The Discovery of Weather
In the mid-nineteenth century, the new science of weather forecasting was fraught with controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, a bitter dispute about the nature of storms had raged for decades, and forecasting was hampered by turf wars then halted by the Civil War. Forecasters in England struggled with the scientific establ …
Strange & Supernatural
Spine chilling accounts of school hauntings after the Halifax Explosion, premonitions of the Titanic tragedy, the phantom reappearance of the Yarmouth, the Great Amherst Poltergeist Mystery, the cursing of the Narrows area in Halifax Harbour, and the famous "Bell Island Hag" in Newfoundland are just some of the supernatural stories found in this co …
Small Town Glory
How did the Kenora Thistles become, against all odds, the smallest team and the smallest town ever to win the Stanley Cup?
This famously scrappy hockey team was founded in the rough and tumble town of Kenora, Ontario, at the end of the 19th century. A decade later, playing far away from home, in Montreal, the fiery teenagers whom the Montreal Star d …
The Rise of the New West
This one-volume history chronicles a 150-year history of dramatic changes in fortune and attitudes in western Canada.
From the Riel Rebellions and the Winnipeg General Strike to the founding of the CCF, Social Credit, and Reform parties, Canada's West has always been a hotbed of political, social, and economic change. In the early twentieth century …
Tecumseh
This is the biography of Tecumseh, a legendary nineteenth century Shawnee warrior, a hero of the War of 1812 and a man who spent most of his life trying to build a Native confederacy to withstand the pressure on native lands from American settlement.
It also tells the story of his younger brother Lalawethika and of Lalawethika's transformation from …
Canada's Bastions of Empire
This book offers a fresh perspective on North American history, and the key role played by Halifax and Victoria in ensuring that Canada emerged as an independent country in the 20th century.
Brian Elson focuses on the significance of the bases for the all-powerful British navy at Halifax and Victoria through the 19th century and the First World Wa …
The Dominion of Youth
Adolescence, like childhood, is more than a biologically defined life stage: it is also a sociohistorical construction. The meaning and experience of adolescence are reformulated according to societal needs, evolving scientific precepts, and national aspirations relative to historic conditions. Although adolescence was by no means a “discovery” …
44 Hours or Strike!
The Toronto Dressmakers’ Strike of 1931 brings young sisters Sophie and Rose together in their fight for better working conditions, decent wages, and for their union. It’s a tough battle as distrust and resentment of immigrants is growing, with many people blaming their poverty and difficulties on these workers. Sophie and Rose are faced with u …
Maggie and the Chocolate War
It’s 1947, and while the second world war is over and ration tickets are gone, food prices are going up. Then it is announced that the price of chocolate is going up too! Maggie and her friends leap into action and plan a strike against the price hike.
Phenomenal Female Entrepreneurs
This collection of biographies profiles ten creative business leaders who have proven that entrepreneurial women can not only succeed in business, they can also bring about positive change. Against all odds, African-American Madam C.J. Walker, born in 1867, became a self-made millionaire who promoted civil rights and opposed racism. Designer Doroth …
The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History
In The Canadian Labour Movement, historian Craig Heron tells the story of Canada's workers from the mid-nineteenth century through to today, painting a vivid picture of key developments such as the birth of craft unionism, the breakthroughs of the fifties and sixties, and the setbacks of the early twenty-first century.
This new edition has been comp …
Queen of the Hurricanes
Elsie MacGill achieved many firsts in science and engineering at a time when women were considered to be inferior in the sciences. In 1923, at the age of nineteen, she became the first woman to attend engineering classes at the University of Toronto. She was the first woman in North America to hold a degree in aeronautical engineering and the first …
Unlikely Diplomats
In 1951, Canada sent troops to western Europe to support its NATO allies. The brigade helped Canada establish its international status. In private, however, Canadian officials and military leaders expressed grave doubts about NATO's strategies and operational plans. Despite these reservations, they sent military families overseas and implemented pe …
Letters from a Lady Rancher
A spirit of adventure, a great sense of fun, an observant eye, and enthusiasm for everything new--that's the kind of woman Monica Hopkins was, and that's what led her to leave the comforts of her English family home in 1909 to homestead on the prairies.
Hopkins was a young bride who had finally married her childhood sweetheart, an Irish lad who'd wa …
Debts to Pay
Written by a respected western Canadian writer, Debts to Pay offers a fresh point of view on the perennial questions of Quebec's place in the Canadian federation.
