Writing the West Coast: In Love with Place

This collection of over thirty essays by both well-known and emerging writers explores what it means to “be at home” on Canada’s West Coast. The essays examine ways of investing landscape with meaning so as to find landscapes of meaning. The writers describe yearning for a particular place and way of being; arriving at a personal habitat and community; lingering in nature’s spaces of contemplation; immersing oneself in the natural world; and encountering one’s surroundings in diverse, inspiring, and sometimes humorous ways. Some of the familiar voices include the following:

• Brian Brett, who reflects soberly on possible futures for Clayoquot, thinking back to the wild times he spent there in the sixties.
• Grandmother-activist Betty Krawczyk, who describes living in a remote A-frame under mountains that have been clearcut, and how this leads her to join the blockades.
• Alexandra Morton, who “took one sniff” of the Broughton Archipelago, recognized the importance of the salmon, and knew her habitat. She explores her fierce love of and inability to abandon that place.
• Susan Musgrave, who writes with affection and humour about the “excluded” Haida Gwaii.
• Briony Penn, who compares sex in the city to love in the temperate rainforest.
• Andrew Struthers, who whimsically recounts the geography of a life.

All the writers in this collection — and these include Kate Braid, Keith Harrison, Adrienne Mason, Joanna Streetly, David Pitt-Brooke and more — contribute to the creation of a community of inquiry that is engaged in searching for home, the apex of the heart’s desire, where we find purpose and a sense of belonging in creative and aesthetically revealing ways that are uniquely West Coast.

“Here is an intimate look into life on the farthest West Coast of Canada among those, who in their various ways, are filled with passion for its waterways, its forests, its wildlife, even its weather. I found Writing the West Coast fascinating.”
— Sharon Butala
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REVIEWS

“A marvellous collection of 33 essays by top writers covering the full spectrum of the delights of the Canadian West Coast.”
— Lower Island News

“a rich textual and visual narrative.”
— Canadian Literature

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