Women played a vital role in the shaping of the West in Canada between the 1880s and 1940s. Yet surprisingly little is known about their contributions or the differences sex and gender made to the opportunities and obstacles women encountered. Telling Tales contributes to the rewriting of western Canada's past by integrating women into the shifting power matrix of class, race, and gender that undergirded its colonization and settlement.

This book cover a range of topics – African-American settlement on Vancouver Island, prairie childbirth narratives, and Mennonites as domestic servants are but three examples. They focus on women of both minority and dominant cultures and reflect the West's characteristically mixed population. Telling Tales challenges founding myths of the region and invites a retelling of the story of western Canadian colonization and settlement.