Canada Books

excellent case examples - useful for training programs on diversity because you can give people real case examples with a very broad look at diversity and culture. works with different professions.

I teach a class on cultural competence and this book provided me with great case studies and lots of additional resources. Nicely written - very engaging style.

What a great collection of cases on how to work with people from various backgrounds! The book is full of useful approaches and references for helping people from different backgrounds and working together with other professionals in medicine, mental health, education, etc.

The towering 'INUKSUK' (ee-nook-sook) pictured on the cover of Mary Wallace's book introduces readers to a world of earth-bound 'signposts' in the arctic - - and MUCH MORE! In their varied forms the inuksuk may be intended as markers for caches of food, to advise hunters of directions, or to symbolize persons being memorialized. The last is an idea that could be used by students who want to follow the author's instructions for building a personal inuksuk. Another structure is shown serving as a road map to a traveler's next destination. It is not only a potential life-saver but makes a beautiful statement in the barren landscape.

Living in the Arctic means acquiring techniques for survival. Outsiders must acclimate themselves in a short time and this can be unsettling! For many decades the U.S. War Dept. funded studies in climatology, resulting in proper clothing & more nutritious feeding of troops. One more way in which we have benefited from the insights of our neighbors to the north.

"The Inuksuk Book" has many striking silk paintings with a gorgeous rainbow of colors that reflect the beauty of the 'Northern Lights' (Aurora Boralis). These inspire an admiration for the mystery of the far north. Contemporary photographs and those from earlier years also enhance the text. Teachers often expand a study unit to include Eskimo/Inuit art. How fortunate the young people who become acquainted with the figures beautifully sculpted from walrus tusks and soapstone. Amazing artistry is evident in works created during the long winters north of Hudson's Bay.

REVIEWER mcHAIKU marvels at the skills & imagination of the Inuit people and cheers author Mary Wallace for sharing.

This gorgeously illustrated book is one of the most appealing books I have read about the Far North. It highlights the ingenuity of a people who live in a demanding environment.

One of the things about the book I really enjoyed was the use of the Inuit alphabet to caption the beautiful pictures. There is a dictionary of sounds and words in the back, which can be used for kids to write their own names in Inuit.

There is also a guide to making your own Inuksuk in the back.

While hiking in the Canadian Rockies, we saw inuksuk along the trails. Their beauty and the fact that people had expressed themselves by creating art out of rock, rather than defacing the area, added greatly to our enjoyment of the outings.

When I found the book "Inuksuk," I immediately purchased it. After reading it, I purchased four more copies. "Inuksuk" can be read and looked at from many angles. It will be a perfect gift for friends with "soul" and for children who I hope will grow up with an appreciation of nature and art.

Very pleased with my purchase and I hope to hear more of T.W. Kriner in the near future.

This is an extrodinate book. Once you pick it up, you can't stop reading it. When I started to read the book, I right away became more interested in the Niagara Falls. This book kept my imagination going the entire time. I recommend this book to anybody who is facinated by mystery, heroism, and tragedies of one of the most breath taking places on earth.

If you are tired of reading the same stories over and over again - about Niagara Falls, then this is the book for you. The book is packed with little known trivia in a well-written manner.

This book was recommended by my Dutch mother-in-law who loved the story as a young girl. It is a wondeful tale of animal and human, and teaches that we truely need each other to survivie. I enjoyed this more than any other man/wolf stories Ivé ever read.

I read this book as a child and have never forgotten it. Wrapped up snugly in my warm bed in England, having imaginary adventures in far off Canada. I also remember a further book called Son of Kazan. I have searched many times over the years to find either of these books, I am now 56 years old , and I am grateful to Amazon for making them accessable to me, I was beginning to think I would would never find them. I highly recommend Kazan to any child for an exciting and stimulating read.

An exciting and deeply moving story, Kazan is a must-read for anyone who loves and appreciates animals and nature. They story is told mainly through the eyes of Kazan, a dog who is one-quarter wolf, and this point of view truly enhances the sense of adventure. I felt an instant kinship with the author even though the story was originally written in 1914.

