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Clayoquot Soundings: A History of Clayoquot Sound 1880s-1980s

by Walter Guppy

80 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-2442; ISBN 1-4251-0684-6; US$13.87, C$15.95, EUR11.39, £7.98

To understand this area and to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who call it home, we must know the history. Clayoquot Soundings is the one-volume source we can turn to.

About the Book

Walter Guppy moved with his parents to Tofino in the 1920s. Sooner or later, over his 70 year, he met all the surviving players, or their peers, of the post-pioneer era.

Guppy gives us the first sensitive overview of this second major period of Clayoquot history.

This book is written by a witness-here is our folk-historian writing tradition.

Tofino and Ucluelet are experiencing major economic upheavals that will effect their cultural identity. They are most important communities to the evolving structure of the Canadian west coast. To understand this area and to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who call it home, we must know the history. Clayoquot Soundings is the one-volume source we can turn to.

About the Author

Walter Guppy grew up in Tofino where his father settled after taking early retirement from the Civil Service in India. The Guppy family, four boys and a girl, arrived in this roadless community when Walter was three years old. There was little in the way of organized activities or entertainment in Tofino in those days. As Walter grew older he tagged along with his older brother and his chum exploring the shoreline of the inlet, the beaches and the deserted homesteads. Later old minesites, some far back in the hills, came within his sphere of investigation. When it came to earning a living, commercial fishing, at which Walter was not very successful, was the mainstay of the area, so he took up prospecting when a mining boom developed on the West Coast. In 1942 he was employed as a boat operator in connection with the construction of Tofino Airport, then after a spell in the armed services, took up electrical contracting for a living, prospecting as a way of life, and writing as a sideline