Canada Books

If you are looking for a book with a wide variety of interconnected tours in the Lake Champlain Region, you cannot do much better than this one! From easy juants to planning 10 days around the Lake, it is a great resource. Really looking forward to doing some bike exploring in the region.

I used this book to take a six-day bike tour from Burlington, VT to Montreal, Quebec, and I had a great trip. The author's directions are so accurate that I was able to ride all the way to Montreal without consulting a map! The author recommended hotels that are conveniently located for cyclists and chose roads and bike paths that were scenic and generally had light traffic. This book is a valuable resource for any bicycle tourist!

Part of the outstanding "Backcountry Guide" series from The Countryman Press, 25 Bicycle Tours In The Lake Champlain Region: Scenic Tours In Vermont, New York, And Quebec offers wonderfully satisfying bike hikes through New York's Adirondacks, Vermont's Green Mountains, and the scenery and charms of Quebec's historic towns and villages. Including a wide range of lodging and dining options, cyclists can explore the southern tip of the lake in Whitehall, New York, to the quaint college town of Middlebury, Vermont. The various tours range from scenic and flat 10 mile loops to adventurous 82-mile rides through the easter Adirondacks. Whether for an afternoon's pleasant exercise or a weekend of high cycling adventure, 25 Bicycle Tours In The Lake Champlain Region is an enthusiastically recommended regional guide.

Yellowfly's Mystery

Will and Arthur are walking down the railroad tracks when they see a body. They think it's a dog at first, but then they see it's a body. When they get closer they see it's Yellowfly, the Indian war hero. He is all beaten up and injured badly. They call the authorities and they take him to the Hospital. It's in the 1950's and in Grayson, Canada. Arthur is Indian and Will is white. Will try's to find out who beat up Yellowfly. It's a very painful mystery, but he thinks he can solve it.

This is a really good book. It was very exciting mystery about how a boy named Will is trying to solve a very hard mystery. He finds gopher tails and he dumps manure on his two suspects. He fights all three of who he thinks beat up Yellowfly. This book should be in all school libraries and in all of the public libraries, because it is good and is entertaining. This book would make you feel good after you finished it.

"Across the Steel River" is an accurate portrayal of life in a small prairie town. Although the story is fiction, the descriptions of the landscape, the town and the people, are very convincing. It was easy to picture it all in my mind. The story, set in the 1950's, is about two boys, unaffected by the rampant racism surrounding them, who embark on an adventure together as best friends. The book has a nice flow to it, is easy to read and has some wonderfully poignant moments. I found that once I started reading, I didn't want to put it down and yes, I actually got tears in my eyes at one particularly touching passage. It is a thoughtful, insightful tale that had me questioning my own morals and prejudices. Don't be fooled by my sentimental review though - it is still high adventure that leads you down unexpected paths to a thrilling conclusion. This is not just a book for young adults - it can be enjoyed by any age.

this book showed how life can be for both a native and a white boy in the praries. I really enjoyed how the author came into lives of the main characheters. This book showed how destructive people can be just because of the coulor of your skin. I just say no wonder people have grudges against white pepole. I am sorry for the bad writing but I do not want to drone away about a book. This book showed me emmence joy and sadness but it was overall a great read.

Although this book is described as being for the 4-8 year-old group, it seemed to me more like a 7-12 year-old book that will only appeal to those who don't have nightmares about poisonous snakes.

I was attracted to the book by realizing that the various animal-related stories that Alexander McCall Smith includes in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books were among my favorite parts of those books. It occurred to me that the Akimbo books might have such stories in them.

Well, not quite . . . but the series is full of Akimbo learning about wild animals, the threats to animals from people, and deals with the problems through Akimbo's brave deeds. Children like to see themselves playing important roles in the world, and Akimbo and the Snakes is very good for appealing to that desire.

Akimbo's uncle runs a snake park. One of the daily tasks is milking venom from poisonous snakes. Akimbo has a chance to help during a long visit to the park. The visit becomes more exciting when Akimbo joins Uncle Peter to capture a green mamba, a very dangerous snake. Without Akimbo, the snake would have gotten away. The book features a terrifying scene involving Akimbo and the green mamba that's not for the easily frightened. The book does a good job of describing about all kinds of snakes and making them seem less dangerous than the most fearful might imagine.

The book is nicely illustrated which adds to the realism of the story.

