One of the most turbulent periods in the history of prairie agriculture is chronicled in a new book about the life and times of Alexander “Mac” Runciman, the Saskatchewan farmer who led the United Grain Growers as president from 1961 to 1981. Mac Runciman earned the respect and admiration on both sides of the great agriculture debates of the 19 …

Manitoba has been at the crossroads of many of the important debates and events in Canadian history. From the early fur trade to the Riel Rebellion to the Winnipeg General Strike, Manitobans have frequently played crucial roles in Canadian and sometimes world history. Until now, there has been no comprehensive, contemporary source for information o …

My Parents: Memoirs of New World Icelanders is a collection of essays written by second-generation Icelandic immigrants in North America, describing the lives of their parents. Originally collected in 1956 by Dr. Finnbogi Gumundsson, the first Chair of Icelandic at the University of Manitoba, seven of the fourteen memoirs are translated here from I …

A quixotic figure, Vasile Avramenko (1895-1981) used folk culture and modern media in a life-long crusade to promote Ukraine’s struggle for independence to North American audiences. From his base in New York City, he built a network of folk dance schools and produced musical spectacles to help Ukrainian immigrants sustain their identity. His feat …

In this volume, Nelson Wiseman skilfully describes the history of the New Democratic Party in Manitoba, tracing the roots of the social democratic movement to the years of mass immigration and social unrest that preceded the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919.Drawing extensively on personal interviews, on the private papers and correspondence of party …

At the turn of the twentieth century, Winnipeg was the fastest-growing city in North America. But its days as a diverse and culturally rich metropolis did not end when the boom collapsed. Prairie Metropolis brings together some of the best new graduate research on the history of Winnipeg and makes a groundbreaking contribution to the history of the …

Politics in Manitoba is the first comprehensive review of the Manitoba party system that combines history and contemporary public opinion data to reveal the political and voter trends that have shaped the province of Manitoba over the past 130 years. The book details the histories of the Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals, and the New Democrat …

The first economic, military, and diplomatic history of the Plains Cree from contact with the Europeans in the 1670s to the disappearance of the buffalo from Cree lands by the 1870s, focussing on military and trade relations between 1790 and 1870.

Milloy describes three distinct eras, each characterized by a paramount motive for war—the wars of mi …

In this long-awaited book from one of the most recognized and respected scholars in Native Studies today, Emma LaRocque presents a powerful interdisciplinary study of the Native literary response to racist writing in the Canadian historical and literary record from 1850 to 1990. In When the Other is Me, LaRocque brings a metacritical approach to Na …

Established in 1877, just seven years after the founding of the province itself, the University of Manitoba has grown to become an international centre of research and study. It is the birthplace of discoveries such as the cure for Rh disease of newborns and the development of Canola, and its alumni include Marshal McLuhan, Margaret Laurence, Monty …

The original people of the Hudson Bay lowlands, often known as the Lowland Cree and known to themselves as Muskekowuck Athinuwick, were among the first Aboriginal peoples in northwestern North America to come into contact with Europeans. Muskekowuck Athinuwick challenges long-held misconceptions about the Lowland Cree and illustrates how historians …

Storied Landscapes is a beautifully written, sweeping examination of the evolving identity of major ethno-religious immigrant groups in the Canadian West. Viewed through the lens of attachment to the soil and specific place, and through the eyes of both the immigrant generation and its descendants, the book compares the settlement experiences of Uk …

Stefan Epp-Koop’s "We’re Going to Run This City: Winnipeg’s Political Left After the General Strike" explores the dynamic political movement that came out of the largest labour protest in Canadian history and the ramifications for Winnipeg throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Few have studied the political Left at the municipal level—even though …

“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of …

Religious ceremonies were an inseparable part of Aboriginal traditional life, reinforcing social, economic, and political values. However, missionaries and government officials with ethnocentric attitudes of cultural superiority decreed that Native dances and ceremonies were immoral or un-Christian and an impediment to the integration of the Native …

Thomas Douglas, the Fifth Earl of Selkirk (1770–1820), was a complex man of his times, whose passions left an indelible mark on Canadian history. A product of the Scottish Enlightenment and witness to the French Revolution, he dedicated his fortune and energy to the vision of a new colony at the centre of North America. His final legacy, the Red …

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Saskatchewan was one of the fastest growing provinces in the country. In the early 1900s, it revolutionized the Canadian political landscape and gave rise to socialist governments that continue to influence Canadian politics today. It was the birthplace of Canada’s publicly funded health care system, and hom …

