3 comments about Voyages to Windward: Sailing Adventures on Vancouver Island's West Coast.

1. The book is evocative of the beauty and charm of the remote places of the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Interesting local history is complimented by vivid photography and captured the experience of sailing the West Coast. A very enjoyable book.



2. What a wonderful book, the photographs are stunning, the stories of all the places along the west cosast of Vancouver Island are compelling. Elsie Hulsizer's book is a pleasure to read. From her descriptions of this rugged coast to her portraits of the people encounterd along the way, you will enjoy every story and anecdote. I encourage anyone who enjoys adventure, natural beauty, historical perspective or sailing to order this book. Whether for your own pleasure or as a special gift, this is a delightful book.



3. As a child author Elsie Hulsizer spent her summers sailing in a small sailboat with hr parents, and as an adult she and her husband spent their summers sailing out of Puget Sound and up the straight of Juan de Fuca - also to windward, where they explored the west coast of Vancouver Island over a twenty-year period. VOYAGES TO WINDWARD: SAILING ADVENTURES ON VANCOUVER ISLAND'S WEST COAST charts these journeys and discoveries, using the author's photos to present their journeys in a set of vivid adventures which will appeal to both armchair readers and would-be Vancouver Island sailors. A gorgeous display of color photos throughout makes VOYAGES TO WINDWARD an exciting visual display, spiced with high adventure and not a few practical tips.
   
   Diane C. Donovan
   California Bookwatch

1 comments about Vancouver & Victoria For Dummies (For Dummies (Travel)).

1. It has a lot of candid and very useful information to supplement what I found on the internet. It alerted me to things that I might not have considered otherwise. I especially liked the inclusion of URLs to pertinent websites for more information. The transportation system in Vancouver is excellent, but determining routes takes a little research.

No comments about 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver.

No comments about Drive Around Vancouver & British Columbia, 2nd: Your guide to great drives. Top 25 Tours. (Drive Around - Thomas Cook).

No comments about Insight City Guide Vancouver (Insight City Guides (Book & Restaruant Guide)).

No comments about Vancouver Island Map by ITMB.

5 comments about Vancouver (City Guide).

1. The book contains a lot of information for sure. The thing is for a first time visitor it does not really provide a big help. Which things are a must to see? The book does not say. Instead the reader is forced to read each every section of the book because the book is divided into sections, each covering a part of the city.

   All in all it is a bit disappointing.




2. I read reviews of the last version and the Lonely Planet people have really taken on board the feedback people gave. Its easy to read, VERY up to date and has some great additions. A great top 10 things to do in Vancouver, it details the top restaurants, good summaries of local areas etc. Its a brilliant overview and now we have our trip all maped out! Its well laid out and the use of color is helpful too. One of the best city guides I've seen.



3. Whether you are planning to visit Vancouver as a tourist, or you are doing preliminary research about it as a potential permanent destination later in your life, Lonely Planet Vancouver sums it all up nicely for you. The first few pages do a great job of giving the newcomer a birdseye view of the city's composition, lifestyle, culture, etc. The book moves on to cover other aspects from dining to outdoors activities and much more in a detailed yet not overwhelming way.
   
   The only shortcoming this guide (as well as other Lonely Planet books) has is a lack of more pictures, which other series such as DK's Eyewitness Travel Guides excel at. However the competing book about Vancouver in that series is nowhere near as comprehensive as this one.



4. I tend to buy a small guide to carry around and a bigger one such as lonely planet that has more indepth information, but this trip I didn't use the lonely planet that much and stuck with the Top 10 travel guide most of the time, although I suppose it helped that I was visiting someone who lives in Vancouver. I highly recommend the top 10 guide (much better to carry around for quick access of info.) The benefit of the Lonely planet guide I think is to use it ahead of time when planning things out and using the book info to supplement internet research.



5. Perhaps erroneously, I expect Lonely Planet guides to cater to the smart and budget-conscious traveler. Far too many of the hotels and especially the restaurants in this guide were waaay out of my price range. Further, the writer recommends Granville Island as a must-see of artists studios and a farmer's market, when it was actually a Disneyland version of such. Lastly, her chipper enthusiasm for diversity-as-consumer-product chafed. Better to get Douglas Coupland's City of Glass; it's not a guidebook per se, but it's a better guide.

No comments about British Columbia South (Calgary to Vancouver) Map by ITMB.

5 comments about Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings.

1. Let me see if I can write a review that does justice to this book and at the same time explain to myself why it is such a great piece of literature.
   
