Maple Leaf Limited Edition Fleece Jackets These cozy jackets, embroidered with the Maple Leaf sails logo, are great to look at. They'll keep you warm while you're aboard or at home.

Plus, in keeping with our responsible tourism principles, they are made by a socially-responsible company in working conditions that pass their stringent requirements (and surprise site inspections). The custom embroidery is done in Victoria, B.C., where our office is located.

The jackets are made of good-quality fleece that will keep you warm on the ocean. Their design reflects attention to detail with soft lining around the neck, zipper "garages" and handy breast or sleeve pockets for key-sized items, in addition to regular pockets.

There are two styles: a cropped, tailored style that many women like; and a standard (unisex) style.

See colour and size information below for your choice.

Cropped & Tailored Style
Favoured by many women
Colours: Black    Blue

Size: S, M, L, XL, XXL
See sizing chart
Price: Cdn $65

Standard Looser Style
Colours: Black    Dark Red-Oragne

Size: S, M, L, XL, XXL
See sizing chart
Price: Cdn $65

Please note: We are a boutique tourism company, not an apparell warehouse, so supplies are limited. Please choose carefully the style and size that will fit you best, as we are unable to guarantee we can exchange your purchase for another, although we will do our best. Sometimes forces out of our control mean that a certain colour may not be available.

A Year on the Wild Side by Briony Penn
$15.95
Subject: Nature Essays
Subject Area: Applicable to Entire Coast

"This is a collection of natural history essays and drawings based on and around Saltspring, in the Gulf Islands; they have been selected from weekly columns originally published in BC's 'Monday Magazine', and arranged to provide a round of the year.

In other hands this could be a direly predictable - and predictably dry - set of observations, but there's nothing predictable or dry about Briony Penn - her wit is sharp, wry, often quirky, and always humane, even when she laments the evidence of human folly in abusing the environment.

The observations, too, are full of gusto, but yet penetrating, and entirely eclectic; nothing is too slimy, too squidgy, too prickly, too creepy-crawly. A strong sense of enthusiastic gum-booted intimacy with nature comes through, but also a strong sense of underpinning ecological understanding based on sustained close field study and intensive background reading.

Because there is something of the clear-eyed close-peering child in Briony Penn's vision, her book will probably appeal hugely to kids, but adults too can read it with much enjoyment, and learn much of value, both factual and philosophical, at the same time. A little gem, and quite unique of its sort."

From an online review by Robert Aitken. We couldn't have said it better!

The Great Bear Rainforest by Ian McAllister and Karen McAllister, with Cameron Young, forward by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
$39.95 Subject: Nature/Geography/Photography
Subject Area: Great Bear Rainforest (BC Coast)

The southern half of Canada's west coast is justly famous for its fabulous scenery and pitched battles to save remnants of its magnificent coniferous forest-but what about the northern half?

Between Vancouver island and Alaska, the mainland BC coast winds through a 250-mile wonderland of forested islands and inlets every bit as enchanting as the southern half, but still very much as nature created it, a wonderfully complex and delicate rainforest masterpiece ten thousand years in the making. The area is one of the northern hemisphere's richest unprotected wildlife habitats, the home of Canada's largest grizzly bears as well as the rare all-white spirit or Kermode bear.

Ian and Karen McAllister, both environmental campaigners, have spent over ten years exploring, photographing and researching this once-forgotten coast.

The book contains over 150 stunning colour photographs, including some of the most extraordinary images of wild bears ever seen in print, lush river valleys where grizzly bears feast on salmon, dramatic Coast Range mountaintops, exotic plants of the ancient rainforest, and some of the most magnificent coastline in Canada. With these photographs, a personable, informative commentary by Ian and Karen and environmental writer Cameron Young, and full-colour maps and drawings, this book is the first to unveil the beauty and magnificence of this unique place.

Since 1990, fourteen large rainforest valleys on the mainland coast of British Columbia have been lost to industrial logging. The publication of The Great Bear Rainforest aided Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Ian and Karen McAllister's Raincoast Preservation Society and other environmental groups successfully lobby BC's provincial government for a moratorium on grizzly-bear hunting and the protection of a large portion of the area as parkland in 2001.

The Last Island: A Naturalist's Sojurn on Triangle Island
By Alison Watt
$34.95
Subject: Nature/Narrative Nonfiction/Art
Subject Area: Applicable to Entire Coast, esp. exposed west coast

At twenty-three, Alison Watt left the comfort of a relationship and urban life to spend four months studying tufted puffins on Triangle Island, a remote bird sanctuary far off the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

She spent her summer in the company of Anne Vallée, a serious young biologist whose dedication to her field made her a formidable and inspiring mentor. Now, in the sixteen years since Watt last visited the island, Anne has died, and from the moment Watt arrives to do more research, she is flooded with memories of the summer they spent together.

Told in a gripping diary form, The Last Island blends native legends, evolutionary theory, scientific knowledge and an appreciation for the delicate balance required for creatures as small as krill and as large as fin whales to survive. Watt brings the island to life, recreating through sensual detail the sounds, smells, sights, tastes and textures of this desolate bird haven. Perhaps even more importantly, she recreates the jagged inner landscape of a young woman worn and warmed by months of seclusion.

With watercolours by Alison.