Heritage House: 215 books

Hair-raising tales of ghosts, spirits, and unexplained phenomena set across Western Canada. Praise for Campfire Stories of Western Canada: “Smith’s spooky tales are perfect for warm summer nights spent around the campfire. Her latest book of ghost stories focuses solely on Western...

These inspiring true stories illuminate the courage and wisdom of five 19th-century Native leaders and famous Métis who fought against impossible odds to preserve the culture and rights of their people. The visionary Cree leader Big Bear sought peace and a better life, only to be hunted mercilessly...

It is hard to imagine life without fire. Heat, light, food—where would we be without these essentials? Although we do not rely on fire as much today as in times past, nor have as much direct contact with it, fire was often crucial to survival when the stories in this collection were first told....

When Native and Métis unrest escalated into the Northwest Rebellion of 1885, white settlers in southern Alberta`s cattle country were terrified. Three major First Nations bordered their range, and war seemed certain. In anticipation, 114 men mustered to form the Rocky Mountain Rangers, a volunteer...

The blossoming of Métis society and culture in the 19th century marked a fascinating and colourful era in western Canadian history. Drawing from journals and contemporary sources, Irene Ternier Gordon presents a vivid account of Métis life in the area that is now Saskatchewan and Alberta. Here are...

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...

“I want to gold pan; I want to strike rich. I’ve been searching for a stream of gold. It’s these fortunes I never win that keep me searching for a stream of gold. And I’m getting old. I keep searching for my stream of gold; and I’m getting close.” If those words sound like a common...

A celebration of the twenty-eight-year history of Western Canada’s most illustrious Shakespeare festival. Over the summer of 1990, six thousand Vancouverites flocked into a rented tent at Vanier Park to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was the inaugural production of what would become...

This colourful account of the Chilcotin War is an insightful and absorbing examination of an event that helped to shape the course of British Columbia history. In the spring of 1864, 14 men building a road along the Homathko River in British Columbia were killed by a Tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) war...

When Cat and her friends are taken hostage and find themselves stranded in Headless Valley, it's clear they will need a miracle to get back home. Although they find an abandoned cabin for shelter, their supply of food and water is running out fast, their kidnappers are not on their heels, and a sinister...

On June 20, 1942, the lighthouse at Estevan Point on Vancouver Island was shelled by the Japanese submarine I-26. It was the first enemy attack on Canadian soil since the War of 1812. But this was only one incident in the incredible and little-known Japanese campaign to terrorize North America’s...

Yax is too young to accompany his father on a trading expedition and must stay at home with his mother and his younger sister. Disappointed, he goes off to practise his spear-throwing. When he loses his spear, he thinks he is old enough to go into the forest to look for it, even though he has been...

A finalist for the 1995 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language non-fiction Winner of the Mountain Environment and Culture Award at the 1995 Banff Mountain Book Festival Leaning on the Wind is a love song of the west, sung to the tune of the wild chinook wind. Sid Marty...

Retired park warden Dale Portman lived his dream of riding the range for a living in the spectacular Canadian Rockies. His exhilarating tales take us to an Old West world of wild horses and hair-raising roundups, youthful bravado and larger-than-life characters: Bert, the tough Millarville patriach;...