Martin has done a remarkable job of telling a very difficult story of the inter-relationships between the first people of Canada, the new world order people of European ancestry and the animals. I am Mi'maq and reading the history took be back to a time and an appreciation of what was a part of life. My hats off to Martin for telling a story that needed to be told!

This book is a great read for many reasons. One that may not get mentioned, but strikes me as important, is the demonstration of how social rules and the environment relate to economic markets. In short: the relationship of the native North American tribes to the fur markets was conditioned by their culture which went through a sudden, tragic, transformation.

Scholarly works are not supposed to entertain but Martin's interesting ideas about the cultural confrontation between the First People and the first Europeans makes for fascinating reading. He challenges several accepted views about Native population decline resulting from disease and warfare which are sure to spark disagreement; yet his logic is difficult to refute and the perspectives he offers provide new directions for research. Martin manages to avoid casting anyone into the roles of oppressor and victim by presenting the sequence of events as the result of rational decisions by both cultural groups. While anthropologists and sociologists will certainly find "Keepers" of interest, anyone who teaches cultural diversity or provides diversity training will also benefit from this work. General readers will enjoy asking themselves if their ancestors could have been involved in the events Martin describes.

This book provides an extensive key to amphibians and reptiles in North America. If you are studying herpetology, this book has many diagrams in it that really help with keying out dinstinguishing characteristics. Plus, the book is set up simply in plain English. Other keys that I have used were not as extensive as this one, and they were usually confusing. This key takes away all the ambiguity.

This breaks down characters for families very easily. The only draw back to this book is that it doesn't contain common names, but that can always be looked up. I recommend this book to any biologist or herpetologist. It also shows what the basic characters are with pictures.

This key is a must for anyone that is seriously interested in reptiles or amphibians. For instructors of Herpetology lab this book will prove to be invaluable, the illustrations and current phylogenetic classifications will aid in teaching.

This book has good information and is very to the point. It is a very fast read with thorough and accurate information. There are no fish stories or anecdotal tales (which I liked). The photographs are spectacular. The photos alone are worth the price of the book.

You'll treasure this book for the truly outstanding and plentiful full-page photos of Bass and lures. No other Bass book like it in that respect. Makes a special gift for any occasion. Any level of bass fisherman,from beginner to expert, will be glad to receive this book as a gift.

Largemouth Bass by Don Oster is a book that tells it as you'll find it when you go after bass. This book provides information about where to find, what to use, how to use, and when to use. There are dozens of excellent photographs illustrating all the aspects of bass fishing. If you have never fished for bass or you are a veteran angler this book will get you started or validate your fishing knowledge and skill. As a practiced bass angler for three years I found this book contained excellent information that is easy to understand and use.

for the archaeology fiends out there, this is a perfect read. i had no idea there was so much prehistory in the arctic!

"The Last Imaginary Place: A Human History Of The Arctic World" by Robert McGhee (Curator of Arctic Archaeology at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, Canada) is the result of thirty years of research with the native peoples of the Arctic by Robert McGhee who extensively traveled in the region. Superbly written so as to be complete accessible for students of anthropology and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the people and history of the arctic, "The Last Imaginary Place" is filled with fascinating accounts of fur trading, ivory hunting, native whaling, doomed exploration efforts, and the disorienting terrain that has beguiled and imperiled Europeans from the time of their first access to this remote region of the earth down to the present day. Winner of the Canadian Historical Association's 2004 Clio Award for Northern Canadian History, "The Last Imaginary Place" is as informed and informative, as it is engaging and entertaining!

This is one of the most comprehensive historical books I have ever read. I don't know how Robert McGhee crammed such a vast history of such an enormous place into 320 pages. Of course, plenty of things were understated (particularly the Peary-Cook controversy) and a few things were drawn out and at times a bit dry (I found the chapter on Siberia to be slightly less interesting than the other chapters). Mostly though, McGhee is ultimately very fair in how he represents the various places he talks about, from Hudson Bay to Alaska to Spitsbergen to Siberia and beyond. No one region is represented as more important than another one, and reading the book, one comes to realize that all regions of the Arctic have very fulfilling histories.