Rejecting the hardline positions of both sovereigntists and federalists, Conway attempts to understand Quebec's demands by understanding its history. Through a discussion of relations be …
Roberta Bondar
"The feeling in space flight is like hanging by your heels...with all the blood rushing to your head. ...You feel as though you are at the top of a roller coaster when your stomach feels like it is going to lift off." - Dr. Roberta Bondar. This book will be especially fascinating for all readers interested in: biography or space exploration. From t …
The Voyage of the Komagata Maru
Released to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the arrival of the Komagata Maru, this expanded and fully revised edition will stand as the most thoroughly researched account of the notorious Komagata Maru incident. The event centres on the ship’s nearly four hundred Punjabi passengers, who sought entry into Canada at Vancouver in the summe …
From UI to EI
Established in 1940 in response to the Great Depression, the original goal of Canada’s system of unemployment insurance was to ensure the protection of income to the unemployed. Joblessness was viewed as a social problem and the jobless as its unfortunate victims. If governments could not create the right conditions for full employment, they were …
African Canadians in Union Blue
When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he also authorized the army to recruit black soldiers. Nearly 200,000 men answered the call. Several thousand came from Canada. What compelled these men to leave the relative comfort and safety of home to fight in a foreign war? In African Canadians in Union Blue, Richard Reid sets out in search of …
Hobnobbing with a Countess and Other Okanagan Adventures
In 1891, Alice Barrett moved from Port Dover, Ontario, to the Okanagan Valley to keep house for her brother and uncle. She soon married Harold Parke, a former NWMP officer, and spent the next decade recording her experiences in a series of notebooks sent to her Ontario family. Few women’s diaries have survived from that time, and Barrett Parke re …
Parties Long Estranged
This book brings together recent and original work to illuminate comparisons and contrasts between two former colonies of the British empire. The contributors include some of the top names in history and political science, in Canada and Australia. Parties Long Estranged covers the entire 20th century and examines different aspects of Canadian-Austr …
Stepping Stones to Nowhere
The Aleutian Islands, a mostly forgotten portion of the United States on the southwest coast of Alaska, have often assumed a key role in American military strategy. But for most Americans, prior to the Second World War, the bleak and barren islands were of little interest. In Stepping Stones to Nowhere, Galen Perras shows how that changed with the …
Feminist History in Canada
In the late 1970s, feminists urged us to “rethink” Canada by placing women’s experiences at the centre of historical analysis. Forty years later, women’s and gender historians continue to take up the challenge, not only to interrogate the idea of nation but also to place their work in a global perspective. This volume showcases the work of …
From Slave Girls to Salvation
For decades, the Chinese Rescue Home was a feature of the landscape of Victoria, British Columbia. Originally a refuge for Chinese prostitutes and slave girls rescued from captivity, it became a residence and school where the Methodist Women’s Missionary Society attempted to reform Chinese and Japanese girls and women. They did so, in part, by te …
The Politics of Procurement
In 1993, Canada’s Liberal Party cancelled an order to replace the navy’s Sea King helicopter. It claimed that the Tory plan was too expensive, but the cancellation itself actually cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Aaron Plamondon connects this incident to the larger evolution of defence procurement in Canada, revealing that partis …
Conflicting Visions
In 1974, India shocked the world by detonating a nuclear device. In the diplomatic controversy that ensued, the Canadian government expressed outrage that India had extracted plutonium from a Canadian reactor donated only for peaceful purposes. In the aftermath, relations between the two nations cooled considerably. As Conflicting Visions reveals, …
Unwanted Warriors
Unwanted Warriors uncovers the history of Canada’s first casualties of the Great War – men who tried to enlist but were deemed “unfit for service.” What impact did military exclusion have on these men? Nic Clarke looks for answers in the service files of 3,400 rejected volunteers and explores the mechanics of the medical examination, the ph …
Elusive Destiny
A political biography extraordinaire, Elusive Destiny reveals the inner workings of the Liberal Party in its heyday as charted through the meteoric rise and fall of John Napier Turner. It highlights Turner’s vision for the country and tallies the political price he paid when he deviated from the Trudeau legacy on matters such as language rights, …
In Mixed Company
In Mixed Company explores taverns as colonial public space and how men and women of diverse backgrounds – Native and newcomer, privileged and labouring, white and non-white – negotiated a place for themselves within them. The stories that emerge unsettle comfortable certainties about who belonged where in colonial society. Colonial taverns were …
Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941
Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891-1941 is a fascinating investigation of Japanese migration to Canada prior to the Second World War. It makes Japanese-language scholarship on the subject available for the first time, and also draws on interviews, diaries, community histories, biographies, and the author’s own family history.
Starting with the …
Parties and Party Systems
Party systems. Party organization. For too long, scholars researching in these two areas have worked in isolation. This book bridges the divide by bringing together political scientists from both traditions to examine the intersection of rules, society, and the organization of parties within party systems. Blending theory and case studies, Parties …
Militia Myths
This cultural history of the amateur military tradition traces the origins of the citizen soldier ideal from long before Canadians donned khaki and boarded troopships for the Western Front. Before the Great War, Canada’s military culture was in transition as the country navigated an uncertain relationship with the United States and fought an impe …
Go Home Bay
In 1914, Tom Thomson spent the summer at a family cottage on Lake Huron’s Georgian Bay, where he taught the ten-year-old daughter, Helen, how to paint. Author Susan Vande Griek and illustrator Pascal Milelli have imagined this time through Helen’s eyes, providing an intriguing glimpse into the famous painter’s life.
