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Much of Pond’s life is shadowed in mystery. The second half of his memoirs are torn from the original journal and he died in obscurity without an obituary or marked tomb. Historian Barry Gough uses Pond’s surviving memoirs, explorers’ journals, letters written by acquaintances of Pond, publications in London magazines and many other sources to track and reconstruct the life of one of the last of the tough, old-style explorers who ventured into the wilderness with little more than a strong instinct for survival and helped shape the modern world."--pub. desc.
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.
Best known for his writings on economic history and communications, Harold Innis also produced a body of biographical work that paid particular attention to cultural memory and how it is enriched by the study of neglected historical figures. In this compelling volume, William Buxton addresses Innis's engagement with the legacy of the fur trader and adventurer Peter Pond. Harold Innis on Peter Pond comprises eight texts by Innis, including his 1930 biography of Pond as well as his writings on the explorer's myriad activities. The book also features a collection of eight letters exchanged between Innis and Florence Cannon, a descendent of Pond with a strong interest in her ancestor's life and times, and an unpublished 1932 article on Pond's 1773–75 activities as a fur trader on the upper Mississippi, written by Innis's former student R. Harvey Fleming. Situating Innis's writings on Pond in relation to his broader body of biographical work, Buxton interprets what these texts tell us about Innis's intellectual practice, historiography, and the writing of biography. The book explores how Innis's perspectives shifted with changing intellectual and political circumstances and shows that his advocacy of Pond as an unrecognized "father of confederation" challenged conventional views of Canadian nation-building. A critical edition of previously overlooked biographical texts, Harold Innis on Peter Pond traces what these writings disclose about the biographer's character and values even as they discuss their subject.
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.
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.
The Elusive Toad is a story about a small Southern town during the nineteen thirty's. A peaceful place suddenly becomes a place filled with murder and mystery.
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.
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.
Climb aboard Marty and Emily's coach for a fascinating ride along the eastern seaboard. Along the way you will visit historical sites, major cities and camp under the stars from Florida to Maine. As a passenger you will be involved in the tracking and spying of Jack Swartz, a white collar criminal who our client is anxious to have apprehended and their funds recovered. Help my team member 'Hamhock' hack into the credit card database account, bug their cell phone and keep track of the offshore account all from the comfort of his den. Enjoy the resturants and tour the battlefields of America's past while reliving yesteryear, all the while hasseling the traffic and catching subways in the name of fun. What a ride!