In this highly interesting and fact filled story, Smith tells the story of Akimbo's visit to his Uncle Peter's Snake sanctuary. In the "Snake Park" are many varieties of snake and many are poisonous.

Akimbo goes to visit for 4 weeks. During that time, he is taught about feeding the snakes and about milking the venom from the snakes. The venom is `milked' in order to make anti-venom so that people bitten by the snakes can be saved from death. The story becomes more exciting when Akimbo and his Uncle go after a green mamba, one of the most poisonous and predatory snakes in the world. The green mamba lives in trees and will often drop down upon its prey and bite it. The bite would kill a human being in about 4 minutes.

They go after a report of a green mamba citing way in the bush. They are not sure whether the snake really is a green mamba, but in fact they find that it is. It is Akimbo who is able to spot the snake in a tree. His Uncle is able to get the snake and they trap it with a device for the purpose. Then it is put in a canvas bag. During the trip back to the village, the snake escapes from the bag and comes into the passenger cabin of the truck. Akimbo is alone in the truck when that happens. He uses great ingenuity and stays totally still. His Uncle then comes from the other side and traps the snake again. The snake ends up in the Park.

The book is one of the most intense books in the Akimbo series. It is a highly interesting and educational book for children. The illustrations are well done and give the reader a very good feeling for the experience. The book is recommended for all young readers.

Akimbo feels lucky when his father allows him to visit his uncle's snake park where he lives in Africa - and when his uncle's called upon to investigate the sighting of a green mamba - the deadliest of all - he's ready for adventure. What he isn't ready for is coming upon the snake himself. Black and white drawings enhance an easy-read action tale kids will relish.

Any literature or history aficionado would enjoy this book. I have recently gotten interested in this area of the world and have just finished a historical fiction novel called The Tenderness of Wolves and a movie entitled Snow Walker that opened my eyes to this frozen area of the world and its inhabitants. The author has completed a tremendous amount of research into Mr. Hearn's life and adventures, but the anecdotes he tells make it come alive. I forgot to cook supper tonight because I was so engrossed!

This book by Ken McGoogan recalls Peter C. Newman's fascinating books about the Hudson's Bay Company: Caesars of the Wilderness and The Company Adventurers. I think that schoolchildren should be reading these books rather than dry old history tomes. And, if all you have read are these history textbooks, then I suggest you give yourself a chance to revisit these amazing explorers. The story of Samuel Hearne is magnificently told by Ken McGoogan and it will have you thirsting for more stories of the amazing men and women (yes, women!) who lived, fought, loved in a cruel land. It was a book I could not put down.

Exploration stories often focus on the tropics. David Livingstone, Albert Russel Wallace, Richard Burton and others are readily recalled. The polar quests of Amundsen, Cook, Peary and Byrd probably follow in popularity. The upper latitudes seem almost overlooked. With little land mass approaching Antarctica and its pole, Canada and Russia are left for investigation by the enquiring mind. Having offered the life of one such wanderer in John Rae, McGoogan now reaches further back in time and place to reveal the life of Samuel Hearne. It's a fine study of a dedicated man.

McGoogan's lively narrative traces Hearne's Royal Navy career, then follows him to the Hudson's Bay Company [HBC] station of Prince of Wales Fort. With the Canadian Arctic still a terra incognita, various quests were under consideration - the Northwest Passage and/or an inland sea leading to Asia being prime contenders. A more specific ambition arose with indications of a vast copper resource near the Arctic Sea. Hearne pursued this rumour by trekking across the Canadian tundra to find it. Various interludes occurred along the way.

Hearne's expeditions to the Arctic seem pre-ordained to failure. Having but a hazy notion of what confronted him wasn't a hindrance. Bureaucracy proved the more serious impediment. The British attitude toward indigenous peoples compounded faulty notions of requirements for such a trip. With no idea of how Native Peoples? societies were structured, British HBC agents blundered into one crisis after another. In today's world, for a man to suggest that women must accompany the expedition to perform specialised tasks would bring down the wrath of the Human Rights Commission. In the 18th Century rise of the HBC in Canada women performed essential roles. No Native Peoples? women meant no Native Peoples? men. No men, no expedition. McGoogan explains all these circumstances without apology or condemnation. It's a professional historian's approach, worthy of full praise.

