A treasury of writing celebrating the beauty, community, and importance of our archipelagos.

Forty skilled island writers share their love of the many islands in the Salish Sea off British Columbia’s coast through passionate, eclectic and reflective–new and previously unpublished–essays, memoirs and poems. They express how islands are special places of unique and lively communities, within a rare and beautiful ecosystem; with diverse indigenous, settler and outsider histories circled by an endangered sea that protects and separates inhabitants from a more crowded, invasive civilization. Islands are little refugias in the glacial landscape of urbanization—ecological and cultural. The writers invite you to take refuge, then inspire you to re-enchant your home terrain.

This anthology is a must-read for anyone who travels to and lives on an island, or yearns to live on an island. In this era when the natural world is constantly threatened by environmental destruction, through climate change, ignorance and corporate greed, it is more important than ever to affirm the significance, culture and beauty of our ocean archipelagos, and to be proactive in protecting and preserving them for the future of all.

Some of the islands poignantly rendered are: Bowen, Cortez, Denman, Gabriola, Galiano, Gambier, Hornby, Jedediah,Lasqueti, Lummi, Mayne, Mitlenatch, Newcastle, Penelakut, Pender, Prevost, Protection, Quadra, Retreat, Salt Spring, Saturna, Savary, Senanus, Texada, Thetis, Thormanby, Tumbo, Valdes and Wise.

Contributors: Taiaiake Alfred, Chris Arnett, Brenda Brooks, Maria Coffey, Daniel Cowper, William Deverell, Ann Eriksson, Mona Fertig, Cathy Ford, Gary Geddes, Katherine Palmer Gordon, Peter Haase, Amanda Hale, Diana Hayes, Jack Hodgins, Cornelia Hoogland, Stephen Hume, Christina Johnson-Dean, Des Kennedy, Michael Kenyon, Zoë Landale, Peter Levitt, Derek Lundy, Matsuki Masutani, Karen McLaughlin, Maureen Moore, Arleen Paré, Briony Penn, Michael Redican, Murray Reiss, Linda Rogers, Christine Smart, Steven Ross Smith, George Szanto, Nancy J. Turner, M.C. Warrior, Alison Watt, Bob Weeden, Rex Weyler, Sue Wheeler.

Oil Paintings by Nicola Weston

"The 500-plus islands in the Salish Sea are widely recognized as a region of international ecological and cultural significance: the Georgia Basin is considered one of the three most threatened ecoregions in Canada.”—from Islands in the Salish Sea: A Community Atlas, edited by Sheila Harrington and Judi Stevenson (Touchwood Editions)