Place and Replace is a collection of recent interdisciplinary research into Western Canada that calls attention to the multiple political, social, and cultural labours performed by the concept of “place.” The book continues a long-standing tradition of situating questions of place at the centre of analyses of Western Canada’s cultures, pasts, …

Italian anarchism emerged in the latter half of the nineteenth century, during that country’s long and bloody unification. Often facing economic hardship and political persecution, many of Italy’s anarchists migrated to North America. Wherever Italian anarchists settled they published journals, engaged in labour and political activism, and atte …

The word "pirate" conjures up many Hollywood images, but Trimming Yankee Sails by Faye Kert paints a very different picture. Covering the Atlantic coast from Cape Breton Island, Halifax, and Saint John to the east coast of the United States down to the Virginias, this insightful book offers a glimpse of northeastern North America's naval history an …

In the late 1920s, Canada's economy was showing all the signs of a full-fledged depression. Life savings were evaporating, unemployment was up, and exports were dramatically down. Riding on the popularity of his promise to "blast" Canada's way into world markets — and thus stop the economy's downward spiral — Richard Bedford Bennett defeated Wi …

In The Right Fight: Bernard Lord and the Conservative Dilemma, CBC reporter Jacques Poitras provides a journalist's account of how Bernard Lord rose to the top in provincial politics and why his path could lead to Ottawa. The clean sweep of Frank McKenna's Liberals in 1987 shook the foundations of the New Brunswick Progressive Conservative Party, b …

In the early 1860s, Irish immigrants in the United States were eager to help the Fenian brotherhood overthrow the British in Ireland. The American Fenians' mission: to invade British North America and hold it hostage. New Brunswick, with its large Irish population and undefended frontier, was a perfect target. The book tells how, in the spring of 1 …

Years after stepping down as Premier of New Brunswick, Frank McKenna is still on the minds of political watchers across Canada. The question today, however, is will he or won't he get back into the political ring. While the guessing game continues, Philip Lee's new book Frank: The Life and Politics of Frank McKenna provides fresh insights into the …

Steel Calvary is the story of the transformation from of a horse cavalry unit to one of Canada's most famous armoured regiments.

Twentieth century warfare is epitomized by the image of Allied tanks growling across the countryside, engaging their Nazi counterparts. One of the most storied of such regiments is the 8th (New Brunswick) Hussars. Founded …

A long-awaited history of this important Canadian regiment, The 104th (New Brunswick) Regiment of Foot in the War of 1812 looks at this military unit from its beginnings in the early days of the 19th century to its disbanding in 1817. Best known for its perilous Winter March through the wilderness of New Brunswick to the battlefields of Upper Canad …

Daniel MacMillan never saw the battlefields of Passchendaele or Vimy Ridge. A farmer in the tiny New Brunswick community of Williamsburg, he experienced the Great War entirely from the "home front." War on the Home Front: The Farm Diaries of Daniel MacMillan, 1914-1927 is a portrait of the other side of war from the perspective of a man who, like c …

At his death in 1985, Alden Nowlan stood in the first rank of Canadian writers. Today, his poetry is beloved by Maritimers and popular across Canada and in the US as well. If I Could Turn and Meet Myself tells his life story, from his birth to a 14-year-old mother in 1933 through his impoverished childhood, his disturbed adolescence, his newspaper …

Few Canadians realize how close the colony of Nova Scotia came to joining the American Revolutionary War in 1775. Many Nova Scotians were immigrants from New England, including the Planters who, some twenty years earlier, had taken over the farms of the expelled Acadians. Between family ties and unrestrained privateering, there was much sympathy in …

Saint John became a gateway to what is now Canada in the early 1600s, and Fort La Tour, built in 1632, was one of the three main forts of Acadie. In Saint John Fortifications, Roger Sarty and Doug Knight trace the history of the port's defences, from the earliest log palisades to the bunkers, gun emplacements, and communications stations built duri …

Stories of Indigenous children forced to attend residential schools have haunted Canadians in recent years. Yet most Indigenous children in Canada attended “Indian day schools,” and later public schools, near their home communities. Although church and government officials often kept detailed administrative records, we know little about the act …

The Walrond Ranch, a cattle and horse operation in the foothills of southern Alberta, was one of the four giants of the livestock grazing industry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. At its height, the Walrond ran over 10,000 cattle along with several hundred well-bred Clydesdale and Shire horses on nearly 300,000 acres of land.

Ult …

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 …

Writing Geographical Exploration: Thomas James and the Northwest Passage, 1631-33 summarizes the various factors that influence the writing and interpretation of exploration narratives, demonstrating the limitations of the assumption that there is a direct relationship between what the explorer saw and what the text describes. Davies offers a revis …

Originally written in the early 1970s, As I Remember Them is based on Jeanne-Elise Olsen's extraordinary recall of her childhood and youth spent in an isolated part of the Laurentians in the Lièvre River Valley in the early twentieth century.

