Lilies and Fireweed is packed with unforgettable stories of women surviving in the unforgiving, sometimes hostile environment of pioneer and aboriginal British Columbia. Based on award-winning journalist Stephen Hume’s popular series Frontier Women of BC that appeared in the Vancouver Sun in 2002, this collection of essays contains stories, photographs and other materials that have never before been published.

From hospitals to dance halls, and from the classroom to the cannery floor, this insightful pictorial history examines indigenous and immigrant women’s positions in the workplace, home and wilderness. Hume delves into the lives of aboriginal and pioneer women who had an important and multifaceted influence on the development of British Columbia.

We meet women such as 17-year-old Frances Barkley, who insisted on accompanying her husband on a merchant voyage to British Columbia in 1786 and subsequently twice circumnavigated the world; Lady Amelia Douglas - a Cree woman and wife of Governor James Douglas - who had her own important but often overlooked role in the forging of British Columbia; Mrs. Washiji Oya, the first Japanese woman to settle in Canada in 1887; and Maria Pollard Grant, who, in 1895, became the first woman elected to public office in BC.

Brimming with fascinating historical photographs, Lilies and Fireweed brings to light the forgotten stories of mothers, dance-hall girls, artists, teachers and adventurers that are as enthralling and diverse as BC itself.