Join us for a book launch!

“Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History”

by Dorothy Faulkner, Elaine Park, & Cathy Jenks

Saturday, October 23rd, 2010

2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

at the Museum – 716 Winn Road, Gibsons, B.C.

Reading, Q&A, and book signing with authors.

Refreshment will be served.

For more information, contact the Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives at (604) 886-8232

or go to http://www.sunshinecoastmuseum.ca/

The coast of British Columbia is indented by inlets where early logging and fishing families established independent settlements in the wilderness. Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History presents part of B.C.’s history through the words of the early women settlers of one of these coastal villages.

Modern Pender Harbour, today a thriving community of 2500 on the Sunshine Coast, northwest of Vancouver, was for much of the twentieth century a place that tested the courage and ingenuity of its women. The book contains life stories of women who laid the foundations of the community, such as Thawquamot Theresa Jeffries, a Shishalh girl sold into marriage to one of the first English settlers; her daughter Mary Ann Rouse, the harbour midwife in the 1920s; her granddaughter Martha Warnock, who fought the government to get a road to school for harbour children.

Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History is published by the Pender Harbour Living Heritage Society, a voluntary non-profit group working to preserve the history of the Pender Harbour area. The book began with an idea by members of the Pender Harbour Women’s Connection group to honour the local women pioneers. After nine years of work by volunteers conducting interviews and gathering information and photographs, project leader Dorothy Faulkner, writer Elaine Park and graphics editor Cathy Jenks have woven the recollections of more than 40 pioneer women into a colourful tapestry of remembrance. The historical narrative is augmented by more than 200 heirloom photographs, biographical profiles, a Pender Harbour historical timeline, genealogies of some of the founding families and an endpaper historic map.  An original painting donated by internationally renowned artist Motoko, entitled “Boat Day at Irvines Landing,” graces the jacket cover.

Production of the book was made possible by the donated skills of Howard and Mary White of Harbour Publishing. All proceeds from sales of Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History will support preservation of historical records and artifacts in Pender Harbour.

Jean Barman, Professor Emeritus of educational history at the University of British Columbia and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is the author of several history books including The West Beyond the West, Stanley Park’s Secret, The Remarkable Adventures of Portuguese Joe Silvey and British Columbia: Spirit of the People.  She has made the following comment on the book:

“Women’s lives recounted in their own words are rare indeed. Women of Pender Harbour is a welcome exception, following forty remarkable everyday women across a century and more. These diverse women share their upbringing and first romances, their roles as wives, mothers, and fisherwomen, and their determination to build community. Through these women’s recollections, we glimpse the coastal enclave of Pender Harbour. Once isolated and self-contained, it increasingly appealed to ‘summer people,’ some of them so entranced they became residents. Women of Pender Harbour is an important slice of British Columbia history.”

On Saturday, October 23, 2010, Dorothy Faulkner, Elaine Park and Cathy Jenks will be reading selections, sharing stories, and discussing their research here at the Museum from 2 till 4 pm.  Join us for some lively conversation and refreshments. Copies of the book will be available in the gift shop and admission is by donation.