West by Northwest is a classic collection of 25 British Columbia short stories, beginning with Bill Reid and Robert Bringhurst’s ribald creation myth How Raven Stole the Light and closing with Eden Robinson’s brilliant, contemporary story about a native girl’s struggle to survive in Queen of the North . In between, the stellar stories range across geography, peoples, and styles of storytelling, and include the voices of some of the country’s strongest writers.

Here is brilliant fiction by Ethel Wilson and Emily Carr, Malcolm Lowry and Jack Hodgins, Wayson Choy and Patrick Lane, George Bowering and Linda Svendsen, Evelyn Lau and Shani Mootoo. Here are stories from the sea and islands, coastal cities, interior ranchlands, mountains and valleys, and northern rivers. Here, too, are the tales of diverse communities: family life in Chinatown, a Russian Doukhobor wedding, poverty in a mill town, the struggle against racism in Vancouver at the turn of the century and today. These stories remain fresh in the mind, urging us to look again at the roads and waters we think we know, and to see others – those not yet traveled – for the first time.