History

Location: Kelowna Circulating Collection

Location: Penticton Circulating Collection

The title deals with the major European explorers: Vancouver, MacKenzie, Fraser, Thompson, black and Campbell. it covers the period from the early fur-trading ships and the uneasy relations with the indigenous people of British Columbia, to Astor's Pacific Fur Company, the North West Company, and the Hudson's Bay Company. The book ends with the growing crisis of American settlers migrating into the 'Oregon Territory while Britain sought to hold the Lower Columbia. And with Europeans disregarding the interests of the local Indigenous people.

Thomas Berger was a justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia. This book, however, is the work of an advocate. In eight historical essays the author demonstrates with succeeding examples that the reasonableness and tolerance that most Canadians would attribute to themselves have not always been vindicated in the conduct of public authorities or even in public opinion. From these examples he argues that a constitutional charter of rights and freedoms is a necessary shield for the protection of individual rights and the protection of ethnic, religious, and political minorities.