News and Upcoming Talks

Upcoming Talks,

I’ll be giving a Zoom talk on April 29th 2023, about the Last Steam Railways, to the Saskatchewan Railroad Historical Association, for their virtual mini conference.

New Publishing Arrangements and Good News:

Harbour Publishing, a long established and highly-respected British Columbia book publisher, has rereleased my book, The Klondike Gold Rush Steamers, after most of the stock was lost in the fire at Sono Nis Press. The book was available in fall 2019, in hard cover, and in nice time for Christmas. It is still $50.00 CDN plus taxes.

I still had digital files for the book, so with minor changes, it was possible to have it ready for the press fairly quickly.  I’m delighted to be working with Harbour and we hope to see more of my titles republished in the months and years to come. Happily too, Harbour has republished Nancy’s Plants of Haida Gwaii, that also was destroyed in the Sono Nis fire. Incidentally, it won the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Non-Fiction after it was first released in 2004.

Harbour’s address and contact information is as follows:

Email:  info@harbourpublishing.com.           Website: http://harbourpublishing.com/

Phone:

Tel: (604) 883-2730
Toll-free order line: 1-800-667-2988
Fax: (604) 883-9451
Toll free fax line: 1-877-604-9449

Mailing address:

Harbour Publishing
P.O. Box 219
Madeira Park, BC, Canada
V0N 2H0

I can’t say as yet, which of the older titles will be next in line to be redone. Republishing some of the books will be more complicated than for some others. Anything printed before about 2000 was not prepared for printing using a computer system. Consequently, to be reprinted now, those books will require recompiling using publishing software to make them compatible with modern presses. Ideally too, photos have to be scanned from originals, rather than from a printed book page, to assure a high quality of reproduction. All of this can be done, but it takes a lot of time. Fortunately, I do have most of the digital files for the books published or redone since 2000, and we have acquired the rights to all of the titles from Sono Nis, thanks to the Bill Turner for working through all of the details.

I also hope to do some updates as books are re-released. Since Logging by Rail was last reprinted, the last logging railway in Canada ended service. The line operated by Western Forest Products (and previously Canadian Forest Products) was closed after a tragic accident and there are other changes to bring the story up to date, and as it turns out, almost to an end.

There are also additions to make (and possibly new editions as well) to the smaller books on the SS Moyie and the SS Sicamous, as well as in Steam on the Kettle Valley.  New projects are progressing, although always more slowly than I would like.