The other aspect of British imperialism's shortsighted view is the relationships among Canada's Native Peoples. Hearne and others would counsel peace to those who had been warring when the British still painted themselves blue. These animosities were not easily quelled and might break out without warning nor discernible reason. Hearne was confronted with this near the mouth of the Coppermine River. McGoogan, relying on Hearne's own account, describes the massacre of an Inuit settlement leading to the naming of "Bloody Falls". The event remained fixed in Hearne's memory for the remainder of his life.

Hearne, seeking an ephemeral copper lode, traversed immense stretches of the Canadian North. With various teams, but particularly relying on a Dene negotiator, Matonabbee, Hearne viewed the Arctic Ocean, the first European to reach it overland. The copper wasn't there, nor, in Hearne's opinion, was there any possibility of a Northwest Passage. He saw the Great Slave Lake, but when he later reported on his journey, skeptics were confounded by how far west it lay. Canada's vastness overwhelmed chair-bounded geographers. Hearne wasn't simply seeking mineral wealth. He recorded copious observations on plant and animal life in the region, as well as collecting information on the native peoples. More than just an adventurer, Hearne is credited by McGoogan as being one of earliest naturalists.

Hearne's return to England was less than satisfactory. An account of his travels netted him not a penny - he died before publication. One event, a likely meeting with Coleridge at a boy's school, may have led Hearne to become the source of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. While the notion is McGoogan's speculative idea, it's plausible enough to be valid. It certainly provided a good, if unexpected, title for the life of an Arctic explorer. McGoogan presents that life vividly, with only minor, forgiveable, embellishments. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Richard Van Camp
Angel Wing Splash Pattern

Richard Van Camp is a storyteller. It seems to be a part of his blood.

Sometimes English, the English words we use, take away from how we can feel as Aboriginal people. Our stories often are weighted down with English translations of Aboriginal expression. I know it's one of the ways we can relate experience to each other but sometimes, most times, the English words master the heart involved. Luckily, though, every so often, there is someone who can break through these clouds and share all of who they are through the words they choose. I think Richard Van Camp is one of these people. A storyteller of the most ancient kind, I think he can hear the words flow throughout his blood. Angel Wing Splash Pattern is stories about moving past those clouds. The stories are about Indian experience; Indian stories written with a Dogrib voice, with a proud voice. These are different stories, different than the usual stories about Indians, and to me, even different than the usual stories written by Indians about Indians, because of the amount of truth inside of them. While I was reading them I couldn't help but read them aloud and I got so caught up in the power of these words that I think they wanted to make me Dogrib so I could hear them better.
Frenchy recommends this book to everyone looking for the right words, inspiration and beauty, and to everyone looking for something entertaining. Amazing stories told by an amazing storyteller, but that would be the easiest description. ...

"A superb collection"

Angel Wing Splash Pattern has received a glowing review by Matthew Firth in latest issue of The Danforth Review.

"Angel Wing Splash Pattern is a superb collection and such a welcome relief from the usual, middle of the road, CanLit crapola. There is no middle class, Toronto-centric mewling going on here. And thank Christ for that! Van Camp's fiction is stripped down, yes, but also thoughtful, wise and compassionate."

For the full review go to: [website]

"Van Camp has a real respect for the sacred and the profane in these close-to-the-bone stories. People take on their difficult lives with spunk and a sense of humour, and, perhaps more importantly, he engenders an irrepressible sense of hope where the prognosis might otherwise be bleak."
--Malahat Review Fall 2002 issue by Lucy
Bashford.

I don't know what i was expecting from this book, when i sat down to read it with my daughter. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this beautifully illustrated book gave interesting factual information about animal Dads in nature.
Included in this nature walk: The stickleback, the emporor penguin, the prairie vole, gorilla, poison arrow frog, cichlid, beaver, western meadowlarks, dwarf mongoose, killdeer, salmon, lions, tortoise, wolves, Nile crocodile, Megapodes, Tamarins, isopods, seahorse, and pipefish.
Each page tells an interesting way that Animal Dads nurture their young. An exceptional book that honours the importance of Dads, as well as teaching us some interesting facts about animals.

Though mommy-love books abound, it's rare and welcome to find a book which shows nurturing, caregiving images of fathers. This is a beautiful book, full of gorgeous illustrations and father's love. It's perfect for a new family or a classroom. -- (from a new mom and elementary science teacher)

This is one of the finest non-fiction children's books of 1997. Sneed Collard and Steve Jenkins have combined to create an inspiring and magical book - one that will stimulate discussions in living rooms and classrooms alike. The text is lively and the illustrations are awesome. Teachers will find this to be a wonderful addition to any science or social studies unit - it is a book that will be read and admired for many years. Parents will discover a plethora of opportunities to share the wonders of nature with their children via this book. In short, this book represents the best in children's literature today!

