The Sasquatch, the Fire and the Cedar Baskets (Paperback)

“Deep in the thickest part of a cedar forest there lived a young Sasquatch. He was over nine feet tall and his feet were about size twenty. He had long brown hair that covered all of his body. His hands were so big and his arms so long he could wrap them around the biggest of the cedar trees. He had been born here many years ago and he did not know his parents, as they had been scared away by a great fire. He was left on his own and he had survived by eating berries and he had grown into the Sasquatch he now was...”

So begins this charming story for children by Kwantlen storyteller Joseph Dandurand. The Sasquatch, spirit of the great cedar forest, eludes human hunters, falls in love, fathers a lovely daughter and saves his little family from a forest fire by dousing the flames with water stored in baskets carefully woven by his mate.

The story is told with grace and simplicity by a master storyteller in the great tradition of the Kwantlen people. Accompanied by whimsical illustrations from Kwakwaka’wakw artist Simon Daniel James, The Sasquatch, the Fire and the Cedar Baskets follows a similar style to popular Nightwood titles such as Salmon Boy, Mayuk the Grizzly Bear and How the Robin Got Its Red Breast.

Joseph Dandurand is a member of the Kwantlen First Nation, located on the Fraser River about twenty minutes east of Vancouver, BC. He resides there with his three children. Dandurand is the director of the Kwantlen Cultural Centre and the author of several children’s stories and books of poetry including The East Side of It All (2020), which was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2021, Dandurand received the BC Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence.

Simon Daniel James is an Indigenous artist from the Mamalilikulla/Kwicksutaineuk clans from the Kwakwaka’wakw nation. James began to draw in elementary school and to carve wood at the age of fifteen. He is an acclaimed painter and carver, and is also the co-creator of “Raven Tales,” the multi-award winning television show that introduces Indigenous stories to young audiences through CGI animation. He was born in Alert Bay, BC and currently lives on Bowen Island, BC.