   I think the first point to make is that the writing mirrors the, by turns, eddying, chaotic, reflective quality of the sea itself, leading one deeper and deeper into the author's own meandering introspections about life and, yes, water in a very (to this reader anyway) seductive style, a style which is nothing if not allusive, reflecting Raban's own lifelong fascination with and profound love of literature. The account of Captain Vancouver's voyage along this same passage, taken from many sources, while certainly the most superficially parallel and certainly the most discursively ongoing of the allusions, is not in the end, the most significant and profound. That award must surely go to Raban's recounting of Shelley's last days and ultimate demise in the chapter entitled "Charred Remains", striking a parallel, in a much more profound manner than those accounts of Vancouver's voyage, to the last days and death of Raban's father and to the unsurpassed final chapter in which he invokes Cowper's "The Cast-Away" as a metaphor for his crumbling marriage and his own mortality.
   
   Perhaps one, like Raban, has to already have a love of and familiarity both these poets to see what a feat he has pulled of here - though Raban provides the basic biographical background for each. To stick with the last chapter---Cowper isn't a poet much read anymore. But he's always been one of my favourites. One really has to be familiar with his intensely unbalanced life and mind to fully appreciate his poetry. In any event, by this last chapter of the book, we know what it's like to walk in Raban's shoes, to be in his boat, to wander through his mind and heart and to know how much he loves his family. When the hammer falls at the end with his wife and daughter deplaning in Juneau, we feel how crushed he is by it. And Cowper's "The Cast-Away" is the perfect poetic expression of the way we feel he feels, drowned not by the "real" sea he's been traversing, but by Cowper's metaphoric sea of despair. I frequently return to Cowper's "The Task"-A poem given him as a sort of assignment to ward off one of his mental fits-as well as "The Cast-Away" as two of the greatest poems in the language. I NEVER thought I'd see a modern author apparently effortlessly bring the despair of the all but forgotten poet back to life, but......Raban does.
   
   So, yes, readers looking for a "sea adventure" yarn had better look elsewhere. How to know if you will fancy the book? Do you love history, English literature, introspective depths? Above all, do you know the feeling of being drowned by despair? Can you relate to Cowper's couplet?
   
   "But I, beneath a rougher sea,
   And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he."
   
   In short, do you know that INNER Sea? If so, this book will not disappoint.



2. I've read many of Mr Raban's books and loved them all but this is my favorite. This isn't just a "travel" book, it's the history of the beautiful Inside Passage. You really feel like you are on Mr Raban's boat as he travels from Seattle, where he lives, to Juneau. He recounts the history of all the travellers who went before him - how certain Sounds and Inlets got their names - tells you about the people he meets - the things he sees - and shares a little piece of his own life history as he travels. During this journey he deals with the death of his Father and his upcoming divorce from his wife. He is a master storyteller. I live on the Puget Sound and have scuba dived up and down this Passage - this book brings the whole area to life. If you haven't enjoyed Mr Raban's prose before now, start here. You'll be hooked.



3. I tend to ignore author Raban's political diatribes (most of his writing, unfortunately) and revel in the beauty of his books about his personal boat journeys. I had earlier read "Old Glory: A Voyage Down The Mississippi" and felt that it lost focus about halfway through the narrative. That book seemed to reflect the desperate lack of focus and national malaise that the Carter administration brought on in the late 70's, and "Old Glory" would not be a Raban book I'd recommend.
   
   However, Passage to Juneau is different. His solo journey by sailboat from Seattle to Juneau in the late 1990s is beautifully written with haunting scenes of his personal life interspersed with his musings on the sea. During the journey, his father dies and his wife demands a separation, the first personal tragedy giving Raban insight into his personal feelings about life and the sea, the second (at the midpoint of his journey, reaching Juneau) causing him to focus inward for the return trip to Seattle.
   
   Despite his occasional lapses towards anti-americanism (throughout the book I kept wondering why he didn't move back to England or at least move north to British Columbia), Passage to Juneau is an intimate portrait of a man who is facing life's trials and the vagaries of some of the more treacherous seas in the world at the same time.



4. Raban deftly weaves George Vancouver's expedition with his own journey up North America's West Coast two centuries later.
   
   Introspective and heartfelt, the book is in parts auto-biography, travel-guide and biography. As a Passage to Juneau unwinds, Raban describes situations and others with great perception, yet is never afraid to expose his own frailties.
   
   Passage to Juneau is beautifully written and explores Raban's thoughts every bit as much as the miles of water he covers. A tremendous book and fully deserving of the great praise it has received.



5. The best thing about this book is that it tells you what _else_ to read if you really want to learn about the history and culture of the Inside Passage. The worst thing about the book is that Raban's ego, maybe buoyed by the success of Bad Land, is out of control. Bad Land is a great book about a place. Passage to Juneau is half about the place, half about Raban and what an untamable nomad (but somehow a devoted father) he is, and neither is particularly satisfactory.

No comments about Vancouver Popout Map.