Canada Books

This was an excellent book for all children and adults that like to read.
Thank you.

"The Cree of North America," by Deborah B. Robinson, is a fascinating look at the Native American people known as the Cree. The book combines an easy-to-read text with many full-color photographs. Also included are maps, a glossary, an index, many sidebar articles, and other supplementary features.

Topics covered include the Cree language, their environment, plants and animals in their areas, early Cree history, traditional arts and crafts, and more. Robinson doesn't shy away from controversial subjects; for example, she discusses the impact of the anti-fur movement on the Cree, for whom hunting and trapping have been important economic activities.

This is just the most interesting book for a view of some of our past history, first in France and then in NE America while the Indian wars were still going on. With this, you realize the background from which Paul Revere's father escaped death from the Heugenot "cleansing" in Catholic-controlled France, came to America and apprenticed himself to a silver-smith in Boston. And so that story goes on in other books like Paul Revere and Freemasonry, by Stebleki. But this is a very good book, easy highschool age read, to flavor the history of why liberty was so much desired in the "new world" at that time.

The first half of the book takes place in France, mostly having to do with the royal court and the service of the king. It has the excitement, drama, and intrigue of Dumas' "The Three Musketeers", only the young man we are watching is a Christian. Eventually he must choose between his faith, and his position. He is engaged to his cousin, also a Huguenot. When it becomes illegal to hold to their faith, they make a narrow escape across the ocean, with the help of two Americans. The Puritan sea captain conforms to the modern stereotype of the Puritans, with a disapproving glance at pleasure in God's creation (considering that we are not meant to enjoy life) and a habit of soberly calling down Biblical curses on those who are not of his way of thinking. My main disappointment in the book was this portrayal of New England Puritans. The other American is a backwoodsman, whose ideas tend to be much more liberal than his Puritan friend. Adele's father, being weak in health, asks that the two young people marry before his death, which occurs on the voyage. They also suffer shipwreck.

When they arrive in Canada, the Huguenots are discovered to be escaping persecution in France, and a Jesuit persistently follows them, to return them to "justice" and the Catholic religion. Their American friends help them to escape their prison ship which was to return them to France. They meet new companions, and see them scalped by the hostile Indians. As they flee on, they are eventually captured by the Indians, with the Jesuit still behind them. Once again, they are rescued just in time, and finally reach safe territory, where they are free to believe the truth of God's Word without interference.

The story is encouraging to see what others have been willing to suffer for their faith in Christ, and to see the history of so many who fled persecution. It is also a complex story, with many pieces which are eventually pulled together, and an unexpected complication to the plot around every corner. There is never a boring chapter, and though Christ shines through it, it is never preachy. I so appreciate riveting storylines that also hold up the Lord, and those who place their trust in Him. This book definitely falls into that category.

This book is interesting, adventurous, informative, accurate, captivating - a must read! It involves North American Indian history during the last half of the 1800's, in the Northwest US and Western Canada. The major focus is on the Blackfeet Indians of this area. Learn how critical the land and the buffalo were to so many Indian Nations, and how they lost both of these critical necessities of their life and culture. Read this book and learn that there were peaceful Indians, and there were violent Indians, rather like the rest of the world! Read this book and you will never think or say the North American Indians "were savages", as many people still do! This book should also be a must read for every high school student in North America! I highly recommend it!

This book is interesting, adventurous, informative, accurate, captivating - a must read! It involves North American Indian history during the last half of the 1800's, in the Northwest US and Western Canada. The major focus is on the Blackfeet Indians of this area. Learn how critical the land and the buffalo were to so many Indian Nations, and how they lost both of these critical necessities of their life and culture. Read this book and learn that there were peaceful Indians, and there were violent Indians, rather like the rest of the world! Read this book and you will never think or say the North American Indians "were savages", as many people still do! This book should also be a must read for every high school student in North America! I highly recommend it!

Bill Wolversten in this, the last in a three-volume guide to Cruising the British Columbia waters, does again a great job helping both the "Yachties" and the "Sporties" find the best places to spend an enjoyable time in BC. Bill offers a foundation of answers to: Where is it? How do I get there? and What is there? For enjoyment, he seasons this solid information with historical background and local knowledge. And finally, in case you didn't get the message from the text that Canada's BC is one of the world's best cruising ground, he drives the point home with stunningly beautiful pictures of the area. For anybody venturing into British Columbia in a pleasure boat, this book is a must-add to your collection of cruising guides.

