This historical biography—based on the life of British Columbia pioneer John Muir—tells the amazing story of a family from Scotland who came out to Canada in the late 1840s to work as "consignee" labourers for the Hudson's Bay Company. Ashby recreates the story of the Muirs' struggle to develop a place for themselves in the hierarchic colony ruled by James Douglas. With their vision of a country based on democratic principles, the Muirs fought to bring a new way of life to the West Coast. Drawing on the Muir family diaries, Ashby recounts the family's voyage from Scotland, their first years of toil in the coal mines near Fort Rupert on northern Vancouver Island, and their challenge to the Company when they initiated what may have been the first strike in Canada. Muir went on to become a magistrate with his own sense of justice for the working man, and later a Member of the first Legislative Assembly. So fascinating is Muir's personality and so intriguing is his struggle for a democratic way of life that his life's story reads at times like a novel. Ashby is to be commended for vividly bringing back to life this historic figure, a man who deserves to be better known in his own right and for his contribution to the development of the West.

Daryl Ashby is an independent historian who has researched the lives of the Muir family for over a decade. He has searched out their original homesite at Fort Rupert on northern Vancouver Island and the site of their sawmill and home in Sooke. He is presently at work on a second book about early Canadian history. Ashby lives in Victoria with his wife and family.

Daryl Ashby's profile page

• Shortlisted for the Victoria Butler Book Prize and the BC Book Prize

“it depicts the hardships of early life in the colony and the Muirs' struggle for independence with extraordinary clarity.” — Canadian Book Review Annual

“An early colonial history of British Columbia’s first settler, John Muir, imagined as a prose ballad by Robbie Burns, this museum installation as heritage re-creation, this wee dram after a big meal of footnoted textbooks, is just the thing to dispel ghosts, or to bring them back to life.”—Harold Rhenisch

“Ashby is to be commended for bringing this amazing character to life in his book.”—Sooke News Mirror

“It depicts the hardships of early life in the colony and the Muirs' struggle for independence with extraordinary clarity.”—Canadian Book Review Annual

John Muir: West Coast Pioneer