Diane 'Honey' Jacobson's memories of her youth and communal living in Alert Bay, within a large Kwakiutl family, are the focus for My Life in a Kwag'ul Big House (Theytus Books, 2005), a nostalgic yearning for bygone days. Alert Bay, located on Cormorant Island east of Vancouver Island, became one of the best-known Aboriginal villages on the B.C. coast, popular with Edwardian tourists, after the Union Steamship Company commenced regular service to the community in 1896. The settlement arose after two Nimpkish River settlers established a salmon saltery there around 1870; the Fort Rupert Anglican mission was relocated there in 1878; and a new cannery and sawmill attracted 'Namgis families from the Nimpkish Valley in the 1880s. It was named for a British warship HMS Alert that conducted coastal naval surveys.

Learn life lessons following 'Honey' through adventures in Jacobson's My Life with the Salmon, a book full of connections between land, water and people.

Jacobson is a 'Namgis First Nation member with family ties to the Mowachaht and the Mamalilakala (Mamalilaculla) settlement on Village Island.

BOOKS:
My life in a Kwagu'l Big House (Theytus Books 2005) 978-1-894778-20-6 $18.95

My Life with the Salmon (Theytus Books 2010) 978-1-894778-88-6 $18.95

[BCBW 2010]