Hugh W. McKervill's regional classic, The Salmon People, appeared in 1967 as a personal centennial project of the author. As the United Church minister in Bella Bella from 1959 to 1963, McKervill also owned and operated his own gillnetter. His observations of the 1,000 local Kwakiutl Indians and how they worked in the fishing industry have been reprinted with a new introduction by McKervill, who moved to Halifax as the Atlantic director of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. His first book Darby of Bella Bella (1964) recalled the preceding minister George Darby who served the Bella Bella people for 47 years from the United Church Mission hospital. In 1993 McKervill published his memoirs of the prairies, Sinbuster of Smoky Burn.