National Network for Equitable Library Service

Award-winning Globe and Mail journalist Sandra Martin captures the life and times of 50 extraordinary Canadians, whose achievements, follies, and dreams have shaped the country we call home. Martin’s witty essays on the cult and craft of obituary writing, from the ancient Greeks to a wired up 24/7 world, explode the myths and celebrate the art of our oldest biographical form. Great Canadian Lives tells the political, social, and cultural history of modern Canada from WW1 to the Charter, from Pierre Trudeau to Jack Layton — one fascinating life at a time.

As a troubled teen, Lauren Manning sought refuge online in the angry world of black metal music. When she met a recruiter who offered her the acceptance she craved, the doctrine of white supremacy supplanted the values of her middle-class upbringing, and Lauren traded suburbia for a life of violence and criminality on the streets of Toronto.

An exploration of modern regionalism and senses of place developing among generations of settler colonial society on North America's northern grasslands.

A teenager leaves his fiancé behind in their Anatolian village to make a new life in Canada for both of them. But when World War I breaks out, he is sent to an internment camp while his betrothed struggles to survive and find a way to join him.

Popularly thought of as a recreational vehicle and one of the key ingredients of an ideal wilderness getaway, the canoe is also a political vessel. A potent symbol and practice of Indigenous cultures and traditions, the canoe has also been adopted to assert conservation ideals, feminist empowerment, citizenship practices, and multicultural goals. Documenting many of these various uses, this book asserts that the canoe is not merely a matter of leisure and pleasure; it is folded into many facets of our political life.

Being German Canadian explores how multi-generational families and groups have interacted and shaped each other's integration and adaptation in Canadian society, focusing on the experiences, histories, and memories of German immigrants and their descendants. As one of Canada's largest ethnic groups, German Canadians allow for a variety of longitudinal and multi-generational studies that explore how different generations have negotiated and transmitted diverse individual experiences, collective memories, and national narratives.

Authorized Heritage analyses the history of commemoration at heritage sites across western Canada. Using extensive research in Parks Canada records, it argues that heritage narratives are almost always based on national and conventional messages that commonly reflect colonialist visions of the past. Throughout western Canada there are vivid examples of original and official views of what constitutes a national narrative.

Set between Kansas and Saskatchewan in 1907, this middle-grade novel follows a young boy who gets separated from his family en route to Canada and must find his way alone across the immense prairie landscape. Following the sudden death of his eldest brother, twelve-year-old Peter is chosen by his father to travel by train from Kansas to Saskatchewan to help set up the new family homestead. But when Peter's boxcar becomes uncoupled from the rest of the train somewhere in South Dakota, he finds himself lost and alone on the vast prairie.

An intriguing look at the accomplishments and contradictions of Joseph William McKay, best known as the founder of Nanaimo, BC, and one of the most successful Métis men to rise through the ranks of the Hudson's Bay Company in the late nineteenth century. When examining the history of British Columbia, one would be hard-pressed to find an Indigenous person who so successfully navigated the echelons of colonial power as did Joseph William McKay (1829-1900). McKay was Métis, born in Quebec, and began his career in Oregon during the dispute over the international boundary in 1845-46.

An inspiring and eye-opening collection of true stories about fourteen women who blazed their own trails in life and contributed in a fundamental way to the history of Vancouver Island and the surrounding islands. In this fascinating follow-up to On Their Own Terms, author Haley Healey chronicles the lives of a whole new crop of resilient, hard-working, rule-breaking, diverse women who lived on and around Vancouver Island.