Helen and her father greet …
Canada under Attack
Most history books make a joke of it, but Canada faced a serious military threat in the 1860s -- and came under multiple attacks by military forces based in the United States. It took the combined effort of British troops in Canada and the Canadian militia -- plus some good luck -- to repel the invaders and end the threat. The experience helped pus …
Loyalist Rebellion in New Brunswick
The American refugees who fled north to Canada after Britain's defeat by the revolutionary U.S. army were determined to build a culture separate from the U.S. By their numbers and their politics they became effectively the founders of English Canada.
In 1784 Britain carved out the new province, New Brunswick, for these Loyalist refugees, creating a …
Rum, Blood & Treasure
This great collection of stories strange but true is for every reader who loves history -- and mystery. Edward Butts weaves true tales -- the wreck of the Francis and the weird connection to Edward, Duke of Kent; the sea voyage of Charles Coghlan's coffin; Captain Jack Randell the rum-runner; Al Capone's gunman Bugs Moran and more!
This collection o …
Halifax at War
From early September, 1939 Halifax was at war. When the war began, people gathered along the waterfront to watch the fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy leave. For the next six years, the city was uniquely affected by the war's events. Halifax at War explores this transformation of the city and civilian life, making use of a rich blend of historical, …
Inventing Academic Freedom
In 1968, there was political ferment everywhere. In Paris, students were in the streets. In the U.S., civil rights, the Vietnam War, and protests against the draft brought out millions. In this atmosphere, a young Jewish-American professor in the quiet town of Fredericton, New Brunswick sparked a controversy that established the principles of acade …
One Hundred Stories for One Hundred Years
For 100 years, Wood’s Homes has offered a lifeline to children and their families who have nowhere else to turn. A multiservice, non-profit children’s mental health organization based in Calgary, Wood’s Homes serves communities throughout Alberta and in the Northwest Territories. In honour of the 100th anniversary of Wood’s Homes in 2014, t …
Ghost Town Stories of Ontario
Ontario is rich in ghost towns, communities that were once thriving but which have been reduced to mere shadows of their former selves. Nine villages -- including silver camps, fishing ports, crossroads hamlets, and farming settlements -- come alive on the pages of this book. The term 'ghost town' invariably conjures up images of fog-shrouded cemet …
Disaster at Dieppe
In the early morning of August 19, 1942, over five thousand Canadian troops landed on the beach at Dieppe to reclaim the shore from German troops occupying France. It was a mission doomed from the start. Mere hours later, over two-thirds of the men were dead, wounded, or taken prisoner by German forces. It was the worst disaster in Canadian militar …
Heroes of the Acadian Resistance
Heroes of the Acadian Resistance tells the unique and little-known story of the young men who led an Acadian resistance in 18th century Nova Scotia. They fought valiantly in a guerilla campaign against the British to save their homes and families from destruction and deportation.
Their battle was against a form of ethnic cleansing that saw British s …
Bittersweet Passage
Maryka Omatsu’s family was among those whose lives were shattered and properties taken by the Canadian government’s harsh and racist actions against Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. Bittersweet Passage is a moving account of the Japanese Canadian struggle to come to terms with a painful history. It is also the story of the author …
From Kitchen to Carnegie Hall
In the 1940s it was unheard of for women to be members of a professional orchestra, let alone play “masculine” instruments like the bass or trombone. Yet despite these formidable challenges, the Montreal Women’s Symphony Orchestra (MWSO) became the only all-women orchestra in Canadian history. Formed in 1940, the MWSO became the first orchest …
At the Far Reaches of Empire
Capitán de Navío Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra was the most important Spanish naval officer on the Northwest Coast in the eighteenth century. Serving from 1774 to 1794, he participated in the search for the Northwest Passage and, with George Vancouver, endeavoured to forge a diplomatic resolution to the Nootka Sound controversy between Spa …
Home Is the Hunter
Since 1970 in Quebec, there has been immense change for the Cree, who now live with the consequences of Quebec’s massive development of the North. Home Is the Hunter presents the historical, environmental, and cultural context from which this recent story grows. Hans Carlson shows how the Cree view their lands as their home, their garden, and the …
The Business of Women
Throughout history, Western women have inhabited a conceptual space divorced from the world of business. But women have always engaged in business. Who were these women, and how were they able to justify their work outside the home? The Business of Women explores the world of those women who embraced British Columbia’s frontier ethos in the early …
Landing Native Fisheries
Landing Native Fisheries reveals the contradictions and consequences of an Indian land policy premised on access to fish, on one hand, and a program of fisheries management intended to open the resource to newcomers, on the other. Beginning with the first treaties signed on Vancouver Island between 1850 and 1854, Douglas Harris maps the connections …
The Reluctant Land
The Reluctant Land describes the evolving pattern of settlement and the changing relationships of people and land in Canada from the end of the fifteenth century to the Confederation years of the late 1860s and early 1870s. It shows how a deeply indigenous land was reconstituted in European terms, and, at the same time, how European ways were recal …
Inventing Stanley Park
In early December 2006, a powerful windstorm ripped through Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The storm transformed the city’s most treasured landmark into a tangle of splintered trees and shattered a decades-old vision of the park as timeless virgin wilderness. In Inventing Stanley Park, Sean Kheraj traces how the tension between popular expectations …