The Bruce Beckons


Book Description

First published in 1952, The Bruce Beckons was immediately acclaimed as a delightful guide to a uniquely beautiful and fascinating part of Ontario. Separating Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, the Bruce Peninsula's remarkable natural history and richly varied wildlife today continue to draw thousands of visitors every year. W. Sherwood Fox, a distinguished scholar who was for twenty years president of the University of Western Ontario, knew and loved the Bruce’s history and its folklore throughout his life. During his retirement he served several years as honorary president of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists.




The Bruce Beckons


Book Description

Separating Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, the Bruce Peninsula's remarkable natural history and richly varied wildlife today continue to draw thousands of visitors every year.




40 Days & 40 Hikes


Book Description

Travel the Bruce Trail in day hikes with Loops & Lattes author Nicola Ross Best known for her detailed Loops & Lattes hiking guides, Nicola Ross has inspired tens of thousands of people to lace up their boots and explore Ontario’s trails. In 40 Days & 40 Hikes, this adventurer, author, and environmentalist sets herself a new challenge: to hike the Bruce Trail from Niagara to Tobermory in her own creative way. In 40 cleverly crafted day-loops, Ross covers over 900 kilometers mostly following Canada’s longest marked trail, taking you with her on an insightful journey to the Niagara Escarpment’s remarkable sights. As Ross walks, she reveals stories of the trail’s flora and fauna, geology and history. The Bruce Trail becomes the central character as she ponders her role in protecting the fragile corner of the planet that, she contends, is entwined in her DNA. Despite long days on the trail, encounters with bears, ticks, and a deadly derecho, her passion for her beloved Niagara Escarpment mounts as she explores Ontario’s “ribbon of wilderness.” Perfect for hikers, non-hikers, and anyone who loves an adventure, 40 Days & 40 Hikes is both a captivating travelogue and a useful companion for those who Ross will undoubtedly inspire to follow in her footsteps.




Byways and Bylines


Book Description

Besides holding down a full-time editor's job on a big city daily newspaper, Harvey Currell used his spare time for 49 years at the work he loved best-combing the byways and backwoods of Ontario-and infrequently even England and the eastern U.S.-in search of fascinating destinations never discovered by travelers who stick to the superhighways. Every week he distilled his adventures into a Trips column-from 1958 to 1971 for The Toronto Telegram and from 1971 to 2007 for The Toronto Sun. On many of his early expeditions he had two eager passengers, his young daughter and son. They would listen carefully as Harvey interviewed foresters, naturalists, archaeologists, farmers, conservation officers, potters, woodcarvers, trappers, glass blowers, gliders, cabinet makers and dozens of other specialists in many fields. At the conclusion of Harvey's interview, the kids would take over and ask their own questions. Often they would make notes to share their information at school the following week, sometimes before Dad's story had appeared in the paper. Newspaper readers clipped and saved the columns, sometimes for years, before going on the trips. In Byways and Bylines, Harvey recreates 32 memorable trips while sharing his own life story.




Cultures and Ecologies


Book Description

Based on substantial ethnographic fieldwork and featuring rich interviews with First Nations members, Cultures and Ecologies links perspectives on fishing conflict issues to local community revitalization efforts.




Into the Blue


Book Description

Award-winning journalist Andrea Curtis explores the shadows cast over her family by a century-old shipwreck and uncovers the tragedy, disaster and promise of early life on the Great Lakes. Every family has a story, passed down through generations. For Andrea Curtis that story is the wreck of the SS J.H. Jones. In 1906, the late-November swells of Georgian Bay erupt into a blinding storm, sinking the Jones and claiming the lives of all on board. Left in the wake is Captain Jim Crawford’s one-year-old daughter, Eleanor, who faces a daunting future of poverty and isolation. But Eleanor emerges from her childhood determined to leave behind the restrictions of her small town. She plunges into the excitement of Jazz-era California and 1930s Montreal, struggling to become a poet and a writer. Almost a century later, Andrea knows her grandmother Eleanor only as a sophisticated, respected Montreal matriarch. Until, while researching Jim Crawford’s role in the Jones tragedy, she discovers that Eleanor had a hidden past. Using family stories, archival research and fictionalized re-enactments, Andrea Curtis narrates her family’s history, and that of the place they once called home. Into the Blue shimmers with Curtis’s rich and reflective voice, recreating a little-known but formative time when Canadians persevered through unthinkable loss, violence and disaster, and brings to life a grand era of Great Lakes history. This is a worthy peer to such beloved memoirs as David Macfarlane’s The Danger Tree and Roy MacGregor’s A Life in the Bush.




Mysteries of Ontario


Book Description

This book brings together some 500 accounts of strange events and eerie experiences in the province.




A Naturalist's Guide to Ontario


Book Description

To the casual observer Ontario appears as an immense territory, stretching from west of the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence, and from Hudson Bay to the southernmost tip of Lake Erie. The naturalist sees more than this vastness: he is aware of the province's great diversity in flora and fauna, and in geology and topography; he sees the province divided into zones and regions, each with its own special natural traits. Over the years some areas, and their special attractions, have become widely known to naturalists, amateur and professional. Others have not been so familiar. It has been difficult for visitors to and residents of Ontario to plan well-arranged trips which will include a number of them. A guide to Ontario, designed specifically for naturalists, has been needed, and this book will fill that need. The combination of scientific accuracy and up-to-date practical information will make it an invaluable part of the naturalist's field equipment. Along with maps and general descriptions of the flora, fauna, and geology of Ontario, this book contains over forty regional guides. Each guide lists, concisely and accurately, up-to-date information on how best to reach the regions that are of interest to the naturalist. There are also descriptions of the geology, plants, trees, birds, and mammals typical of each locale, along with information on rare or unique species, and information on local naturalists and nature clubs. Indexes of place names and names of species, and a list of reference manuals, complete the contents of this unique and valuable guide. It will be equally useful to those who pay occasional weekend visits to the countryside, and wish to know something about the rocks, plants and wildlife they encounter, and to the more serious student of natural history. The guide has been prepared by members of the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and other allied agencies in the hope that it will help encourage a wider appreciation of natural history in Ontario. Sylvia Hahn's attractive drawings indicate some of the great variety of plant and animal life to be found in the province.




Caving in Ontario; Exploring Buried Karst


Book Description

8.5 X 11 full color packed with sidebars and pictures of remote, seldom seen locations. Caving in Ontario is about cave exploration, how caves are found and the until now somewhat unheralded story of some of the most extreme cave explorations ever undertaken. This is a book that anyone who is interested in rock, geology, geography (karst) and the beauty of the natural world will treasure and use both as a reference and an easy reading entertainment. Caving in Ontario documents the unusual sub-culture of a group of people who are focused on a sometimes extreme activity that blurs the line between science, sport and exploration. "exploration in a landscape that is untouched by human passage".




The Gender of Breadwinners


Book Description

Winner of the Winner of the Fran¦ois-Xavier Garneau Medal, the John A. Macdonald Prize (1990), and the Harold Adam Innis Prize award by the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada




Recent Books