This is a chronicle of one of the many ethnic groups in Canada, a group of about 80,000 people of Czech and Slovak origin who now live in this country. In the authors' own words, "the book is addressed both to Canadian-Canadians and to Czech-and-Slovak Canadians (if there is such a distinction)." The latter will learn from it who their fellow citizens of similar origin are, where they came from, what they brought to this country, and how they succeeded here. The book provides the "Canadian...

“Because of the scarcity of cod in Conception Bay in the early 1920s, my father decided to go to the Labrador coast and try his luck as hundreds of others were doing. He went as a skipper with his own fishing crew. Mother used to go along to save the expense of a cook so, at an early age I was taken along with the family. By the time I was married, I had spent sixteen summers on the coast. Fifteen of those were spent at Batteau and the other one at Five Islands, a distance of five or six m...

From the Irish princess, taken prisoner by pirates, who fell in love with one of her captors and settled in Newfoundland, to the ardent courtship of Alexander Graham Bell and his bride-to-be, Mabel, this book celebrates the passion, the pain, and the romance of Canadian lovers through the ages.

From 1919 to 1970, Olaf Hanson was a trapper, fur trader, prospector, game guardian, fisherman, and road blasting expert in northeastern Saskatchewan. He told his life story to popular Saskatchewan author A. L. Karras, who wrote this historical memoir in the 1980s. In an uncompromising, straightforward style, Karras and Hanson reveal the geography, wildlife, natural history of the region as well as the business and social interactions between people. Their book offers a look at the vanishe...

A Good Day's Work is a lyrical journey through a semi-mythological place: the Canada of our imagination. It is the Canada of the day before yesterday. Or perhaps the Canada of 1967 -- the country's "Last Good Year," as Pierre Berton dubbed it. It is a portrait of Canada captured by way of encounters with a blacksmith, a cowgirl, a milkman, a traveling salesman and other custodians of trades from another time. Woven into the always engaging, sometimes strange, sometimes moving and ...

In October 1956, a spontaneous uprising took Hungarian Communist authorities by surprise, prompting Soviet authorities to invade the country. After a few days of violent fighting, the revolt was crushed. In the wake of the event, some 200,000 refugees left Hungary, 35,000 of whom made their way to Canada. This would be the first time Canada would accept so many refugees of a single origin, setting a precedent for later refugee initiatives. More than fifty years later, this collection focus...

A small river in a big city, the Don River Valley is often overlooked when it comes to explaining Toronto’s growth. With Reclaiming the Don, Jennifer L. Bonnell unearths the missing story of the relationship between the river, the valley, and the city, from the establishment of the town of York in the 1790s to the construction of the Don Valley Parkway in the 1960s. Demonstrating how mosquito-ridden lowlands, frequent floods, and over-burdened municipal waterways shaped the city’s...

Rig: An Oral History of the Ocean Ranger Disaster, a collection of first-person accounts and previously unpublished photographs, describes events as they unfolded from those most greatly affected-victims' families, former rig workers, emergency responders and government officials. It is an intimate journey through grief and sadness and the search for meaning in the most devasting of tragedies.

Seventeen year-old Larry Kinsella knows nothing of life beyond the city of Vancouver and when he first meets Benita Pigeon, a member of the Carrier Nation, he is drawn to her by their differences. Their brief, often tumultuous, relationship is brought to a calamitous end by an unwanted pregnancy and by Larry’s response to it. Consumed by anger and bitterness, Benita flees to her ancestral home where she struggles to adjust to a traditional way of life, while Larry, driven by guilt and remorse...

The Big Nickel. For 50 years it’s been one of Canada’s most recognizable landmarks. Finally, the complete story you’ve always wanted to know is ready to be told. Straight from the man who started it all, Ted Szilva shares his most intimate and personal details about how this incredible monument came to be. He’s been referred to as “the imagination, the driving force, the builder and the promoter of The Big Nickel.” This is the only authorized, complete account of his truly inspiration...

Voyageur Classics is a series that issues special new versions of Canadian classics, with added material and special introductions. In this bundle we find two classic works of Canadian historical writing. During three extraordinary years, 1805-1808, Simon Fraser undertook the third major expedition across North America, culminating in his famous journey down the river in British Columbia that now bears his name. Fraser’s exploratory efforts helped lead to Canada’s boundary later being decl...

Before the Second World War, Canada was a rural country. Unlike most industrializing countries, Canada’s rural population grew throughout the century after 1871 – even if it declined as a proportion of the total population. Rural Canadians also differed in their lives from rural populations elsewhere. In a country dominated by a harsh northern climate, a short growing season, isolated households and communities, and poor land, they typically relied on three ever-shifting pillars of support...