"First-hand accounts of indigenous people's encounters with colonialism are rare. A daily diary that extends over fifty years is unparalleled. Based on a transcription of Arthur Wellington Clah's diaries, this book offers a riveting account of a Tsimshian elder who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. From his birth in 1831 to his death in 1916, Clah witnessed profound change: the arrival of traders, missionaries, and miners, and the establishment of industrial fisheries, wage labour, and reserves. His many voyages physical, cultural, and spiritual provide an unprecedented Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships on the Pacific Northwest Coast."--Pub. desc.

"Jack Austin served as a cabinet minister in both the Trudeau and Martin governments and represented British Columbia for over three decades in the Senate. In the 1970s, he served as federal deputy minister of Energy, Mines, and Resources (during the oil crisis), and then Principal Secretary to Trudeau Sr., who later became a travelling companion. Since 2008, he has been an honorary professor at UBC's Institute of Asian Research. His memoir, Unlikely insider, is more than a personal journey; it ruminates on some of the most pressing political issues animating Canadian public life: the move away from a colonial relationship with First Nations peoples, Canada-China relations, bilateral relations with the US, economic security, and the defense of domestic sovereignty. Inclusion, at both the regional and demographic levels, is an import theme recurring throughout the chapters."--