About the Book

An inspiring and eye-opening collection of true stories about sixteen women who blazed their own trails in life and contributed in a fundamental way to the history of Vancouver Island and the surrounding islands.

In this fascinating follow-up to On Their Own Terms, author Haley Healey chronicles the lives of a whole new crop of resilient, hard-working, rule-breaking, diverse women who lived on and around Vancouver Island. Flourishing and Free introduces readers to Sylvia Stark, who was born into slavery in Missouri and went on to become a homesteader on Salt Spring Island; Mary Ann Croft, the first female lighthouse keeper in all of Canada; Victoria Chung, the first Asian-Canadian person to earn a medical degree, who provided urgent care during the Second World War; Barbara Touchie (Sičquuʔuƛ), who dedicated forty years of her life to revitalizing and sharing the Nuu-chah-nulth language; Minnie Paterson, who completed an epic night hike through a west coast storm to rescue sailors shipwrecked on a tempestuous shoreline known as the “Graveyard of the Pacific”; and many more. Uplifting, empowering, and entertaining, this concise collection of stories will appeal to anyone interested in learning more about the unsung heroines of the West Coast.