Jeanne was the daughter of a Roman Catholic priest who was excommunicated from the Church because he marr …

For much of its 130-year history, the Bar U Ranch can claim to have been one of the most famous ranches in Canada. Its reputation is firmly based on the historical role that the ranch has played, its size and longevity, and its association with some of the remarkable people who have helped develop the cattle business and build the Canadian West. Th …

During a time of two world wars and a sluggish world economy, many Northern Europeans left their homelands to build the American and Canadian West with dreams of abundance and new life. Spanning a period from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, To Be a Cowboy : Oliver Christensen's Story recounts the dreams and realities of a father and a son.

Otto Ch …

The stories told in this collection, though tragic for many, illustrate the steadfast determination and courage of people in the face of misfortune and extreme distress. From the lesser-known weed outbreaks and tornadoes to the world-wide influenza outbreak in 1918 that devastated many Calgary families, these stories focus on the human side of thes …

Alberta farmers and ranchers know that, in the frustrating business of agriculture, years of bounty inexplicably turn into years of despair. Looking back over the past half century, Jaques recounts the tumultuous history of the Alberta farm organization Unifarm. Unifarm: A Story of Conflict and Change documents Alberta farmers' quest to increase co …

Gordon W. Smith, PhD, dedicated much of his life to researching Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. A historian by training, his 1952 dissertation from Columbia University on “The Historical and Legal Background of Canada’s Arctic Claims” remains a foundational work on the topic, as does his 1966 chapter “Sovereignty in the North: The Can …

"... a diverse and fascinating array of perspectives on the history of Canada's national parks, illuminating many less well-understood aspects of the evolving place of people in and near these parks." - Stephen Bocking, Professor and Chair, Environmental and Resource Studies Program, Trent University

When Canada created a Dominion Parks Branch in 19 …

How does one learn to be a good citizen? A good Canadian? Creating Citizens : History and Identity in Alberta's Schools, 1905 to1980 looks at the role schools have played in creating and sustaining a sense of Canadian identity for generations of Alberta students. History and social studies classes, more than others, are designed to prepare young st …

The Crowsnest Pass is famous for the tragic rock slide at Frank in 1903, but almost as famous are the many coal-mining tragedies that afflicted the region in the early twentieth century. With the discovery of a rich coal deposit in the region, the area underwent an economic boom and a spike in population that is still evidenced today. Unfortunately …

During World War II, some of the most treacherous jobs were those performed by men and women located deep within enemy territory. Always in danger of being exposed and subjected to torture, imprisonment, and even death, their stories are chilling accounts of bravery and luck--and, in some cases, what happens when the luck runs out.

When Tom Douglas's father returned home after the Second World War, he was forced to move his family from Sault Ste. Marie north to Wawa, where he was the timekeeper at the Helen Mine. Although his parents were upset by the move, Tom was thrilled. In the forties, Wawa was still a wooden-sidewalked mud wallow of a mining town, and for a city kid, no …

Edwin Boyd woke up, rolled out of bed, and got ready to rob his first bank. He began his preparations by disguising himself. He shoved wads of cotton into his cheeks and nostrils, smeared black mascara on his eyebrows, and rubbed rouge on his cheeks.

This book will be especially fascinating for all readers interested in: history, biography, true cri …

The human story behind Canada's worst chemical fire
"Why you leaving Stelco?" the friend asked the rookie firefighter.
"'Cause it's hot and dirty and I don't like shifts."
Enter the world of Hamilton's firefighters. Theirs is a smouldering, combustible workplace, and in the effort to save lives they routinely put their own on the line. They know t …

"He gave his extraordinary genius, his passionate sympathy, his bodily strength, his magnetic personal influence, even his very earnings to the service of animals..." - Lovat Dickson, publisher. This book will be especially fascinating for all readers interested in: biography or animals. Grey Owl was known to millions of people as an outstanding Na …

Gwendoline Cramer was one of the 48,000 war brides transported to Canada by the Canadian government between 1942 and 1947. Many of them were escorted across the water and handed over to their husbands with nothing more than a handsake and a cookbook. Following her heart to rural Saskatchewan, Gwen felt like a fish out of water. She couldn't milk a …

Between 1915 to 1940, the Edmonton Commercial Graduates Basketball Club ("the Grads") went from a small-city, girl's high school team to world champs with an unparalleled winning record. Sports journalist Richard Brignall tells the story of this talented upstart team, whose sportsmanship and unwavering determination inspired generations of female a …