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book and it was a pleasant surprise, very different from the other readers guides that I've seen. It provided quite a lot more background about Proulx than I've read before, but the main part of it was a fairly indepth reading of The Shipping News. This part is full of very interesting ideas about storytelling, escapism, and the clever things that Proulx does with the narrative. The author managed to explain her ideas very clearly, and I really felt that I had learned something by the end of it. It's a shame that I guess the book came out too close to the film, as I'd like to read what the author thought about that, too. I loved it!

A book worth reading, 'The Shipping News' focuses on a man called Quoyle, his life and his family. Set in Newfoundland amongst local people and extreme weather conditions, Quoyle carves out a new life for himself, with his Aunt and his daughters. Working for the local newspaper, Quoyle learns to cope with the death of his wife, a new lifestyle, and ends his journey in a classic story of self-discovery.

It was an enjoyable journey through a strange place and quite a cast of eccentric, warm, briney characters. A wonderful read!

What differentiates Bonnie Traplin's memoir of her years spent in the pristine backcountry of the Yukon is her uncompromising honesty. In fact, most of the book is relayed in actual letters to her mother, hyphenated by Bonnie's commentary, further descriptive passages, and significant future events relative to the text. She has a simple, straight forward way of relaying her personal history without embellishing in a grandiose fashion so common to personal memoirs. In fact, Bonnie doesn't really have a need to embellish as her story is indeed larger than life in many ways.

When Bonnie and her husband first moved to the north, they were greenhorns, which helps the reader to relate to their trials and tribulations as if they were the reader's own. In terms of Bonnie's honesty, she is brutally humble about her own abilities, often highlighting her clumsiness, which is a hoot, and her fears. She also offers exquisite descriptions of the virgin timber mountains and the beauty of the wildlife, so much so that she even makes this Florida girl yearn to be in below zero degree weather!

All in all, this was a quickly devoured book that I would recommend to anyone, especially anyone with experience or at least a curiosity with living in the backcountry.

If you love adventure and the wilderness, then this book is for you! This is one of the best adventure books that I have ever read. Bonnie Traplin has a way of absorbing you right into the story and making you feel as if you were there. This book also gave me reflections of my own experiences that I had in the wilderness. You will feel every emotion known while reading her story. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a true adventure.

This book is a funny, tragic, heartfelt memoir of a woman's life in the far north. The hardships are hard to believe, but the realistic writing takes the reader to the Yukon Territory, where the author spent so many years as a hunting guide. If you liked The Egg and I, you'll like this book.

This is such a wonderful book of a sad, horrific story. However, I'm so glad this story was told as it is such a great example of how nature is so very much stronger than nurture and that there is indeed a biological difference between boys and girls. Also, it is so bothersome and somewhat scary that the doctor, John Money, lied about the outcome of this boy's situation to further his own personal thoughts, and his reports were published and taught in the medical community and in universities. I wonder how many minds were tainted by a false report.

This is a wonderfully written book and a fascinating look into the debate of nature versus nurture in the area of gender assignment. Intelligent and insightful, the author draws a compassionate portrait of a family who, faced with a decision in the wake of a tragedy, relies upon the advice of a well-respected doctor, which reliance turned out to be misplaced. The book details the aftermath of the family's fateful decision and the impact it was to have on them all.

In August 1965, Canadians Janet and Ron Reimer gave birth to identical twin boys, whom they named Brian and Bruce. When they were about eight months old, they arranged to have them circumcised due to a medical condition that caused them pain during urination. Circumcision was to remedy the problem. Little did they know that the circumcision for Bruce would be botched, resulting in the loss of his penis.

A plastic surgeon with whom the Reimers had consulted in connection with the catastrophe that had struck Bruce had spoken to a sex researcher who had recommended that they raise Bruce as a girl. Doctors at the Mayo Clinic had suggested that they ought to get a second opinion with regards to that suggestion. The parents then consulted with a doctor affiliated with John Hopkins Hospital, Dr. John Money, a renowned doctor in the area of gender transformation, who had been the driving force behind the then controversial surgical gender re-assignment procedure for which the hospital was becoming known.

