This backroad mapbook is a complete road and recreation atlas for the Cariboo/Chilcotin/Coast area of British Columbia, an area of the province with extensive wilderness for outdoor recreation. The book includes over 50-colour recreational GPS-compatible relief maps and information on hiking and mountain biking trails, canoeing and kayaking routes, freshwater and saltwater fishing areas, hot springs, petroglyphs, pictographs, parks, wildlife viewing areas, backroads, wilderness camping sites, gold panning streams, parks, cross-country and backcountry skiing, dog sledding, and snowshoeing and snowmobiling areas. It also includes detailed maps of cities and parks.
Home to vast stretches of untouched wilderness, the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast is one of Canada’s final frontiers. With towering mountains scraping against the sky, sprawling steppes covered with wildflowers, remote valleys carved by ancient rivers and an untamed ocean coast teeming with wildlife, this region is a backcountry explorer’s dream. Reel in the catch of a lifetime on one of the Fishing Highway’s incredible lakes, explore the bays and inlets around Bella Coola on sea kayaking adventure or get away from it all amid the natural splendour of Tweedsmuir Provincial Park – there is lots to discover in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast! Features - Map Key & Legend - Topographic Maps - Detailed Adventure Section >> Backroad Attractions, Fishing Locations, Hunting Areas, Paddling Routes, Parks & Campsites, Trail Systems, ATV Routes,Snowmobile Areas, Wildlife Viewing, Winter Recreation, Service Directory, Accommodations, Sales & Services, Tours & Guides, Index, Adventure Index, Map Index, Trip Planning Tools,
Along the coast between Vancouver Island and Alaska lies 250 miles of forested island and inlets. Ian and Karen McAllister spent seven years photographing and mapping this forgotten wild ecosystem. Their informative text and remarkable photographs (including some of the most extraordinary images of wild bears ever published) present a complete picture of this unique area. 150 color photos.
The true story of an adventurous young nurse who provided much-needed health care to the rural communities of the Cariboo-Chilcotin in the 1960s. In 1963, newly minted public health nurse Marion McKinnon arrived in the small community of Williams Lake in BC's Cariboo region. Armed with more confidence than experience, she got into her government-issued Chevy—packed with immunization supplies, baby scales, and emergency drugs—and headed out into her 9,300-square-kilometre territory, inhabited by ranchers; mill workers; and many vulnerable men, women, and children who were at risk of falling through the cracks of Canada's social welfare system. At twenty-two, a naïve yet enthusiastic Marion relied entirely on her academic knowledge and her common sense. She doled out birth control and parenting advice to women who had far more life experience than she. She routinely dealt with condescending doctors and dismissive or openly belligerent patients. She immunized school children en masse and made home visits to impoverished communities. She drove out into the vast countryside in freezing temperatures, with only a candle, antifreeze, chains, and chocolate bars as emergency equipment. In one year, Marion received a rigorous education in the field. She helped countless people, made many mistakes, learned to recognize systemic injustice, and even managed to get into a couple of romantic entanglements. Always Pack a Candle is an unforgettable and eye-opening memoir of one frontline worker's courage, humility, and compassion.
A collection of historical stories about the early indigenous people, settlers, trappers, and adventurers of BC's Cariboo Chilcotin.A compilation of stories that meld both culture and bloodlines, CHILCOTIN CHRONICLES by Sage Birchwater is set in the wild and untamed country of central British Columbia's Chilcotin Plateau. West of the Fraser River, this high country is contained by an arc of impenetrable mountain ranges that separates it from the Pacific Coast. The first inhabitants of this region were fiercely independent, molded by the land itself. Those who came later were drawn to this landscape with its mysterious aura of freedom, where time stood still and where a person could find solace in the wilderness and never be found.Birchwater reaches back to first European contact in British Columbia when the indigenous population spoke forty of Canada's fifty-four languages and seventy of Canada's one hundred dialects. The land known today as the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast was already an entity when Alexander Mackenzie arrived in 1793. Bonds of friendship, mutual support and family ties had long been established between the Dakelh, Tsilhqot'in and Nuxalk, giving cohesiveness to the region.CHILCOTIN CHRONICLES is about the men and women caught in the interface of cultures and the changing landscape. Indigenous inhabitants and white newcomers brought together by the fur brigades, then later by the gold rush, forged a path together, uncharted and unpredictable. Birchwater discovers that their stories, seemingly disconnected, are intrinsically linked together to create a human eco-system with very deep roots. The lives of these early inhabitants give substance to the landscape. They give meaning to the people who live there today.
Chiwid was a Tsilhqot'in woman, said to have shamanistic powers, who spent most of her adult life living out in the hills and forests around Williams Lake, BC. Chiwid is the story of this remarkable woman told in the vibrant voices of Chilcotin oldtimers, both native and non-native.Chiwid is Number 2 in the Transmontanus series of books edited by Terry Glavin.
