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Frances Stewart arrived in Upper Canada from Ireland in 1822, with her husband, three children, and two servants, and settled in Douro Township on the shore of the Otonabee River in 1823. Spanning three-quarters of a century, her letters represent the immigrant experience of one of the first women in the Peterborough area.

The moment of contact between two peoples, two alien societies, marks the opening of an epoch and the joining of histories. What if it had happened differently?The stories that indigenous peoples and Europeans tell about their first encounters with one another are enormously valuable historical records, but their relevance extends beyond the past. Settler populations and indigenous peoples the world over are engaged in negotiations over legitimacy, power, and rights. These struggles cannot be di...

On 13 September 1759, British and French forces fought one of the most decisive battles in history, on the Plains of Abraham outside the Canadian capital, Quebec. The British force decisively routed the French, seizing the city and, ultimately, all of Canada. But the struggle for Quebec was far more than one climactic battle: the campaign involved an immense military and naval operation, an eighteenth-century D-Day. Matthew Ward has researched extensively in archives in Britain and Canada to loo...

The wagon trail between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles is one of the most important but least-known elements of nineteenth-century western migration, favored because it could be used for travel and freighting year-round. It was, however, arguably the most difficult route that pioneers traveled with any consistency in the entire history of the country, leapfrogging from one sometimes dubious desert watering place to the next and offering few havens for the sick, weary, or unfortunate. This book...

Just beyond Las Vegas's neon and fantasy live thousands of homeless people, most of them men. To the millions of visitors who come to Las Vegas each year to enjoy its gambling and entertainment, the city's homeless people are largely invisible, segregated from tourist areas because it's ""good business."" Now, through candid discussions with homeless men, analysis of news reports, and years of fieldwork, Kurt Borchard reveals the lives and desperation of men without shelter in Las Vegas.Borchard...

A transcription of Lucy Peel's wonderfully readable journal was recently discovered in her descendent's house in Norwich, England. Sent in regular installments to her transatlantic relatives, the journal presents an intimate narrative of Lucy's Canadian sojourn with her husband, Edmund Peel, an officer on leave from the British navy. Her daily entries begin with their departure as a young, newlywed couple from the shores of England in 1833 and end with their decision to return to the comforts of...

The Reluctant Land describes the evolving pattern of settlement and the changing relationships of people and land in Canada from the end of the fifteenth century to the Confederation years of the late 1860s and early 1870s. It shows how a deeply indigenous land was reconstituted in European terms, and, at the same time, how European ways were recalibrated in this non-European space. It also shows how an archipelago of scattered settlement emerged out of an encounter with a parsimonious territory...

Esteemed Canadian author Peter C. Newman recounts the dramatic journey of the United Empire Loyalists-their exodus from America, their resettlement in the wilds of British North America, and their defense of what would prove to be the social and moral foundation of Canada. In 1776, tensions in the British colonies were reaching a fever pitch. The citizenry was divided between those who wished to establish a new republic and those who remained steadfast in their dedication to the British Empire....

The battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 is a much celebrated moment in both Canadian and European military history. Vimy was a costly success. While it did improve military and public morale, the reality is that it was more of a symbolic victory than a strategic one (the Germans retreated a few miles and many lives had been lost). Surprisingly, few Canadians are familiar with the real story of Canadian military success and sacrifice: the Hundred Days that led to the end of the war. Beginning o...

As Sam McKinney retraced the explorations of Captain George Vancouver and his men from Puget Sound to Queen Charlotte Sound he wondered, "Could I have been one of them?" In the 1790s, Vancouver's crew rowed for long hours day after day, and camped on rocky beaches in all weathers to chart the intricate coastline for European colonial exploits. Two hundred years later, McKinney followed their ancient path in his 25-foot sailboat, anchoring where they did, meeting the same winds and waves, and sha...