National Network for Equitable Library Service

A powerfully built man more than six feet tall, Amundsen's career of adventure began at the age of fifteen (he was born in Norway in 1872 to a family of merchant sea captains and rich ship owners). Twenty-five years later he was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles. The author, an adventurer and swimmer, author of Swimming to Antarctica, gives us in this new work a full-scale account of Amundsen's life and expeditions.

Surveyor, cartographer, fur trader, adventurer, naturalist and entrepreneur, David Thompson is now recognized as one of the greatest explorers and geographers of all time. By 1812, he had surveyed almost four million square kilometres of the North American wilderness and become the first European to navigate the entire length of the Columbia River.

From the era of wooden sailing ships and Europe’s golden age of exploration, the story of famed British navigator Henry Hudson tells a classic tale of courage, ambition, and treachery on the high seas. As the leader of four Arctic voyages in 1607, 1608, 1609, and 1610, Hudson searched in vain for a navigable route through the polar ice that would open the way to the riches of Asia. In his obsession to succeed, he made reckless decisions that pushed his crew to the brink, with disastrous results.

The Red Coat Trail of southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta runs near the route of the North West Mounted Police’s famous 1874 March West. Today, this lonely highway passes through a windswept land of ghostly abandoned towns. Johnnie Bachusky takes readers back to the heyday of these towns, which sprang up as settlers travelled west during the last great land rush. The Roaring Twenties brought bumper harvests, but also bootleggers and bank robbers; fortunes were won and lost in high-stakes poker games.

Retired park warden Dale Portman lived his dream of riding the range for a living in the spectacular Canadian Rockies. His exhilarating tales take us to an Old West world of wild horses and hair-raising roundups, youthful bravado and larger-than-life characters: Bert, the tough Millarville patriach; Donny and Faye, free-spirited children of the Alberta foothills; and Jim, the eccentric park warden who careens from one potential disaster to another. Filled with humour and adventure, these true stories capture the excitement and danger of backcountry life.

In the summer of 1984, Anthony Dalton embarked on a near-fatal voyage in a small open boat along the wild northwest coast of Alaska, attempting a solo transit of the Northwest Passage. His sea quest ran parallel to an arduous relief expedition undertaken in 1897-98, when the officers of the US cutter Bear set out to reach eight whaling ships that were stranded in thick ice, their crews on the verge of starvation.

On January 22, 1906, the passenger ship Valencia lost her way in heavy fog and rain and rammed into the deadly rocks at Pachena Point on the west coast of Vancouver Island. As the wreck was shattered by the pounding waves, the survivors clung desperately to the rigging. Few made it the short distance to shore through the frigid and turbulent waves—117 of the 164 souls aboard perished. A year earlier, the King David had been wrecked on Bajo Reef near Nootka Sound. The fate of her sailors was much more mysterious.

Buying Saffron, a 24-foot racing sailboat, was an act of desperation meant to help single parent June Cameron and her youngest son validate themselves. It did that and more. A friend persuaded June to race the boat, and over the next decade June, either solo or with her all-female crew, competed in BC's major sailing races, taking home a lot of the hardware for their class. Shelter from the Storm is a fascinating memoir about finding one's place, even if that place is at sea.

The early history of the Hudson’s Bay Company comes alive in these true tales of fur-trade wars, incredible wilderness journeys, hardships and danger. Founded by the extraordinary adventurers and renegades Radisson and des Groseilliers, the HBC attracted many memorable characters. Explorer Henry Kelsey was the first European to see the buffalo herds. James Knight met a mysterious fate on a frozen northern island. Brave Isabel Gunn worked in the fur trade disguised as a man. Anyone who enjoys historical adventure will relish these exciting stories of Canada’s oldest company.

In mid-July 1925, the SS Bayeskimo ran into heavy drift ice at the entrance to Hudson Strait. The ice carried her north, squeezing the steamer and testing the strength of her rivets. Helpless until the tide changed and the ice moved, the officers and crew could only watch and listen to the ship’s tormented groans. Slowly at first, trickles of freezing water seeped through the steel plates on her bow. The trickles became a flood, and Bayeskimo began to sink. Bayeskimo was one of hundreds of ships in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur-trade fleet.