In 1967, the distraught parents met with Dr. Money and shortly after, Bruce became Brenda and clinical castration followed. Thus, their child, who genetically and anatomically had been born a boy, was for all extent and purposes now deemed to be a girl. Brian was now on the other side of the gender divide of his identical twin brother, the twin formerly known as Bruce.

Moreover, Dr. Money now had a dream scientific experiment, because he had a set of twins for which the unafflicted twin could act as a control by which to measure the afflicted one. In 1972, Dr. Money disclosed his "twins case" to the medical world, giving a slanted version of the experiment that made it appear to be an unqualified success. Unfortunately, his analysis of the situation did not disclose the difficulties that Brenda was having and her seeming inability to adjust to being a girl.

Apparently, though Brenda had no idea as she was growing up that she had originally been born a boy, she never felt that she was a girl. Years of follow-up visits with Dr. Money for both twins proved to be unsettling for them, as Dr. Money employed somewhat bizarre methods and procedures. Moreover, as Brenda grew older, she would resist additional surgeries and initially resisted the hormone therapy that was introduced on the eve of puberty. Even when confronted with a totally rebellious Brenda, Dr. Money, however, remained in denial about the failure of his experiment. He would continue to tout his treatment of Brenda as an unqualified success.

It was not until March of 1980 that Brenda was finally informed by her father about what had happened to her years ago and what had been decided in light of the circumstances. It was a revelation that was to dramatically change Brenda's life. What followed was a repudiation of Dr. Money's assertions with respect to his treatment. The book details the changes that Brenda was to make in her life, changes that would find her living the life she was originally meant to lead. Brenda would now become David and live the life of a male. Unfortunately, happiness would continue to elude him.

This is a simply wonderful, intimate look at a family that survived a hideous tragedy. It also sympathetically and sensitively details the personal journey of one family through the labyrinthine differences in opinion surrounding the age old debate over nature versus nature. I would certainly assert that nature, and not nurture, controls. This is a very well thought out book on the issue, grounded in the tragic experience of one family. Bravo!

This is an incredibly poignant and painful book to read--in my case being read to by my husband, sometimes with his voice choking. We both missed the story when it was making the news and neither of us had heard of the book when it first came out. So for us, it read almost as a mystery adventure. I did go online just before we finished the book and learned that David (the subject of the book) tragically took his own life in 2004.

I offer the title of this review "As GOD made him" because this is a more acceptable term for my fellow Christians than "nature" (or Mother Nature) as is used in the actual title of the book. But I'm certainly not challenging the author on this point. Nor do I challenge the author on any of his points---an unusual stance for me to take.

I would highly recommend this book for everyone. It's truly a DAVID and GOLIATH tale, in this case a "freek" kid throwing his smooth little stones at the giant medical establishment. For fellow Christians who so often see matters of sex and gender in black and white absolutes, the book also has a profound message. We are WAY too judgmental on such issues.

This is a heart-wrenching book. All along the way, year after year, I kept pleading for someone--for anybody--to hear the cry of "Brenda" the boy who had been unsuccessfully refashioned as a girl. But no one really listens. To parents and counselors, this is a striking message to listen to the voice that is not always clearly articulated.

The book has been a New York TIMES bestseller, and I hope it keeps on selling. David, bless his soul, performed an incredible service to medicine and psychiatry and the general public.

I found myself searching for more information after reading this excellent work. Maracle obviously knows of what he speaks and he educates us New Yorkers about the historical timeline and the present and future concerns of the confederacy in a way that no high school social studies teacher ever did for us.

i spent two weeks on the six nations rez that brian maracle centers his book on. maracle recounts his experiences upon returning to the rez, which include fixing his home (check out the chapter with the broken water pump!), and of course encountering rez bureaucracy.

maracle explores the problems that face his community but does not accept a defeatist attitude, rather he adopts a humorous perspective.

this was a great read. thanks to my dear friend nonwasichu for lending me the book, for your hospitality, and for the icecream.

As a person from this reserve who was not raised there but in a city I can relate to the experiences of the author. The descriptions of the mishaps and triumphs of living "back home'" had me feeling like I had moved back too. Very entertaining and insightful as well as educational. A lot of things are explained and a lot of myths are laid to rest. I wish more people had access to this kind of information, written in a way that's a joy to read instead of the authoritative Í Know All info usually out there about natives and reserves written by experts.