida artist Bill Reid, helped lead to the great revival of Native canoe building. Informative and amusing, and just a bit playful, "Westcoasters" brings the province's strange and romantic nautical history to life. Grand, harrowing, touching, and downright wacky, the story of the boats and ships of the British Columbia coast is integral to the history of the coast itself. In these stories of fourteen boats that plied BC waters, this book presents coastal history at its best -- informative, well researched, packed with wonderful old photographs, and lots of fun to read.