British Columbia's Jedediah Island is now a popular marine park, 640 acres of natural splendour tucked in between Texada and Lasqueti islands in the Strait of Georgia. But when Mary Palmer and her husband purchased the island half a century ago, they found out it could be challenging indeed to live in an isolated coastal paradise.

Jedediah Days is a rich, exuberant memoir of forty-five years on a secluded island. The book documents it all: the daily struggles and joys of maintaining a working farm; the experience of living on ruggedly beautiful land with abundant wildlife; the community spirit among fishermen, farmers, war vets, loggers, artists and hippies who were just a boat ride away-weather permitting.

Jedediah Days also shows that paradise can be a bit of a struggle. Read how Mary got rid of an insufferable guest by stranding the intruder aboard a log boom that happened to be crawling past the island on its way to distant mills. Years later, when residents of Texada, Lasqueti and Jedediah heard that a floating red-light hotel was going to be anchored off Jedediah, they engaged a prospector to do a little blasting at the intended site. And when Mary helped move her new caretakers and their ten children to Jedediah, she knew that the woman was nine months pregnant but she didn't know she'd be delivering the baby in the old homestead, with no access to telephone, transportation or medical facilities.

In the 1990s, when Mary and Al Palmer retired from Jedediah, they turned down lucrative real estate offers, and instead set out to ensure their beloved island would be preserved in its natural state and shared with the rest of the world. In March 1995, after an extraordinary public fundraising campaign, Jedediah was officially designated a Class A provincial marine park.

This book is Mary Palmer's story on the island between 1949 and 1994. The island's rich history is brought to life with an engaging text and almost 100 photos from the author's collection.

Mary Palmer's profile page