Sitting along the scenic St. John River and tucked into the surrounding wilderness, Fredericton bristles with history as New Brunswick's capital. With Maliseet, French, and British origins, this colonial garrison town quickly became the political centre for the area as it grew with the efforts of Loyalist settlers and others in the 1780s. In an engaging narrative style, author Dan Soucoup traces Fredericton's development through the contributions...

Almost half the population of Toronto-immigrants and newcomers from elsewhere in Canada-has no cultural memory of our city's beginnings. In a bid to fill this gap, Earliest Toronto tells the city's story up to the War of 1812 and its aftermath. Beginning with the dramatic conflicts in the aboriginal communities around Lake Ontario before the coming of the Europeans in the early seventeenth century, followed by two centuries of French exploration...

Celebrated historian Barry Gough brings a defining era of Pacific Northwest history into focus in this biography of Richard Blanshard, the first governor of Vancouver Island-illuminating with intriguing detail the genesis and early days of Canada's westernmost province. Early one wintry day in March 1850, after seven weary weeks out of sight of land, a well-dressed Londoner, a bachelor aged thirty-two, stood at the ship's rail taking in the immensity...

In 1816, the British government founded the Perth Military Settlement, to help address a number of issues it faced following the War of 1812. How to protect Upper Canada against future attack from the United States. How to demobilize vast numbers of soldiers. How to relieve conditions at home, as industrialization began changing the way people lived and worked. Many of these early settlers carved out farms and villages in what is now Tay Valley township,...

This tract of land in Niagara-on-the-Lake has witnessed an amazing cavalcade of Canadian history. For 250 years a large tract of oak savannah at the mouth of the Niagara River designated as a Military Reserve has witnessed a rich military and political history: the site of the first parliament of Upper Canada; a battleground during the War of 1812; and annual summer militia camps and the training camp for tens of thousands of men and women during...

The cities, towns, and villages along Nova Scotia's coastlines have witnessed battles, shipwrecks, celebrations, and tragedies. They have been home to Indigenous peoples and havens for explorers, fishers, and traders. These harbour towns have provided refuge to people escaping intolerable social or political conditions, and joy to those seeking adventure, or love, or a better life. Some communities have blossomed and others have merely survived, but...

Battle for the Bay explores a new chapter in the history of the War of 1812. Although naval battles raged on the Great Lakes, combat between privateers and small government vessels boiled in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of Maine. Three small warships - the Provincial sloop Brunswicker, His Majesty's schooner Bream, and His Majesty's brig of war Boxer - played a vital role in defending the eastern waters of British North America in this crucial war....

On March 7, 1800, Philemon Wright, a farmer from Woburn, Massachusetts, arrives on the north shore of the Ottawa River in Hull Township. On September 1, 1860, on the south side of the river, Queen Victoria's son, Prince Albert Edward, lays the cornerstone for Canada's Parliament Buildings on Barrack Hill in Ottawa. While Chaudière Falls: A Novel of Dramatized History dramatizes the real events that unfold between those two dates-Wright's determination...

Wild Geese, the sequel to the Governor General's Award-winning novel Greener Grass, follows Kit Byrne and her friend Mick O'Toole after fleeing famine-ravaged Ireland. Across the Atlantic aboard a notorious "coffin ship", through quarantine, and into the heart of North America, the two displaced teenagers endure storms, epidemics, and discrimination. Desperate to find her family in the New World, Kit is willing to sacrifice everything, even her love...

Stories of the evolution of Willowdale from its earliest acquisition of land to today's urban environment. In 1855, Willowdale's post office opened in Jacob Cummer's store on Yonge Street. Today, streets in Toronto's community of Willowdale are peppered with the names of the early farm families of North York, such as the Shepards, Finches, and Kennedys. Author Scott Kennedy's intriguing stories embrace the evolution of Willowdale from the earliest...