A small company in Sechelt has started from the top.

Cariaga Books has launched a collection of aerial photographs with an English/German text, Greater Vancouver From The Air (Cariaga $14.95). The book was written, photographed and translated into German by Hajo Hadeler for his Philippine-born wife and publisher Presita Cariaga.

"Almost everybody who lives in the Lower Mainland is from somewhere else," Hadeler says, "so we came up with a book that will be ideal to send 'home' from Vancouver, wrapped, perhaps, in a little pride-of-place."

The decision to provide a dual English/German text was made because more than ten percent of the Lower Mainland population has roots in Austria, Switzerland or Germany. The multi-lingual husband-and-wife team hope to continue publishing books in different languages. Previously Whitecap Books of North Vancouver has been the only B. C. publisher to target foreign language markets.

Hadeler is a Shiatsu instructor who trained in India, Thailand and Hong Kong. He has also just authored Shiatsu for Two (Harbour Publishing $10.95). In addition he is a yacht builder, author of seven novels in German, a glider pilot, a former CBC film editor, a classical musician and a disciple of One Sun, Sunim, a Korean Zen Buddhist monk at the Buddhist temple in Richmond.

Hadeler and Cariaga's initial publishing venture will be followed by a more ambitious aerial study, Lower Vancouver Island From The Air, which will include all the Gulf Islands.

[BCBW Summer 1988]