Birdwatching is one of America's most popular activities, but many field guides are so comprehensive or advanced that they intimidate novice birders. Covering the region north of the U.S. border, south of Prince George, east of Manning Park and west into the Rockies, Birds of Interior BC and the Rockies is for beginning and intermediate birders who wish to identify the birds they regularly spot in this area. However, the book will also appeal to more experienced local and visiting birders who want to learn more about the behavior, habitat and seasonal occurrence of local birds. Packed with useful information, this handy, portable guide tells you how to identify local birds, find out where they live and what they eat, how to attract birds to your yard and how to select a pair of binoculars. Identification is made easy with more than 400 sharp, full-color photos illustrating over 200 species of birds, in the plumage most likely seen in the region and color-coded by species. There's even a checklist to record your sightings.
In 1964, Patricia MacKay immigrated to Canada from England in search of the wild-open lands and cowboy culture that captivated her as a child. In the 1960s, the Wild West was still alive and kicking in the Cariboo-Chilcotin, although it had been tamed--a little. Old-time hospitality and helping anyone in need was the acknowledged way of life. Pat learned the Cariboo-Chilcotin way of life first hand by spending her summers working on guest ranches and finding other jobs to keep her occupied during the winter. From learning how to cook on the job to kitchen disasters and successes, roundups, branding, square dances and falling in love, she slowly gained acceptance into the tight-knit communities of BC's Interior. Ranching meant long hours, hard work, and a lifestyle all its own. Entertainment was homemade. There were rodeos, dances, and music around campfires in the summer and ice hockey, tobogganing, and parties in the winter. Sadly, that way of life is gradually disappearing, but this book relives the way things were between 1964 and 1976; it tells of a unique brand of people from a variety of backgrounds who made this part of the west their home.
Diana Phillips, daughter of Canadian folk legend Pan Phillips, shares more extraordinary tales about her life on the ranch in the remote British Columbian backcountry. Two years after publishing Beyond the Chilcotin, her remarkable memoir about growing up on her famous father's pioneer ranch in the Chilcotin, Diana Phillips continues her story. Discouraged by a huge loss of cattle to grizzlies on killing sprees, Pan sells the Home Ranch and decides to set up a fishing and guiding venture on nearby Tsetzi Lake. Diana spends a couple of seasons working with her father at the very rustic lodge, now catering to the needs of guests paying for a wilderness experience, rather than a cattle operation, but soon follows the call of ranch life back to the Home Ranch, until she marries and gets a cabin and land of her own nearby. Working her ranch and raising her young family, as well as helping out a series of owners at Home Ranch, Diana survives lean times and becomes a masterful rancher in her own right--driving cattle along rugged trails to and from Nazko, leading hunts in the Ilgachuz Mountains and midwifing stubborn calves, not to mention fending off grizzlies and mounting rescue missions for all manner of strays. Diana's incredible memory for detail--from the taste of strawberry jam and bannock, and the beauty of a poplar grove in fall, to the time she taught a rude drunk a lesson by hitting him repeatedly in the head with her boot--makes her account of a near-pioneer life in the Blackwater country an inspiring and entertaining read.
This catalog presents sites, activities and portraits recorded by Harlan I. Smith while doing ethnographic fieldwork among Nuxalk, Chilcotin and Carrier people in the Bella Coola Valley between 1920 and 1924. Harlan Smith was a self-trained archaeologist, a prolific photographer and one of Canada's earliest ethnographic film makers. He gained experience in Northwest Coast archaeology soon after joining the staff of the American Museum of Natural History as the archaeologist for the Jesup North Pacific Expeditions. Smith worked on both the British Columbia plateau and coastal regions, where he collected some artifacts and photographs, but was mainly concerned with the mapping and excavation of shell heaps. In 1911, Smith joined the Geological Survey of Canada as the head of the Archaeology Section under the direction of Edward Sapir, then Chief of the Anthropology Division. His early work concentrated on discovering and excavating archaeological sites in Eastern Canada and Ontario. In 1919 he returned to the Pacific coast to conduct surveys of archeological sites on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands. In 1920, Smith went to Bella Coola to begin a period of ethnographic fieldwork focusing on the traditional uses of plant and animal materials. Thomas McIlwraith joined Smith in time for the 1921 fieldwork season and gathered an extensive body of information on Nuxalk social organization and ritual traditions. During these later seasons Smith worked with the carrier and Chilcotin communities, searched for archeological sites in the Bella Coola valley, took plaster casts of petroglyphs and continued to create an extensive photography record both for himself and McIlwraith. Along with his own work, Smith's collection also contains copies of photographs held by local residents. Iver Fougner, the local Indian agent (1909-1939) shared some early photographs and a set of prints of a traveling Bella Coola dance group (numbers 62093-62104) taken in Germany in 1886 were lent by B. Fillip Jacobsen. Smith documented each photograph, the captions often running a half page or more in length. Multiple images of the same object or view were usually given the same caption, with an additional not of the change of view or camera position. Most of the photographs were dated, allowing for some tracking of Smith's traveling up and down the Bella Coola valley. Despite the seeming detail of information however, it is not always possible to determine the exact location of some of the houses, archaeological sites and grave yards. Each catalog entry lists the negative number, picture title, the date the photograph was taken and the condition of the negative. An asterisk following the negative number indicates a contact print is reproduced in the catalog. A brief description of the picture's central image along with any secondary or background objects of interest is taken from Smith's original captions.