Bill Wolversten in this, the first in a three-volume guide to Cruising the British Columbia waters, does a great job helping both the "Yachties" and the "Sporties" find the best places to spend an enjoyable time in BC. Bill offers a foundation of answers to: Where is it? How do I get there? and What is there? For enjoyment, he seasons this solid information with historical background and local knowledge. And finally, in case you didn't get the message from the text that Canada's BC is one of the world's best cruising ground, he drives the point home with stunningly beautiful pictures of the area. For anybody venturing into British Columbia in a pleasure boat, this and the other two books in the series are a must-add to your collection of cruising guides.

M.Wylie Blanchet or Capi, the name her children call her, took her five children up to Desolation Sound every summer for many years in their 24' boat. This story of their adventures and travels is wonderful to read. Desolation Sound hasn't changed since the 1930's except for the number of boats, and for anyone who has sailed there or dreams of it, this books fulfills all expectations.

My boyfried and I read this book and because of it took 3 weeks to cruise the Desolation Sound area. We would read the stories from the book filled with background history as well as Ms. Blanchet's excursions in the area and then we would experience it for our selves. Recalling how Capt. Vancouver discovered the area and then how this single woman with 5 children in the mid-1920's experienced this area. It was fabulous and the area is still a lot like it was 50 or even hundreds of years ago. Breath taking scenery and a sense of peace and freedom is the only way I can describe my experience of the Inside Passage. I will never be the same and anytime I want to go back I can through reading the stories in this book.

This is an important book, which easily captured my attention and interest. In the spirit of a true cyborg, Steve Mann explores both the human and technological issues involved with living in an increasingly digital society. Through the cybernetic experience of the main author (a most interesting, curious and extremely diverse character), the reader is introduced to a plethora of advanced personal computing technologies that extend far beyond what most of us are currently exposed to on a daily basis. A very exciting taste of the very near future!

I was surprised at how many different areas of life this book touched upon: to name but a few examples: wearable computers will change the ways we shop, dress, commute, read, communicate, and interact as a community. I like how Steve Mann's technologies and philosophies empower individuals to mediate, filter and augment their realities in a proactive and inspiring way.

I found this to be a very well written book, created by a multi-faceted human being I'd like to succinctly describe as: an explorer who is pushing into new realms of human experience. It's pretty amazing what individuals within a community of cyborgs can do with wearable computers. Very thought provoking and highly recommended.

-Tom

Steven Mann describes himself as a Luddite. Come again? Luddites went around smashing the machines of the industrial revolution. How could Mann, an arch-geek, a professor of electrical engineering who lives, invents, builds, and
wears the very latest technology, call himself a Luddite? Mann's "cyborg philosophy" lies just here: in the thought that in an increasingly Orwellian world, the individual's only hope is to fight technology with technology.

For a couple of decades, Steve Mann has lived as a cyborg: his view of the world mediated and enhanced by a wearable computer. Actually our clothes, contact lenses, heart pacers, and for that matter our books and our aeroplanes have already made
cyborg of us all; but somehow most of us react with shock at Mann's experiment on himself. Rather than "artificial intelligence" conceived in the hope of making machines smarter than people, Mann wants computers to enhance human intelligence.
Thanks to "WearComp," an increasingly inconspicuous and elegant "wearable computer" of his own design, Mann is perpetually in contact with the internet, communicating when he wants to by tapping messages on a pocket device and
better by projecting the view from his eye-level camera onto the web. His senses of sight and hearing (though not yet, one gathers, smell, taste or touch) are thus mediated and enhanced: want to see a face more clearly from a distance?
just zoom in! Hate Coke ads? Get the computer to erase them. Want an instant replay in slow motion? He can get that too, with enough control to read the markings on the spinning wheels of a passing car... And all the while he has the
power of the internet literally at his fingertips, so that he not only can consult a dictionary, look up arcane facts to win an argument, but also bring the world to bear witness to what he sees -- and most important, turn the tables against the
surveillance that state and corporations think it their right to monopolize. This fascinating book is about the consequence of this brave experiment, which Mann has been conducting with mainly himself as subject for nearly two decades.

One of Mann's most striking philosophical ideas is to distinguish between privacy and solitude. The first contrasts with other people's ability to become aware of you, while the second refers to your ability to prevent intrusions into your
own awareness. Some people care more for privacy than others, but a case might be made for the view that a lack of privacy is essentially harmless unless it comes with a violation of solitude. It wasn't lack of privacy but lack of solitude
that killed Lady Di: for if the paparazzi had never intruded on her life -- if, for example, she had been using Mann's wearable computer to suppress any information about who was photographing her and what appeared in the press) she
wouldn't have had to flee in haste and crash to her death.

