Canada: British Columbia : Wit

This book focuses on British Columbia, including all its towns, cities, activities, culture and spirit into one book. It promises to be the definitive guide to the province, while also including Banff & Jasper, as many travellers in the Canadian Rockies visit the region as a whole and include Banff & Jasper in their itineraries. Canada is a decentralized country, and many of its laws and governance are defined at provincial level from drinking age and taxes to health and education. The differences between provinces are quite distinct, far greater than, say, Hampshire and Wiltshire. Bradt's Canada: British Columbia bottles the province's unique essence in a single publication. It features many of British Columbia's esoteric attractions such as religious sects, gold rush history, First Nations sites, Whistler's art culture and so on. The province has a plethora of different transport choices and even local people often don't know about them. AUTHOR: Brendan Sainsbury is a British writer who has been a resident of British Columbia since 2004. He has written extensively about his home province, covering a range of topics, from a Vancouver Island village that bought a local forest to save it from logging to the legacy of the Doukabours, a Russian religious sect that re-settled in BC in the early 1900s. Brendan is an avid trail-runner and has developed a deep affection for Vancouver's North Shore Mountains which he likes to explore on foot on summer weekends when the sky is clear. His favourite trail is the 29km-long amalgamation of peaks, ridges and scrambling better known as the Howe Sound Crest Trail. Brendan's other BC passions include Whistler, overnight train journeys, and tea and scones in Victoria, an occasional treat that reminds him nostalgically of England. 40 colour photos, 27 maps