You’ll likely recognize more than a few Kootenay locations in the books featured at Cranbrook’s Huckleberry Books this month.
From May 15 to June 15, the independent bookseller joins B.C. publisher Heritage House in showcasing local books from local writers.
In Room at the Inn: Historic Hotels of British Columbia’s Southern Interior, a new release by the late Glen A. Mofford, locals will recognize a featured – and still-standing – Cranbrook hotel that supported the town through the years with entertainment, accommodation and community. It’s among the 40 historic hotels in B.C.’s southern interior Mofford explores, sharing salacious stories of murder, robbery and more, mixed in with the hotels’ daily social routine and operation.
Fast-forward to the Kootenays of the 1970s in the new Galena Bay Odyssey: Reflections of a Hippie Homesteader by Ellen Schwartz.
The debut memoir by the award-winning children’s writer is a back-to-the-land tale without the rose-coloured glasses. Schwartz examines her own feelings, ideals and memories, and reflects on the ideals of the homestead movement in the 1970s, as well as cultural and social differences of the era, between loggers and hippies, for example, or rural dwellers and townsfolk.
Heritage House’s Treat Your Shelf initiative aims to raise awareness of the many talented writers working around the province – including right here in the Kootenays – and the diverse stories they’re telling. The initiative was the perfect fit for Cranbrook.
“A summer reading campaign that focuses on regional titles is right up our alley,” says owner Erin Dalton, Head Bookmonger at Huckleberry for 10 years.
“Local bookstores are important because we know our community, are invested in and actively part of it. We are experts at curating the kinds of stories our community want (and need) to read, as well as helping them discover unexpected treasures.”
Part of the Cranbrook community for more than 50 years, it’s not only books Huckleberry is known for. “Probably our best-known ‘specialty’ is Max, our Feline Overlord and Director of Marketing,” Erin says.
If asked to recommend another local title, Max would likely raise a paw for Children of the Kootenays, the B.C. Genealogical Society award-winner by Shirley Stainton that takes readers to Arrow Lakes, Slocan Lake and Kootenay Lake, nestled among the Purcell, Monashee, Selkirk and Valhalla ranges of the Columbia Mountains.
A memoir of growing up in various Kootenay mining towns throughout the 1930s and ’40s, Stainton paints a lively portrait of towns that are now ghost towns, told from the unique perspective of a young girl.
Women’s experiences are also showcased in Her Courage Rises: 50 Trailblazing Women of British Columbia and the Yukon, nominated for a BC & Yukon Book Prize. The B.C. bestseller from Haley Healey and illustrator Kimiko Fraser features biographies of 50 historical women of diverse identities and backgrounds – adventurers, pioneers, athletes, entrepreneurs, artists and more.
And for younger readers, kā-āciwīkicik / The Move reflects Cree oral storytelling, and demonstrates the power of hope, culture and ancestral memory in the face of colonization.
Shortlisted for a 2022 Governor General’s Literary Award, the Indigenous picture book for kids is written in both Cree and English and is rooted in the historical displacement and relocation of Chemawawin First Nation members from their ancestral homeland. Illustrated by Alyssa Koski, the book is co-authored by Chemawawin First Nation member Doris George, whose family’s displacement is in living memory, and Don K. Philpot.
To explore these and other featured titles, visit Huckleberry Books at 16 - 9th Ave. S in
Cranbrook or online at huckleberrybooks.ca. Stay up to date on the latest Huckleberry news on Facebook and Instagram,