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Author: David L. Nicandri
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774868902
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
The many attempts by navigators to find a Northwest Passage via its Pacific portal all ended in failure; however, their discoveries spurred expansionist developments that would forever alter the landscape of North America. In Discovering Nothing, David L. Nicandri maps a cast of geographic visionaries and practical explorers as they promoted or sought a workable commercial route linking the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. The discovery of the legendary northern passage proved elusive, but the equivalent land bridges that were built in the form of two transcontinental railroads changed the futures of Canada and the United States. Drawing from close readings of explorers’ personal journals, Nicandri provides readers a detailed, engaging, and multifaceted investigation into the many players and failed enterprises at the core of this search, beginning in the eighteenth century through to today — and to the unexpected impact of climate change on this fabled passage.
Author: David L. Nicandri
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774868902
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 360
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Book Description
The many attempts by navigators to find a Northwest Passage via its Pacific portal all ended in failure; however, their discoveries spurred expansionist developments that would forever alter the landscape of North America. In Discovering Nothing, David L. Nicandri maps a cast of geographic visionaries and practical explorers as they promoted or sought a workable commercial route linking the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. The discovery of the legendary northern passage proved elusive, but the equivalent land bridges that were built in the form of two transcontinental railroads changed the futures of Canada and the United States. Drawing from close readings of explorers’ personal journals, Nicandri provides readers a detailed, engaging, and multifaceted investigation into the many players and failed enterprises at the core of this search, beginning in the eighteenth century through to today — and to the unexpected impact of climate change on this fabled passage.
Author: Brian Castner
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385541635
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
In 1789, Alexander Mackenzie traveled 1200 miles on the immense river in Canada that now bears his name, in search of the fabled Northwest Passage that had eluded mariners for hundreds of years. In 2016, the acclaimed memoirist Brian Castner retraced Mackenzie's route by canoe in a grueling journey -- and discovered the Passage he could not find. Disappointment River is a dual historical narrative and travel memoir that at once transports readers back to the heroic age of North American exploration and places them in a still rugged but increasingly fragile Arctic wilderness in the process of profound alteration by the dual forces of globalization and climate change. Fourteen years before Lewis and Clark, Mackenzie set off to cross the continent of North America with a team of voyageurs and Chipewyan guides, to find a trade route to the riches of the East. What he found was a river that he named "Disappointment." Mackenzie died thinking he had failed. He was wrong. In this book, Brian Castner not only retells the story of Mackenzie's epic voyages in vivid prose, he personally retraces his travels, battling exhaustion, exposure, mosquitoes, white water rapids and the threat of bears. He transports readers to a world rarely glimpsed in the media, of tar sands, thawing permafrost, remote indigenous villages and, at the end, a wide open Arctic Ocean that could become a far-northern Mississippi of barges and pipelines and oil money.
Author: Ron James
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385671156
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER Canada's most verbally virtuosic comic makes his literary debut—and he's just as richly, gloriously funny on the page as on stage. His legion of fans—the ones who ensure his every show the length and breadth of Canada is sold out—recognize Ron James as one of the great stand-ups of his generation. His seemingly improvisational flights of fancy—no two shows are ever the same—are crammed with inventive phrase-making, feature a voluminous vocabulary, and put every word into the service of uproarious comedy. He sounds like a man born to write a great book—and now at last he has. But this is a book he has been writing for most of his life, in his head, in his car, while driving from gig to gig. In All Over the Map, Ron has brilliantly captured the voice that has enthralled millions on stage and screen. He also lets up a little on the usually relentless laughs (though there are still plenty of those) to reveal a new dimension to his beloved showbiz character. His hilarious reminiscences of growing up in Nova Scotia and his early struggles as an aspiring comic, his reveries on such topics as family, country, celebrity and lessons learned from myriad chance encounters will deepen our appreciation for this great comic and win him many new fans in his new role as author.
Author: Barry Gough
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
ISBN: 1550179586
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325
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Book Description
A fascinating account that links early maritime history, Indigenous land rights, and modern environmental advocacy in the Clayoquot Sound region by award-winning author and historian Barry Gough. Centred on Meares Island, located near Tofino on Vancouver Island’s west coast, Possessing Meares Island weaves a unique history out of the mists of time by connecting eighteenth century Indigenous-colonial trade relations to more recent historical upheavals. Gough invites readers to enter a dramatic epoch of BC’s coastal history and watch the Nuu-Chah-nulth nations spearhead the maritime sea otter trade, led by powerful chiefs like Wicaninnish and Maquinna. Eventually, Meares Island declines into an economic backwater due to overhunting the sea otter, the bloody Clayoquot War of 1855, and most importantly, the proxy of empire—the Hudson’s Bay Company—establishing colonial roots in nearby Victoria. Caught up in the tides of change, the Treaty of 1846 ushers in a new era as the island is officially declared property of the British crown. Gough bridges the gap between centuries as he describes how the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council draw on this complicated history of ownership to invoke their legal claim to the land and defend the majestic wilderness from the indiscriminate clear-cut saw. Possessing Meares Island will not only appeal to history buffs, but to anyone interested in a momentous triumph for Indigenous rights and environmental protection that echoes across the nation today.
