Hammerstone: A Biography of Hornby Island

Spring 2001

Paperback 168 pages

Non-Fiction

Hammerstone follows Hornby Island from its molten birth in the South Pacific to the present. In a carefully woven narrative, Fletcher tells the tale of an island in the Gulf of Georgia on the West Coast of Canada. The story starts nearly 350 million years ago. It has not ended.

Hammerstone is a book about time: geological, mythical, cyclical, and the present. In geological time, the journey begins underwater and takes us north on the back of a moving Pacific Ocean plate. Millions of years later we emerge on an island where dinosaurs feed on gingko and cycad trees, and carniverous snails search the sea floor for food. Much later, following earthquakes, four ice ages and four interglacials, we attend a Coast Salish festival where we dance, and feast on whale meat.