I'm happy to announce the release of Wild Places, my ninth book/title (it's tough to quantify that, as two are atlases, so some might not consider them books). It is an announcement literally years in the making, as production has been delayed over several years. Little things like covid kept cropping up to push it back. Go figure. It is published by Fitzhenry Whiteside of Toronto under the Whitecap Books label. Whitecap Books of Vancouver was my original publisher for the Wild Coast series of coastal guide books, but that company since went bankrupt and were purchased by Fitzhenry. Which explains why a west coast title is now originating from Toronto. But I digress! The book itself is my testimony to the...
One of the most-told stories relating to Nootka Sound is the story of the origin of the name Nootka Sound. It goes like this: Captain James Cook, upon first arriving in March 1788, was greeted by the Mowachaht, who yelled "go around," using the Nuu-cha-nulth word "nootka-a", an instruction for the safe place to go as the ships the Discovery and the Resolution approached Yuquot on south Nootka Island. Cook misinterpreted that, or so the story goes, to mean the Mowachaht were in fact introducing themselves as the people the Nootka, and so he chose that name for the people of the sound he was entering. It is a good story, to be sure, but the basis in fact was purely speculation. It was...
If you're a hiker, you are probably familiar with UTM grid lines on your hiking maps. If you are a paddler or mariner, you may not have seen them at all. Even if are a hiker and used to seeing them, you may not have known what they are, and just overlooked them as more clutter on a map. Overlook them no longer! Wild Coast Publishing has added UTM grid lines to all 200-series marine mapsheets, ensuring the entire new lineup of Wild Coast maps -- both marine and trail -- includes UTM grids. This isn't because you are likely to convert from longitude-latitude to UTM coordinates when tracking your routes. If using a GPS, it doesn't really matter too much, just...
If you are of the frame of mind that being amidst a crowd in a sprawling wilderness setting makes no sense, then rock ledge camping may be for you. By using an anchor, reaching locations otherwise thought to be inaccessible to sea kayaks becomes much simpler.
