Shirlee Smith Matheson has been writing for over 30 years, with more than 20 books to her name. One of those books in the 1989 non-fiction work about the building of Dam projects in British Columbia, starting with the Bennett dam in the 1960's, moving on to warn of calamity if work on the Site C dam in northern B.C. carried on. "This Was Our Valley" initially hit the shelves three decades ago and won the Alberta Culture Non-Fiction Book Award. During 2019, Shirlee Smith Matheson re-issued the book she co-wrote with north Peace historian, Earl K. Pollen, updating the story with new reports from the Site C project.