Book One Inspired : Echoes of Howe SoundLegacies Woven in time – Junko – A young Japanese-Indigenous orphan who survives the harsh coastal mountains of Howe Sound, embodying resilience, storytelling, and the preservation of ancestral memory.
– Mutton – The last known Coast Salish Woolly Dog, symbol of a vanishing lineage and the fragile threads of Indigenous heritage.
– Phyllis Munday (1894–1990) – A pioneering explorer who, from founding a Girl Guides company at 16 to scaling peaks with her husband Don, became a legend of the local mountains.
– George Gibbs (1815–1873) – Ethnologist and linguist whose work during the westward expansion helped record and preserve the languages and cultures of the Pacific Northwest.
– Captain John Andrew “Jack” Cates & Crew – Steamship pioneer who developed Bowen Island as a resort; his vessel Ballena sank at Vancouver’s Union Steamship wharf in 1920, claiming the life of deckhand Lawrence Smith and marking a tragic chapter in coastal history.
– Chief August Jack Khatsahlano (1877–1971) – Squamish medicine man and oral historian, whose recordings safeguarded the stories of his people and bridged Indigenous memory with settler history.
– Yip Bing (“Dr. Y.B.”) – A humble worker at Britannia Mining and Smelting, remembered as a community hero for his selfless service during the 1918 flu pandemic.
– Alex and Myrtle Philips – Visionary builders of Rainbow Lodge at Alta Lake, whose fishing retreat grew into one of the largest lodges west of Banff, forever shaping Whistler’s recreational legacy.
– The Pacific Great Eastern Railway (1914) – Its arrival through the valley transformed Howe Sound, fueling industry while opening paths for tourism and storytelling along the Pemberton Trail.
Sarah Luv Parker
Sarah Luv Parker is a writer and advocate whose work blends meticulous historical research with lyrical storytelling. As Organizational Chair of the Esquimalt–Saanich–Sooke EDA and an active voice for disability rights, she brings clarity, dignity, and resilience to both her advocacy and her art.
Her fiction is rooted in respect for Indigenous cultures and oral traditions, weaving Iñupiat, Ainu, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) names, chants, and symbolism into narratives that honour First Peoples and resist colonial erasure.
She treats writing as ritual—crafting sacred chants, invocations, and motifs that transform grief into renewal and story into legacy.
Sarah’s creative process is marked by technical precision and emotional depth. She experiments with clipped, urgent dialogue to heighten survival stakes, layers environmental realism into her settings, and develops animal characters with subtle individuality. Her stories are not only tales of endurance and connection, but also bridges between worlds.
When she is not immersed in her manuscripts, Sarah continues her work as an advocate for systemic reform in disability programs, striving to ensure justice and dignity for marginalized communities. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia, on the traditional lands and unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples represented by the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations and the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples represented by the Tsartlip, Pauquachin, Tsawout, Tseycum and Malahat Nations, where she writes with resilience, empathy, and an unwavering belief in the transformative power of story.
The Tale of Junko 