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"No one who has read Pierre Berton's exceptional trio of books, Klondike, The National Dream and The Last Spike, can ever again swallow the old myth about Canadian history being dull. Now, in a fascinating collection of true tales from the past, Berton proves beyond all doubt that Canada's historical heritage is as rich and as exciting as that if any country in the world. Here are sagas of hardship and romance, of mystery and magic, of tragedy and high heroism: Charles Blondin tripping across Niagara's gorge on a tightrope; the Chevalier de Troyes leading his commando raid on the forts of James Bay; Ned Hanlan, rowing his way into history; Gun-an-noot, the phantom Indian, eluding his pursuers for thirteen years; Bill Johnston, the St. Lawrence pirate, raiding through the Thousand Islands. Here are school book explorers transformed into figures of flesh and blood: Samuel Hearne (the author's favorite) trekking across the Barren Grounds with hid remarkable Indian companions; Sir Jhon Franklin and all his men vanishing into the popular mists. Here, too, are more contemporary stories: the great Cross-Canada hike of 1921; the Vancouver post office sit-in of 1938; the strange safari of mystery man Charles Bedaux into the wilds of British Columbia in 1934. The past comes alive again in Berton's prose, as the reader travels with the Overlanders across the empty prairie in 1858, journeys with Joshua Slocum from the Bay of Fundy around the world, takes to the air with Billy Bishop, the greatest Canadian air ace of World War One. Readers of My Country will meet some unfamiliar figures as well: the curious career of the nineteenth-century temperance fighter, Charles Chiniquy, is told here, as is the moving odyssey of François Xavier Prieur, exiled to Australia for his part in the Lower Canadian Rebellion of 1838. The book contains something for everyone, from the story of Robert Service, to the tragic account of the genocide of the Beothuk Indians in Newfoundland, to the weird and al- most unbelievable saga of The Brother, XII, and his mystic cult on Vancouver Island. My Country had its beginnings in Pierre Ber- ton's popular television program of the same name. Here, he has revised and expanded the original television tales and rewritten them for the print medium. With over 50 black-and-white illustrations and 29 maps. Maps by Jack McMaster. Endpapers by Tom McNeely."--Publisher.

Full of heroes and villains, eccentrics and daredevils, scientists, and power brokers, Niagara has a contemporary resonance: how a great natural wonder created both the industrial heartland of southern Ontario and the worst pollution on the continent. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

Canada’s master storyteller returns to the North to chronicle the extraordinary stories of five inspiring and controversial characters. Canada’s master storyteller returns to the North to bring history to life. Prisoners of the North tells the extraordinary stories of five inspiring and controversial characters whose adventures in Canada’s frozen wilderness are no less fascinating today than they were a hundred years ago. We meet Joseph Boyle, the self-made millionaire gold prospector from Woodstock, Ontario, who went off to the Great War with the word “Yukon” inscribed on his shoulder straps, and solid-gold maple-leaf lapel badges. There he survived several scrapes with rogue Bolsheviks, earned the admiration of Trotsky, saved Romania from the advancing Germans, and entered into a passionate affair with its queen. We meet Vilhjalmur Steffansson, who knew every corner of the Canadian North better than any explorer. His claim to have discovered a tribe of “Blond Eskimos” brought him world-wide attention and landed him in controversy that would dog him the rest of his life. There is John Hornby, the eccentric public-school Englishman so enthralled with the Barren Grounds where he lived that he finally starved to death there with the two young men who had joined his adventures. Berton gives us a riveting account of the contradictory life of Robert Service — a world-famous poet whose self-effacement was completely at odds with his public persona. And we meet the extraordinary Lady Jane Franklin, who belied every last stereotype about Victorian women with her immense determination, energy, and sense of adventure. She travelled more widely than even her famous explorer husband, Sir John. And her indefatigable efforts to find him after his disappearance were legendary. A Yukoner himself, Berton weaves these tales of courage, fortitude, and reckless lust for adventure with a love for Canada’s harsh north. With his sharp eye for detail and faultless ear for a good story, Pierre Berton shows once again why he is Canada’s favourite historian.

Canada's twentieth century can be divided roughly into two halves. All the wars and all the unnecessary battles in which Canadian youth was squandered belong to the first -- from the autumn of 1899 to the summer of 1953. From the mid-1950s on, Canada has concerned itself not with war but with peace. The first war of the century, which took Canadian soldiers to South Africa, and the last, which sent them to Korea, bracket the bookends on the shelf of history. They have a good deal in common with, these two minor conflicts, whose chronicles pale when compared to the bloodbaths of the two world wars. Canada's wartime days are long past, and for many, the scars of war have healed. Vimy has been manicured clean, its pockmarked slopes softened by a green mantle of Canadian pines. Dieppe has reverted to a resort town, its beaches long since washed free of Canadian blood. Nowadays, Canadians are proud of their role as Peacekeepers, from which they have gained a modicum of international acclaim the nation has always craved, with precious little blood wasted in the process. In this monumental work, Pierre Berton bringsCanadian history to life once again, relying on a host of sources, including newspaper accounts and first-hand reports, to tell the story of these four wars through the eyes of the privates in the trenches, the generals at the front, and the politicians and families back home. By profiling the interwar years, Berton traces how one war led to the next, and how the country was changed in the process.

Canada history, England, North West passage.

A travel book which focuses on the Great Lakes area. It includes a brief history of the Great Lakes since European settlement and it is illustrated with black and white and colour photographs.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Sarah Bernhardt as I knew her" (The Memoirs of Madame Pierre Berton as told to Basil Woon) by Pierre Mme. Berton. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.