William C. Van Horne was one of North America's most accomplished men. Born in Illinois in 1843, Van Horne started working in the railway business at a young age. In 1881 he was lured north to Canada to become general manager of the fledgling Canadian Pacific Ralway. The railroading general pushed through construction of the CPR's transcontinental line and then went on to become the company's president. During his time with the CPR, Van Horne developed a telegraph service, launched the Empress line of Pacific steamships in 1891, and founded CP Hotels. He capped his career by opening up Cuba's interior with a railway. A man of prodigious energy and many talents, he also became Canada's foremost art collector and one of the country's leading financiers. For all of his amazing accomplishments, Van Horne was knighted in 1894. When he died church bells throughout the length and breadth of Cuba tolled to mark his passing, and when his funeral train made its way across Canada, all traffic on the CPR system was suspended for five minutes.

Wilfrid Laurier’s life journey took him from a small Quebec village to the Parliament of Canada. He possessed a rare combination of the common touch and political savvy, which he effectively used to remain prime minister of Canada for fifteen years (1896-1911).

A lifetime of wilderness adventures and the resulting insights relating to nature’s intricacies as experienced by a master in the art of primitive wilderness survival. "Fire! Wake up! The shelter is on fire!"His students affectionately call him "Doc Survival." He’s Quebec’s Indiana Jones in a forest setting. Searching for the treasures of the wilderness has been his life-long quest; with passion as his only guide, he has dared to penetrate the forest on its own terms, facing increasingly difficult challenges in the hope of becoming nature’s confidant, of learning her secrets.Professor emeritus André-François Bourbeau holds a Guinness World Record for voluntary wilderness survival in the boreal forest. Herein lies his path and his stories, unadulterated: gritty and often comical mistakes punctuated by inspiring successes. What remains of this lifetime of experimentation is one man’s everlasting love of the wilderness and its intricacies, a rousing reflection on our own human priorities, and need for deep connection with the environment and other fellow beings.

Wilderness and Waterpower: How Banff National Park Became a Hydroelectric Storage Reservoir explores how the need for electricity at the turn of the century affected and shaped Banff National Park. Today's conservationists and energy researchers will find much to think about in this tale of Alberta's early need for electricity, entrepreneurial greed, debates over aboriginal ownership of the river, moving park boundaries to accommodate hydro-electric initiatives, the importance of water for tourism, rural electrification, and the ultimate diversion to coal-produced electricity. It is also a lively national story, involving the irrepressible and impetuous Max Aitkin (later Lord Beaverbook), R.B. Bennett (local legal advisor and later prime minister), and a series of local politicians and bureaucrats whose contributions confuse and conflate issues along the way.

Wild Mother Dancing challenges the historical absence of the mother, who, as subject and character, has been repeatedly suppressed and edited out of the literary canon. In her search for sources for telling the new (or old, forbidden story) against a tradition of narrative absence, Brandt turns to Canadian fiction representing a varety of cultural traditions — Margaret Laurence, Daphne Marlatt, Jovette Marchessault, Joy Kogawa, Sky Lee — and a collection of oral interviews about childbirth told by Mennonite women. The results broaden, enrich, and finally recover the motherstory in ways that have revolutionary implications for our institutions and imaginations.

Through the mud and the blood with the North Irish Horse during World War II to the genteel parlours of international diplomacy, Patrick Reid served his nation. As a Military Police commander in the steamy jungles of postwar Malaya or the behind-the-scenes diplomatic fixer at the Canada-Russia hockey series, he wrestled with opposing forces. Whether assisting in the birth of Canada’s new flag or in the rebirth of Canada’s international stature at Expo ’86, he helped history unfurl. This is a warm and perceptive memoir by a passionate Canadian.

A first-hand account of a woman's struggle with sexual assault and abuse. Alternating between the past and present, the reader is taken into the author's past: her relationship with her fundamentalist Christian parents and her four sisters, and her relationships and one-night stands with the men she's been with over the years. By the end, we are actively involved in her recovery as she comes to terms with her violent sexual past in therapy, and ultimately finds peace and solace.

Shortly after completing his sixth novel, Ray Robertson suffered a depression of suicidal intensity. Central to his recovery was the decision to try and answer two of the biggest questions we can ask. What makes humans happy? And what makes a life worth living? His answers aren't what you might expect from a mental illness memoir'but they're exactly what you'd expect from Ray Robertson. With the vitality of Nick Hornby and a brashness all his own, Robertson runs his hands over life, death, intoxication and art. Unashamedly working-class and unabashedly literary, Why Not? is a rolling, rocking, anti-Sisyphean odyssey.

Faces masked, dressed in black, and forcefully attacking the symbols of capitalism, Black Blocs have been transformed into an anti-globalization media spectacle. But the popular image of the window-smashing thug hides a complex reality. Francis Dupuis-Déri outlines the origin of this phenomenon, its dynamics, and its goals, arguing that the use of violence always takes place in an ethical and strategic context. Translated into English for the first time and completely revised and updated to include the most recent Black Bloc actions at protests in Greece, Germany, Canada, and England, and the Bloc's role in the Occupy movement and the Quebec student strike, Black Blocs lays out a comprehensive view of the Black Bloc tactic and locates it within the anarchist tradition of direct action. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada's Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.