"When Marilla Cuthbert and her brother, Matthew, decide to adopt a child from a distant orphanage, they don't get quite what they bargained for. The child who awaits them at the tiny Bright River train station is not the strapping young boy they'd imagined--someone to help Matthew work the fields of their small farm--but rather a freckle-faced, redheaded girl named Anne (with an e, if you please). Matthew and Marilla may not be sure about Anne, but...

The waters off Newfoundland, in the North Atlantic, held the world's most abundant supply of codfish, which, when discovered, was in great demand. Unlike the fur trade-the other major early commercial activity in what is now mainland Canada-the production of codfish did not require year-round residence. It did, however, require numerous men, young and old, for the fishing season, which ran from spring to early fall. This successful English-Newfoundland...

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...

Jean Morrison has written a fascinating and important book, full of drama and colourful historical figures. Rare paintings, drawings, maps and archival photographs complement her impeccable research and lively text. Superior Rendezvous-Place encompasses the French predecessors of Fort William, Native Peoples of the time and the evolution of the fur trade, with an emphasis on the North West Company era. This most important work concludes with details...

Dans l'histoire du Québec, les événements de 1837 et 1838 tiennent une place d'une importance indiscutable. Révolution manquée, l'ombre de cet échec plane sur l'imaginaire politique jusqu'aux référendums de la fin du xxe siècle. Mais ces événements sont aussi un moment fondateur d'une importance insurpassée pour une idéologie qui a pourtant connu plusieurs mutations : le républicanisme québécois. Pour Yvan Lamonde, ce moment, source...

In mid-June 1864, the Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec) was experiencing what contemporaries call 'political deadlock': no political party could hold a majority in the Assembly. The past fifteen years had seen twelve different governments, and few important laws were passed. As a result, the 'Great Coalition' was formed, seeking to turn the Canadas into a federal union. That September, delegates from the three Maritime provinces prepared to...

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,...

The untold story of Point Frederick, where early nineteenth-century Canadians built warships that stopped invasion and brought peace. Warriors and Warships brings to life a much neglected part of Canada's military history, covering the warships and the people who built them at Point Frederick from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. Opposite Kingston, Point Frederick was the 1789 dockyard home of the Provincial Marine on...

Originally the land of the Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, and Passamaquoddy, New Brunswick has a colourful and significant history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the province was settled by marsh workers and farmers from northwestern France and thousands of Loyalist refugees from a newly independent United States. After a golden age of lumbering, shipbuilding, and overseas trade in the nineteenth century, its economy declined and adjustment to the...

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...