Billy Proctor, resident legend of Echo Bay, BC, recounts almost a century’s worth of experience with this collection of stories, memories and local knowledge of the central BC coast region around Blackfish Sound. Situated in the beautiful Broughton Archipelago between northern Vancouver Island and the mainland coast, this region boasts a history and culture as engaging as its stunning locale—and nobody tells its story quite like Proctor.A lifelong fisherman, trapper, logger and, in...

Bill Proctor worked in the House of Commons for thirty-six years at the latter end of the last century. He served in various procedural offices, and as clerk of the committees on Science & Technology, Transport, Foreign Affairs, and the Treasury, as well as secretary of the House of Commons Commission. He wrote the 1978 report of the Procedure Committee, rightly described by the Guardian as an agenda for the rest of the century, which became the blueprint for changes which transformed the ...

The view 16-year-old Thomas Osborne first had of Muskoka was at night, trudging alone with his even younger brother along unmarked primitive roads to find their luckless father who, in 1875, had decided to make a new start for his beleaguered family on some "free land" in the bush east of the pioneer village of Huntsville, Ontario. The miracle is that Thomas lived to tell the tale.For the next five years Thomas endured starvation, falling through the ice and freezing, accidents wit...

**A National Post Bestseller!How did Tom Thomson die in the summer of 1917?**Was landscape painter Tom Thomson shot by poachers, or by a German-American draft dodger? Did a blow from a canoe paddle knock him unconscious and into the water? Was he fatally injured in a drunken fight? Did he end his life out of fear of being forced to marry his pregnant girlfriend?Commemorating the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of the renowned Canadian landscape paint...

On a warm spring day in June of 1914, two hundred and thirty-five men went down into the depths of the Hillcrest mine found in Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass. Only forty-six would make it out alive. The largest coal-mining disaster in Canadian history, the fateful tale of the Hillcrest Mine is finally captured in startling detail by Stephen Hanon.A deft examination of the coal mining industry in an Alberta just on the cusp of the Great War, The Devil’s Breath is a startling reco...

On April 29, 2011, Prince William of Wales married Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey in London. The newlyweds' first royal tour took place in Canada from June 30 to July 8. People across the country rejoiced with the couple as they made their way through a land that holds special significance for the Royal Family, emphasizing and renewing the bond with Canada. This was not the Duke of Cambridges first trip "home to Canada," since he accompanied his parents, Charles and Diana, in 199...

Terry Copp’s tireless teaching, research, and writing has challenged generations of Canadian veterans, teachers, and students to discover an informed memory of their country’s role in the Second World War. This collection, drawn from the work of Terry’s colleagues and former students, considers Canada and the Second World War from a wealth of perspectives.Social, cultural, and military historians address topics under five headings: The Home Front, The War of the Scientists, The Med...

In his third book, The Junction, John Schreiber invites us to join him on a journey into the hidden corners of BC’s Cariboo Chilcotin, where he observes and describes a land of mountains and old trails, coyotes and bighorn sheep, Aboriginal folk, homesteaders, ranchers and the stories of long ago.Driven by his love of this land, Schreiber wanders the hills, mountains and valleys visiting old-time characters and old friends. He wakes to the sound of coyotes howling next to ...

On their march towards the Somme, and Beaumont Hamel, the young men of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment raised their voices to sing “When the Great Red Dawn is Shining,” a song about returning home to the people they love. Howard Morry was one of the young men who managed to make it back. And now, one hundred years after the events that changed his life, we hear Morry’s voice, in these pages, rising from the silence to recount his days with the famed Regiment. In memoirs expertly selected a...

This is the story of a rebellious girl from British Columbia who travelled the world in pursuit of her calling only to find her true inspiration in the Canadian landscape she’d left behind. Both a prolific painter and an accomplished writer, Carr was more comfortable in the raw wilderness than in the tea rooms of London, and more at home with her unique pets than with the people around her. Despite numerous setbacks and disappointments, she persevered to become the West Coast’s most celebr...

Thousands of children attended summer camps in twentieth-century Ontario. Did parents simply want a break, or were broader developments at play? The Nurture of Nature explores how competing cultural tendencies – antimodern nostalgia and modern sensibilities about the landscape, child rearing, and identity – shaped the development of summer camps and, consequently, modern social life in North America. A valuable resource for those interested in the connections between the history o...

Between Two Women is a serious, yet humourous account of growing up in Stratford, Ont., in the 1930s and ’40. It tells the story of the relationship between Bruce and the two women who shaped his identity his mother and grandmother."I was the peacemaker between my two caregivers, my mother and my grandmother," Woods quipped "It was a great experience, taught me how to write funny."Between Two Women is the first book in the Between series and it covers the first 16 years of ...