National Network for Equitable Library Service

Some of Western Canada's most enduring legends involve wilderness fugitives like the Mad Trapper of Rat River or Gunanoot of the Skeena. This book is about one of the most mysterious and most recent fugitives, the Bushman of the Shuswap, who made national headlines while on the lam in the wilderness around Shuswap Lake during the turn of the millennium. For several years he played cat and mouse with the RCMP, raiding summer cottages for supplies and giving media interviews at the edge of the bush only to vanish like smoke. Who was the mysterious Bushman? What drove him?

At his first cabinet meeting Premier Dave Barrett takes off his shoes, leaps onto the leather-inlaid cabinet table and skids the length of the room. "Are we here for a good time or a long time?" he roars. His answer: a good time, a time of change, action, doing what was needed and right, not what was easy and conventional. He set the tone for a government that changed the face of the province. During the next three years, he and his team passed more legislation in a shorter time than any government before or since.

What do you do when you decide you no longer want to be responsible for anyone but yourself? When faced with that moment, Donna Kane leaves her twenty-five-year marriage for life with a conservationist and wilderness guide who is so certain of the path he is on that she thinks she's just along for the ride. A few days before Kane's new husband leaves for a three-month horse-pack expedition, a gelding is seriously injured, and she agrees to stay behind to tend the horse's wound.

Ex-logger and gas station owner Frank White says living to the age of one hundred is not all it's cracked up to be but it has some plusses. When he trundles down to the local shopping centre in Pender Harbour pretty girls hug him and everybody in town seems to be glad he's lived another day. But celebrity has its drawbacks—when he was only fifty and still had most of his marbles, people only wanted to know what was wrong with their car.

Acclaimed author Tom Wayman's account of his shift from urban to rural. The recent pandemic accelerated an existing trend among urban Canadians to move to the country. Yet to quote from a 2022 Globe and Mail article, "People from cities don't always realize what they're getting into." For anyone setting out in that direction, or dreaming of doing so, Tom Wayman's The Road to Appledore, or How I Went Back to the Land Without Ever Having Lived There in the First Place is rewarding reading.

A sweeping family history, chronicling the journey of a group of Russian refugees who settled in rural Alberta in 1924, this book pays tribute to countless people who have found a safe haven in Canada over the past 100 years. Every refugee has a story. This book follows the life of Nikifor Andriev, driven from his homeland in 1924, to settle in Canada as part of a group of 116 privately sponsored Russian refugees. Their new home, the aptly named Homeglen, Alberta, was a symbol of promise and prosperity.

The tumultuous rags-to-riches story of the famed O'Keefe ranching family. Founded in 1867, the Historic O'Keefe Ranch offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of an early farming community in the heart of the Okanagan Valley. The O'Keefes of O'kanagan—a welcome resource for any visitor to the site—is an in-depth look into the multiple branches and generations of the family that gave the ranch its name. When Michael O'Keefe arrived in Canada a penniless Irish immigrant in 1819, he had no idea the impact his descendants would leave on the Canadian West.

A third-generation British Columbia logger returns to the forests of Haida Gwaii, in the grip of change. By the time Aaron Williams began learning how to fall a tree, his family had been making clear cuts on BC hillsides for nearly a century. During his father's generation, the industry started to crumble, and by the time Williams arrived, he knew his future lay elsewhere. But his father continued in the trade, his work taking him into the forests of Haida Gwaii.

Recovery is the longest road toward a better future. "When you are that far into addiction, one of the things you are ruled by, you live for, is the drug. It becomes your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your lover." In The Longest Road, Joe Calendino relives his harrowing journey from full-patch Hells Angel to rock bottom. Consumed by drugs and alcohol, he spiralled out of control and ended up strung out, desperate and destitute. Now it's his mission to protect at-risk youth from that same fate.

Larry Kwong became the first player of Asian descent in the NHL when he played one shift with the New York Rangers in 1948. Even though Larry's achievement happened more than 70 years ago, his contribution to hockey is only now being recognized. He broke hockey's color barrier and fought racism and discrimination at every step of his career. From his humble beginnings on the outdoor rinks in Vernon, British Columbia's Chinatown all the way to playing at Madison Square Garden and in the NHL, this inspiring hero has a timeless story for young readers.