National Network for Equitable Library Service

We all have memories of family vacations: the cross-country marathon drive, the camping trip, a couple lazy weeks at the lake, a helter-skelter month in Europe, four days in Disneyland. The variations may be endless, but the common denominator is that there are always stories to tell. The family vacation, with all its funny, sad, relaxing, stressful, frustrating, and exhilarating moments, shapes us, and helps us create an understanding of who we are and of those we travel with.

Robert Ward has always enjoyed travelling, especially on foot. When he discovered the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago in Spain, he felt compelled to walk and experience this historic road. From his first journey along the Camino de Santiago, Ward fell in love with the pace, landscape, history, art, and romance of this old pilgrimage path. Above all, however, Ward fell in love with the people of the Camino – both the welcoming Spaniards and the pilgrims who come from all over the world to find out what it means to travel five hundred miles, one step at a time.

The Trans-Canada, the world’s longest national highway, comes to life in words and pictures. Russia has the Trans-Siberian Highway, Australia has Highway 1, and Canada has the Trans-Canada Highway, an iconic road that stretches almost 8,000 kilometres across six time zones. In the summer of 2012, on the highway’s 50th birthday, Mark Richardson drove its entire length to find out how the road came to be and what it’s now become.

What starts as a simple fishing trip becomes a cathartic experience in the untamed wilderness of Ontario’s northwestern canoe country. A nine-day fishing trip turns into a profound life-altering event and marks the beginning of a lifelong love affair with the untamed wilderness of Canoe Country in northwestern Ontario.

As well as fun and relaxation, cottage living throughout the seasons is a reminder that all of us, even the most urbanized individual, are part of the natural world. Listen carefully and you will hear cottage country whispering lessons that can make our lives less frenetic, less complicated. The mournful call of the loon, the wind sighing in the trees, the hammering of the pileated woodpecker remind us that we are a part of a more natural world too often lost in our urban societies.

One hundred and twenty-five years of steamboating in Muskoka come alive with the anniversary celebration of the RMS Segwun. The Royal Mail Ship Segwun is the oldest operating steamship in North America, a Muskoka icon, and one of Ontario’s best-known tourist attractions. Built as a paddlewheeler in 1887, the RMS Segwun saw her initial career suspended in the 1950s when the ship ceased operations. Fortunately, she began a new chapter in 1974 when she was lovingly restored and magnificent sightseeing cruises were offered.

My feet are practising their steps, gauging the slipperiness of wet lichen on rock and sounding each landing. As my stride shifts to a swing I realize I have a sharper sense of my place in the woods now. I am as taut and limber as a bow-string. I sense bears in the woods, weigh their threat and move on, glorying in the mosses beneath my feet ... We in the woods share fear. By grace of my fear, I am closer to predators and prey. The View From Foley Mountain is a celebration of the joy of living in harmony with the natural world.

Short-listed for the 2010 National Business Book Award Renowned author and journalist Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos uses her talent for investigative reporting to take us deep into the poorest villages in India. Yet, far from being passive victims of their circumstances, the women who live there have joined forces and are making astute use of microcredit to break the cycle of poverty. Microcredit was made famous by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and consists of very small loans made primarily to women for the production of essential commodities or to start small businesses.

Manitoba's Hayes River runs over six hundred kilometers from near Norway House to Hudson Bay. On its rush to the sea, the Hayes races over forty-five rapids and waterfalls as it drops down from the Precambrian Shield to the Hudson Bay Lowlands. This great waterway, the largest naturally flowing river in Manitoba, served as the highway for settlers bound for the Red River colony, ferrying their worldly goods in York boats and canoes, struggling against the mighty currents.

What do experienced field naturalists discover when they explore the heavily populated Lake Ontario shoreline as if they were surveying a wilderness for the first time? In this beautifully illustrated book, Aleta Karstad takes you on a journey of discovery along the route of the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail. Listening for calling frogs in spring, turning stones, sampling shoreline drift, identifying plants and animals, Karstad and her husband, herpetologist Frederick W. Schueler, discover a wealth of natural life, sometimes in unexpected places.