For the most part, this Biblio-Mat offering looks like a run
of the mill turn of the century Canadian exploration book, and it is. However,
it does contain a nice little morsel of history within its pages.
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| Might've been original in the 1920's? |
Title: Tillicums of the Trail
Written by George C. F. Pringle and published in 1922,
Tillicums of the Trail looks and feels like a book that’s nearing a hundred
years old. With 253 faded acid-washed pages sandwiched between burnt orange
cloth covers, it begs to be written off as another one of those books that are
old enough to garner some sort of respect, but not interesting enough to
actually pick up. That is, until you open it.
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| Like a tree, it is! |
After a certain incident, I try to stay as far away from any
books with “Trail” in the title but this one did pique my curiosity in that I
had no idea what a Tillicum was outside of the name of one of the orcas in
Blackfish. Looking it up, it turns out
Tillicum is a Chinook word meaning people/family/tribe. Interesting, but not interesting
enough to actually spend time reading through it for me.
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| Couldn't have designed it better. |
What I did notice opening the book off the bat was that
there is a water stain on the inside cover that bled through the first thirty
pages, creating a gorgeous ring design that will no doubt be appropriated for one
of my future design projects.
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| Klondike - much better in ice cream form. |
The second, even more fascinating, thing I discovered is that
the book is signed by the author and given away with an inscription on the
inside cover.
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| Yep, that's a writer's scrawl. |
The handwriting is as you would expect from a writer and it
appears to say:
Mr. M. Macdonald –
For the sake of his good Scotish name and in appreciation of
a kind(?) reception at the N. P. Cover(?) in Sept. 1923 with the author’s
compliments.
George C. F> Pringle
Vauandes(?) BC.
Oct 1923
Inscriptions are always a fun find but ones written by the
author seem to add so much more value to the book as a piece of history.
Interesting for sure, but still probably won’t read it.