Author: Barry Gough
Publisher: Harbour Publishing
ISBN: 1990776396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
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 of the unfolding scene. From Her Britannic Majesty’s paddlewheel sloop-of-war Driver, steadily thumping forth on Imperial purpose, all that Richard Blanshard could make out to port, in reflected purple light upon the northern side, was a forested, rock-clad island rising to considerable height. Vancouver’s Island they called it in those far-off days. This was his destination. Richard Blanshard was only governor of the young colony for three short, unhappy years—only one and a half of which were spent in the colony itself. From the very beginning he was at odds with the vastly influential Hudson’s Bay Company, run by its Chief Factor James Douglas, who succeeded Blanshard as governor of the colony of Vancouver Island and later became the first governor of the colony of British Columbia. While James Douglas is remembered, for better or worse, as a founding father of British Columbia, Richard Blanshard’s name is now largely forgotten, despite his vitally important role in warning London of American cross-border aggressions, including a planned takeover of Haida Gwaii. However, his failures highlight the fascinating struggles of the time—the supreme influence of commerce, the disparity between expectations and reality, and the bewildering collision of European and Pacific Northwest culture.
Author: Una McCormack
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1446416569
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
'As long as people have lived here, they've gone out of their way to avoid the woods...' Two teenage girls disappear into an ancient wood, a foreboding and malevolent presence both now and in the past. The modern motorway bends to avoid it, as did the old Roman road. In 1917 the Doctor and Amy are desperate to find out what's happened to Rory, who's vanished too. But something is waiting for them in the woods. Something that's been there for thousands of years. Something that is now waking up. A thrilling, all-new adventure featuring the Doctor, Amy and Rory, as played by Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill in the spectacular hit Doctor Who series from BBC Television.
Author: William J. Buxton
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 144227400X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 253
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Book Description
Offering fresh insight into the early life of Harold Adams Innis (1894-1952), this volume makes available a number of previously unpublished writings from the renowned Canadian economic historian and media scholar. Part I, Innis’s autobiographical memoir, chronicles his farm-based family background, early education, military service during World War I, and the beginnings of what would become a distinguished academic career. Part II features a selection of correspondence during his military service, revealing both the pain and perceptions derived from that experience, and other war-related writings. It also includes “The Returned Soldier,” a detailed piece of research and a compassionate plea to recognize how the aftermath of the Great War would affect those who served as well as the individuals and institutions on the home front. Years before the term “post-traumatic stress disorder” was coined, Innis was acutely aware of the condition and suggested ways in which it might be treated. Other war-related items included are Innis’s first published article (dealing with the economics of the solider) and a draft speech composed in the fall of 1918. All original materials have been extensively annotated to provide context for the contemporary reader and researcher.
Author: Barry Gough
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1473881382
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 523
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Book Description
The influence of the Royal Navy on the development of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest was both extensive and effective. Yet all too frequently, its impact has been ignored by historians, who instead focus on the influence of explorers, fur traders, settlers, and railway builders. In this thoroughly revised and expanded edition of his classic 1972 work, naval historian Barry Gough examines the contest for the Columbia country during the War of 1812, the 1844 British response to the aggressive American agenda of President Polk's Manifest Destiny and cries of Fifty-four forty or fight, the gold-rush invasion of 30,000 outsiders, and the jurisdictional dispute in the San Juan Islands that spawned the so-called Pig War. The author also looks at the Esquimalt-based fleet in the decade before British Columbia joined Canada and the Navy's relationship with coastal indigenous peoples over the five decades that preceded the Great War.
Author: John Vaillant
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0735273170
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 441
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Book Description
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the award-winning, bestselling author of The Golden Spruce and The Tiger comes a stunning account of a colossal wildfire, and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind. In May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada's petroleum industry and America's biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world. For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways. With masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America's oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern forest fires, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. John Vaillant's urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.
Author: Graham Gibbs
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1460283112
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
Five Ages of Canada tells the comprehensive tale of the nation's origins and formation. Graham's First Age introduces Canada's First Inhabitants: the Palaeo-Indians from Northern Asia, their descendants, and the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples of today. The Second Age began in the early 1500s with fishing fleets from England, France, Portugal and the Basque region of Spain who spent their summers fishing offshore Newfoundland. One hundred years later permanent British settlements were established in our Atlantic Province. Samuel de Champlain's efforts to create New France and the battle for dominion between England and France, constitutes Graham's Third Age, and his Fourth Age covers the fur trade that was responsible for the exploration, mapping and eventual settlement of the west. Lastly, the Fifth Age - which Graham calls "The Road to Confederation" - is the story of Sir John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and the other Fathers of Confederation. It is also the story of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, legendary Métis leader Louis Riel and much more. Having long been passionate about the country's history, Graham and his wife Jay travelled 40,000 km in a Roadtrek camper van, visiting over two hundred historic and heritage sites and countless museums, throughout Canada. Graham's book draws on journal notes, conversations with locals, and research. Vast in its scope yet personal in its perspective, Five of Ages of Canada illuminates the country's past in a riveting and original way, garnering deep appreciation and admiration for the people who were here first, and those who strove to achieve independent nationhood....
