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The far land
By Eva MacLean. 1993
Eva MacLean left her settled, Presbyterian Ontario life behind to accompany her young minister-veternarian husband to the "wilds" of northwestern…
B.C. in the early 1900s, during times of mining rushes and railroad-building. 1993.Before Owen Wister's publication of "The Virginian" in 1902, the image of the cowboy was essentially that of the dime…
novel. This book details the evidence that Everett Johnson, a cowboy from Virginia who had been a friend of Wister's in Wyoming in the 1880s, was the initial and prime inspiration for Wister's cowboy. 2015.Snowshoes & spotted dick: letters from a wilderness dweller
By Chris Czajkowski. 2003
The uplifting and often humourous story of one woman's life in the raw wilderness. The author describes her experiences as…
she builds a cabin in the wilderness and relates the complications of the "simple life" - how she breaks trails by snowshoe, encounters grizzly bears, builds a stone oven and learns to bake bread - and spotted dick. 2003.Spilsbury's coast: pioneer years in the wet West
By Howard White, Jim Spilsbury. 1987
Spilsbury's Coast is the inside passage between the Fraser River and the top of Vancouver Island. Jim Spilsbury spent 10…
of his early years in a tent on the beach. He went on to start Canada's largest domestic airline. c1987.Sisters in the wilderness: the lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill
By Charlotte Gray. 1999
Sisters Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill came to Canada with their husbands in the early 1800s. Both women recorded…
their experiences as pioneers in the new country in books that would later be held up as early examples of Canadian literature. Here, Gray sheds light on what their lives were like in relation to each other, in relation to their families, and in relation to the harsh environment that surrounded them every day. 1999.Salt of the earth: the story of homesteaders in Western Canada
By Heather Robertson. 1974
The homesteaders who streamed to the Canadian West from 1880 to 1914 tell their own story of harshness, isolation, and…
back-breaking toil. Conveys a strong, sympathetic sense of the land and the people who settled in the Prairies. 1974.Revenge of the land: a century of greed, tragedy, and murder on a Saskatchewan farm
By Maggie Siggins. 1991
Siggins chronicles the history of a single Saskatchewan farm from 1883 to the present. What she uncovers is a history…
fraught with corruption, greed, toil and deprivation, ending in a double murder. Some descriptions of violence. Winner of the 1992 Governor General's Award for Non-fiction. 1991.Oh what a slaughter: massacres in the American west
By Larry McMurtry. 2005
Here are the true stories of the West's most terrible massacres - Sacramento River, Mountain Meadows, Sand Creek, Marias River,…
Camp Grant, and Wounded Knee, among others. These massacres involved Americans killing Indians, but also Indians killing Americans and, in the case of the currently hugely controversial Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857, Mormons slaughtering a party of American settlers, including women and children. McMurtry's evocative descriptions of these events recall their full horror, and the deep, constant apprehension and dread endured by both pioneers and Indians. 2005.Nathan Boone and the American frontier (Missouri biography series)
By R. Douglas Hurt. 1998
Biography of Daniel Boone's youngest son, who followed in his father's footsteps as a frontiersman. Nathan worked as trapper and…
hunter, a surveyor, and a soldier, eventually settling in Missouri with a family of fourteen children. He was instrumental in the removal of tribes to the Indian Territory that enabled settlement of the plains by pioneers. 1998.Mountains, campfires & memories
By Jack Boudreau. 2002
In the backwoods of British Columbia, Boudreau tells of adventures gone awry, bizarre encounters with creatures in the wilds, and…
the results of friendships gone sour. When men went missing, or furs were stolen, it was often up to the local police officer or game warden to don his hunting gear to track down the hunter or the hunted. 2002.Grass beyond the mountains: discovering the last great cattle frontier on the North American continent
By Richmond P Hobson. 1951
In the fall of 1934, three cowhands with a dream of owning a cattle ranch made their way from peaceful…
Wyoming to the harsh, uncharted territory of the British Columbian interior. In conditions as challenging as any encountered by the western frontier pioneers of a hundred years earlier, the three men and their equipment-laden horses conquered the tortuous miles over narrow passes and mountain summits, hewed their first cabin from virgin timber, and attempted to carve out a space for themselves on the unforgiving landscape. Followed by "Nothing too good for a cowboy". 1951.Butter down the well: reflections of a Canadian childhood
By Robert Collins. 1980
The author recalls the joys and sorrows of his childhood in rural Saskatchewan in the 1920s and the 1930s. His…
vivid imagination helped him to survive the loneliness of homestead life and the dreariness of the barren prairies. Followed by "The long and the short and the tall". 1980.Becoming Laura Ingalls Wilder: the woman behind the legend (Missouri biography series #1)
By John E Miller. 1998
Biography of the woman who wrote the Little House on the Prairie series. Examines how the child who lived those…
experiences evolved into the mature author who wrote about them. Discusses the role of her daughter Rose in encouraging and editing her novels. 1998.Back trail of an old cowboy
By Paul E Young, Nellie Irene Snyder Yost. 1983
This affectionate, humorous look at range life during the early part of the century is written by an old cowhand…
from Utah. An authentic picture of life in the real west. c1983.Andy Russell's campfire yarns (Andy Russell Ser.)
By Andy Russell. 1998
A candle in the grub box: the story of Frank Jackson as told to Sheila Douglass
By Frank Jackson, Sheila Douglass. 1977
Frank Jackson was born in England in 1890, but came to the Peace River, British Columbia region as a teenager.…
The book recounts his struggle against the wilderness to establish a homestead and cattle business. It also describes the colourful characters he encountered through the years. 1977.Roughing it in the bush: or, life in Canada
By Susanna Moodie. 2006
Windbreak: a woman rancher on the northern plains
By Linda M Hasselstrom. 1987
Provides a detailed description of life on the plains of South Dakota. Recounts the daily events over the course of…
a year, rounding up cattle, mending fences and feeding animals. c1987.Wilderness journey: reliving the adventures of Canada's voyageurs
By Ian Wilson. 2000
The Wilsons combine the lively account of their wilderness journey with fascinating stories of voyageur life 200 years ago. They…
travelled northwest by canoe on lakes and rivers from Lake Superior to northern Saskatchewan, then by dog team across Saskatchewan and Manitoba. 2000.