Bella Coola Man

Bella Coola Man
Author: Clayton Mack
Publisher: Madeira Park, B.C. : Harbour Pub.
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2002
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781550172867

When Clayton Mack was a child, his parents wrapped him in wolf skin and dumped him in water four times so he would grow up strong and fierce in the woods like a wolf. True to this Nuxalk tradition, Mack grew up to be a world-famous grizzly bear hunter and guide. Clayton Mack's first book of amazing tales about bears and q'umsciwas (white men), Grizzlies and White Guys, became an instant best seller when it was published in 1993. In Bella Coola Man, Clayton Mack continues his hair-raising stories about pulling bears out of the bushes by their legs, eating fresh bear meat with Thor Heyerdahl, finding gold nuggets in the bush, murder in the Big Ootsa country and dead men's talking beans, plus Crooked Jaw the Indian agent and where to find good fishing. Clayton Mack was a walking encyclopedia of tribal lore, and one of the best storytellers ever born. The stories in Bella Coola Man are the last he told, and reflect his desire to pass on as much information about Nuxalk life and legends as he could before his death. Hear about the man-eater dance performed at River's Inlet where the dancers ate a dead woman's head, or about the last Indian war on the coast, native remedies like devil's club tea which is "good for anything," Alexander Mackenzie's travels through Bella Coola country along the Grease Trail, how native hunters killed mountain goats by prying them off cliffs with sticks, and about forgotten villages and places, which come alive again through Clayton Mack's words. Clayton Mack had a deep understanding and appreciation of life on British Columbia's rugged coast. His stories are unique lessons in history, as well as pure entertainment. Here are the stories of the legend himself, Clayton Mack.

Grizzlies & White Guys

Grizzlies & White Guys
Author: Clayton Mack
Publisher: Madeira Park, B.C. : Harbour Publishing
Total Pages: 246
Release: 1993
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The extraordinary life story of Clayton Mack (1910-1993), a legendary hunting guide from the Nuxalk Nation (Bella Coola), is told in his own words. To Clayton Mack, who loved the wilderness and whose most precious memories were of the days when people got around without roads, told time without watches, and took planks from giant cedars without axes, the two most mysterious creatures on earth were grizzly bears and Q'umsciwas (white men) - from Crooked Jaw the Indian Agent to the rich and famous men who hired him to guide them on their trophy hunts. "The tales are told by a natural storyteller, who as a child was carried as a prop in Native ceremonial dances, and who later found himself dining in Hollywood restaurants with California's most powerful people. His stories are wild and bawdy and funny and tragic, and they reach back through history. They are like native ritual dances, in that it's impossible to separate the magic from the realism: at the end, you will wonder what was real and what was dream. The arnazing thing is, it's all true. It's all true." -Mark Hume, journalist for the Vancouver Sun, National Post and author of The Run of the River

River of the Angry Moon

River of the Angry Moon
Author: Mark Hume
Publisher: Greystone Books
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9781550547481

Winner of the Roderick-Haig Brown Prize. The Bella Coola River, now closed to steelhead fishing because the stocks are endangered, is a magnificent sight. Flowing through the stunning richness of British Columbia's temperate rain forest, the Bella Coola River is one of the worldÌs celebrated fishing streams. In this poetic and powerful book, Mark Hume describes a year in the life of the river as he fly-fishes for the fairylike whitefish, the legendary bull trout, the spirited cutthroat or the elusive steelhead. Along the way he describes the incredible beauty and fecundity of the valley ecosystem through the seasons, examines what has happened to that increasingly endangered ecosystem and its inhabitants in recent times, and encounters other anglers, old-timers who have fished the river for decades, and an abundance of wildlife. In January, Hume portrays the deep winter, when wood frogs, beetles and butterfly larvae may become frozen alive, when the snow on the mountains is stacked in steeples and when it is often too cold to fish. In June, when the river is discoloured by glacial silt and the rapids between pools deepen, he observes a clot of men fishing, their spinning rods propped on the river bank while they drink coffee, and wages a dramatic battle with a chinook salmon. And in October, he witnesses the miracle of salmon spawning, draws an intriguing parallel between commercial hunting and commercial fishing, meets a buck with tattered velvet hanging from one horn, and catches and releases a spectacular steelhead. Also available in hardcover.

At Home with the Bella Coola Indians

At Home with the Bella Coola Indians
Author: Douglas Cole
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2007-10-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0774859970

Between 1922 and 1924, the young Canadian anthropologist T.F. McIlwraith spent eleven months in the isolated community of Bella Coola, British Columbia, living among the people of the Nuxalk First Nation. During his time there, McIlwraith gained intimate knowledge of the Nuxalk culture and of their struggle to survive in the face of massive depopulation, loss of traditional lands, and the efforts of the Canadian government to ban the potlatch. McIlwraith’s resulting ethnography, The Bella Coola Indians (1948), is widely considered the finest published study of a Northwest Coast First Nation. This volume is a rich complement to McIlwraith’s classic work, incorporating his letters from the field as well as previously unpublished essays on the Nuxalk. Vivid and lively, the letters show the human side of the anthropologist, and provide a fascinating insight into the famous Northwest winter ceremonials and potlatch -- events in which McIlwraith was one of the few white men privileged to participate as a dancer and partner. Extensive editorial annotations and striking photographs make this book a pleasurable read that will appeal to anthropologists and historians, as well as those with interests in Northwest cultures and the history of anthropology in Canada.

Ruffles on My Longjohns

Ruffles on My Longjohns
Author: Isabel Edwards
Publisher: North Vancouver, B.C. : Hancock
Total Pages: 302
Release: 1980
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

Biographical account of pioneer life in the Bella Coola region of British Columbia, near Lonesome Lake in the 1930s and 1940s, including trapping and fishing.

The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians

The Mythology of the Bella Coola Indians
Author: Franz Boas
Publisher: Reprint Publishing
Total Pages: 132
Release: 2016-02-17
Genre:
ISBN: 9783959402002

Complete digitally restored reprint (facsimile) of the original edition of 1898. With 58 Masks and Carvings of the Bella Cola Indians and with music notes (Indian music). The title-page is fictitiously. In relation to the original edition extra large font (+60 %).

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory

The Power of Ritual in Prehistory
Author: Brian Hayden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2018-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108426395

Secret societies in tribal societies turn out to be key to understanding the origins of social inequalities and state religions.

Writing the Empire

Writing the Empire
Author: Eva-Marie Kröller
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 536
Release: 2021
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1487507577

Crossing time and oceans, this fascinating history of the McIlwraiths tracks the family's imperial identities across the generations to tell a story of anthropology and empire.

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond

In the Valleys of the Noble Beyond
Author: John Zada
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2019-08-15
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1771645199

This evocative work of nature writing traverses the world’s largest temperate rainforest to uncover the legend of the Sasquatch. Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest is home to trees as tall as skyscrapers and moss as thick as carpet. According to the people who live there, another giant may dwell in these woods. For centuries, locals have reported encounters with the Sasquatch—a species of hairy man-ape that could inhabit this pristine wilderness. Driven by his childhood obsession with the Sasquatch, yet trying to remain objective, journalist John Zada seeks out the people and stories surrounding this enigmatic creature. He speaks with local Indigenous peoples and a Sasquatch-studying scientist. He hikes with a former bear hunter. Soon, he finds himself on quest for something infinitely more complex, cutting across questions of human perception, scientific inquiry, Indigenous traditions, the environment, and the power of the human imagination to believe in—or to outright dismiss—one of nature’s last great mysteries.