Mann's wearable computer serves to protect his solitude more than his privacy. (He quotes Scott McNeally of Sun Microsystems: "You already have zero privacy. Get used to it.") For several years, in fact, you could see what he saw at
pretty much any time, as the computer output line that provided his window on the world was also constantly fed to the Web. "When I post what I see every day on the Web, I am deliberately violating my own privacy. When I send an
e-mail, I am knowingly violating my own privacy and sometimes the solitude of the recipient. However, in living in symbiosis with WearComp I increase my solitude, insomuch as I can control the kind of information to which I am open."

This affords all kinds of opportunities for what might be called guerilla theatre, or performance art, in the service of subversive awareness of the constraints under which we increasingly live.

Mann describes with hilarious deadpan irony a number of devices he has actually patented. Particularly timely, when all loyal Americans seem to think it obvious that all loyal Americans must be prepared to give up freedom for the sake
of securing freedom, is the plan for a "Mass Decontamination facility" in case of an anthrax attack or civil unrest. Visitors are stripped and required to pass through hexagonal rooms equipped with internet-connected showers combined
with body scanning machines. The routine -- which Mann has demonstrated in various art galleries -- is inspired by the availability of surveillance equipment as well as by reminiscences of Nazi concentration camp procedures. It is
designed to inspire a meditation on the nature of all the insults to our dignity daily perpetrated for our protection and greater security...

In this gloomy picture, Steve Mann's light-hearted and brilliantly inventive "Luddite technology" is a ray of hope. Read the book while you're still free to.

Becky and Brent Heath have covered every question anyone could ask about daffodils. We never realized how easy this wonderful flower was to grow, hybridize and cultivate until we read this book. The Heaths bring years of commercial growing success to the home gardener--and create an inspiring guide for anyone who wishes to have plenty of this spring delight!!

Most of my daffodil work is with older species, and critters I dig off old lots and in the woods. However, the pub is an excellent reference for grower's in any catagory! They will also answer questions!!

I received this fine book as a Christmas gift.In "Dances With Light", photographer Darwin Wiggett shows skill and artistry in portraying the Canadian Rockies in many changing moods of light and reflection. As well as the grand landscape, Wiggett has an eye for the small detail, catching things that many would walk by without noticing. Great work here! The production values of the book are very high and Altitude Publishing is to be commended for presenting Wiggett's work in fine fashion. Highly recommended.

I visited this area of Canada and took my own photos, but wanted something more that would capture seasons, lighting and times I missed. I saw this book in a store in Banff and ordered it once I returned to the states. The photos are absolutely wonderful and the book lives up to its title about the use of light. Unless you have a year to spend in the Canadian Rockies and plenty of time to travel to out-of-the way locations, you will never get the photos that Mr. Wiggett has gotten. I liked this book so much I bought a copy for a Canadian friend who is going overseas where there is only sand and office buildings. You'll be happy with this book purchase.

Being a history buff,I was drawn to the cover of this intriguing book about a WW1 Canadian soldier. The accounts of Harry Hillyer as depicted in his letters home to his wife and child gave me a very real perspective on the life of a foot soldier during one of our country's most critical eras. This book is filled with history as seen and experienced by someone who was there. I laughed at many of the written exchanges between Harry and Jen; I felt their passion and pain; and I cried real tears at the finaly few pages.
"Dear Harry, First Hand Account of a WW1 Infantry Man" should be a part of every high school curriculum, it's that good.
Author Norma Shephard has done a magnificent job putting together this great literary piece and has done her grandfather a great service in the process.

I thoroughly enjoyed this captivating collection of WW1 letters. A remarkable, true Canadian story; Dear Harry reads like one long, bittersweet loveletter. I couldn't put it down.

Extremely well written and filled to the brim with usefull information concerning the War and all that you always wanted to know (and more). Black and white photographs and a bibiography help anyone wanting to learn more.

Vance's examination of post-WWI Canadian experience, and the role of religious and spiritual beliefs in endorsing the trauma of the Great War, is first class. An interesting book to contrast with that other classic, Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, but Vance is a better examination of the Great War from a Canadian perspective. Highly recommended for military historians and enthusiasts looking for a fresh perspective on the impact of the Great War on society.