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Pender Harbour women win book award

Pender Harbour's best selling book of 2010, Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History, is now an award winner, too.

Pender Harbour's best selling book of 2010, Women of Pender Harbour: Their Voices, Their History, is now an award winner, too.

The book, created and published by a team of local volunteers, received a BC Historical Federation book prize at the federation's annual meeting May 7 in Powell River.

The competition was open to non-fiction books on historical subjects published during 2010. Women of Pender Harbour won third prize.

The book began as a project by members of the Pender Harbour Women's Connection group to record the experiences of local women pioneers. For nine years, a team of about 30 volunteers conducted interviews, gathered information and photographs and did supplementary research at the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. Dorothy Faulkner, Elaine Park, Cathy Jenks, Maureen Wright, Pat Jobb and Karen Dyck then wove the memories of 40 interviewees into a comprehensive history.

The book's narrative is augmented by biographical profiles, a Pender Harbour historical timeline, genealogies of some of the founding families and an end-paper historic map. Jenks, who served as graphics editor, compiled and edited more than 200 heirloom photographs. Mary White, Howard White and Anna Comfort of Harbour Publishing donated book design and production, and Patricia Anderson donated editing services. Pender Harbour artist Motoko gave the project her original painting, Boat Day at Irvines Landing, for reproduction on the cover.

More than 800 copies have been sold since the book launched at May Day in 2010.

The Pender Harbour Living Heritage Society, a voluntary non-profit group working to preserve the history of the Pender Harbour area, published the book. All proceeds support the society's heritage preservation projects. The book is available on the Sunshine Coast at Bluewaters Books in Madeira Park, John Henry's Store in Garden Bay, the Egmont Museum, Talewind Books in Sechelt, the Powell River Museum and the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives in Gibsons.

- Submitted