Stylistically the book is impressive as well. McGhee speaks of Greely and Franklin ways that would spark interest in someone who had no interest in Arctic history. There are many summaries of dramatic events throughout the book, keeping his "human history" consistently interesting. The book, while being comprised of stories, is based wholly on research and historical record, which gives it a textbook feel from time to time, but even the pictures and maps (which, to my amazement, are completely left out of many Arctic-related books) give the book (and stories) a lot of life. In comparison to something like Frozen in Time which was much more science-based, yet easy for anyone to understand, The Last Imaginary Place is another account of a much more extensive history by an author who is extremely passionate about his work. This particular characteristic is not uncommon in today's Arctic writers (though, in previous decades/centuries, much of the accounting of expeditions was BORING).

In the end, this book could have turned out horribly dry and boring, it could have been a neutral history book with no particular feeling involved...instead, The Last Imaginary Place is a book you want to read every page of. There are priceless tidbits of information throughout the book, and from the pages about the Ice Age to Thule to the Vikings and on to 19th & 20th century exploration, there's nothing that can be flipped through without reading...to do that would be to miss something not only important, but something that would be enjoyable to read.

Before reading The Last Resort I neither understood nor cared much about retirement planning. Now, however, even though I'm only 24 years old, and thanks to the book, I've acquired a much better appreciation of why investing and lifestyles planning is so important - for both young and old. I'm recommending that any young person who reads this should also read The Last Resort.

I've read many books on investing and I haven't found one yet that is better than The Last Resort. Readers learn not only about some little known investment strategies, but also about the importance of knowing what you want to do with your money once you have it - a different, more holistic approach that really appealed to me.

I've now read The Last Resort twice and thoroughly enjoyed it both times. I'd strongly endorse it for anyone who is concerned about their retirement prospects and who appreciate common sense, practical advice presented in a highly readable manner. The best thing I can say about this book is that it actually motivated me to increase my retirement savings and investing resolve.

Rob Thomson

I've just discovered the books of Sid Marty this year and I'm finding anything written by this gifted author is simply astonishing. What a rare combination-- what we have here is a park ranger with an extraordinary insight into human behavior who also has an ability to record his reflections with uncommon talent. Leaning on the Wind is spellbinding. I could not put it down.

Leaning on the Wind is a biography of the eccentric Marty clan and their homestead on Alberta's prairie below the eastern front of the Canadian Rockies. While a family history, it is equally an ecological treatise and a paean to the beauty and wonder of nature. Marty is a gifted writer who captures the heart and brings it home to revel in his mountains. Alternately comic, tragic, and inspiring, one readily feels a member of his family and the unconventional lives they lead.

Like all eco-centric books, there is a fair share of ideology tossed about, but, unlike others, Marty takes the complete political spectrum to task. His is no Leftist caterwaul that bleeds well beyond the issue of environmentalism, but an objective exposition on the ecological ills that all forms of government bring.

From page one, I swept through this book in just a couple of sittings. It is a model of it's genre full of optimism, success, failure, and melancholy, but ultimately, of love: Sid Marty's love for his people and their place amidst Alberta's rustic natural majesty. I recommend it highly. 5 stars.

From the warmth of your bedroom to the clarity of a foothill on a February morning, Leaning on the Wind takes you to places you didn't think existed. Like going on a trip with a serene uncle and reading his life like a carpet slowly unrolling in front of you. You are there with him and above it looking at his memories. This novel is neither myth and only cousin to fact; it is a folk story of the every day. In the middle east, Persian weavers insert a flaw in the pattern of their rugs, because only God is perfect. Marty, too, puts some extra stitches in his weaving and occasionally waxes tedious in his comment on the every day. But every insight requires a little bit of time and energy. It is a picture of both the beauty and sorrow in Canada.